this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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I don't see how this could be true. It would be analogous to observing a species of bone-thin weaklings that becomes interested in body building over the course of a few hundred years, gaining more muscle mass on average with each passing year, and making the claim that the strength of this species has not changed. Maybe if one of the early weaklings decided to take up their own interest in body building, they may have reached a similar strength to that of their descendants (though even that is debatable since that specific individual wouldn't have access to all the training techniques and diets developed over the course of its species' future); however, it seems like an awkward interpretation to say therefore the strength of the species has not changed.
This is similar to the situation we find ourselves regarding intelligence in the human species. Humans gain intelligence by exercising their brains and engaging in mental activity, and humans today are far more occupied by these activities than our ancestors were. This, in my view, makes it accurate to claim that human intelligence has changed significantly since the advent of religion. Individual capacity for intelligence may not have changed much, but the intelligence of humans as a whole has changed.
Note that my argument does not conclude that human knowledge or understanding has changed over time. These attributes certainly have changed - I'm sure not many would doubt that. It also doesn't conclude that every modern human is more intelligent than every ancient human. Instead, it concludes that human intelligence as a whole has changed as a result of changes in our culture that influence us to spend more time training our intelligence than our ancestors.
And even if it were possible, are we smart enough to meaningfully assess and quantify the differences? What if the blueprint is missing a layer?
If you haven't already read it, I think you might really appreciate "Other Minds" by Peter Godfrey-Smith.
I am struggling to understand what you are saying. If you don't mind, let's start with "mass psychology", I think that might be the key for me.
more humans in one place tend to be dumber than humans as individuals. Think mass panics, but also fascism and other things where people lost their sensible minds in a large group of people. In the same styl more people mean more people to convince of new concepts that previously were rejected.
So the concept that humanity as a whole is more intelligent, while the individuals are not, does not hold well imo.
To use your analogy: intelligence is not the size of your muscles, it is the amount of muscle you can have. Just like intelligence the total amount of muscle your body can support is bounded maximally by your genetics. When you bulk up and become stronger you don't increase your quantity of muscle, you change the quality of it. Body building does not create new muscle cells, it rearranges them into stronger configurations.
Similarly learning and intelligence. Intelligence is not changed by learning, learning is your ability to exercise your intelligence. Learning is the strength to intelligence's muscle cell number.
Genetically very little has changed for humans since the Advent of organized religion, which was only 11000 years ago. There have been no major selective pressures and while humans are not in a steady state (obviously) they are still very slow to change.
Humans from 11k years ago would be most likely indistinguishable from the rest of us today genetically.
You're taking my analogy too far. Learning isn't your ability to exercise intelligence. It's simply the acquisition of knowledge or skills usually through study or training. You're going to have to provide an argument or a source to back up the claim that intelligence is innate and that it can't be changed by adjusting our behavior. You're going to have to show that intelligence is nearly 100% determined by genetics. Those are the types of claims that eugenicists make regarding intelligence by the way, and I'm pretty sure that would make you uncomfortable given your other comment on IQ tests.
In discussions about intelligence we're always talking about the ability to acquire knowledge, not knowledge itself. Sure colloquially those might be conflated but having knowledge is not the same as being intelligent. There are brilliant minds that have very little knowledge, that doesn't make them less intelligent: it makes them less educated.
We know that intelligence is genetic at some level. We share 98.8% of our genome with Chimps. Somewhere in that 1.2% lies a vast gulf of intellectual capacity that isn't there for a chimp, regardless of the heights to which a chimp might climb intellectually. In order for them to have greater intelligence than they currently possess as a species they must change.
I'm not saying that there is some way to breed for an ubermensch, I'm saying that 99.9% of all humans have the same DNA and that in that encoding there is a maximum level of brain performance possible for any person.
Humans with intellectual handicaps have a lower maximum level of learning than some. Neurodivergent humans (doing some massive hand-waving and generalization here as a member of that community) have some higher possible maximums in some forms of intelligence and lower in others, and we're pretty damn sure Autism has strong genetic components.
What's absurd about the concept of IQ tests is the attempt to boil down a complex and multifaceted topic into a single number that they can tell in a 200 question multiple choice quiz, not that Intelligence (in all its various hues) has nothing to do with genetics.
All of which is to say that Learning is the application of intelligence.
As for saying Intelligence is 100% determined by genetics? I expect there's a lot of external factors that come into it: We know a lot of genetic expression changes through quick reacting epigenetic factors. We also know that brain development can be stunted by nutritional issues.
But we also know that ancient humans had incredibly rich and diverse lives and the more you research about them the more you see the echoes of our same sharp minds reaching out across the gulf of the centuries. They weren't less intelligent than us. Anthropologists classify "fully modern humans" as 30000 years ago.
I'm not talking about either of these things. I have already stated that I'm not referring to knowledge. Additionally, I do not agree that intelligence is merely the ability to acquire knowledge. Intelligence is famously difficult to define - but I'm working with a definition akin to a capacity for problem solving and pattern recognition. If we can't see eye to eye there, then we're clearly talking past each other.
Thanks for the interesting conversation. I wish you well.
I'm curious how pattern recognition and problem solving are not just applied knowledge? They're skills you can train up. You can learn to do it better.
Pattern recognition is part of learning and part of intelligence, but it's worthwhile to distinguish between your current ability to recognize patterns and your maximum capacity to recognize patterns right? The maximum capacity would be bounded by your intelligence while the current ability is your knowledge.