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Increased intelligence is a myth so far (2014)

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Re: Increased intelligence is a myth so far (2014)

#31

Post by ars »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #17
fthssht wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like you've been reading Bostrom. I was actually annoyed about the amount of time he spent on the whole notion of genetically engineering smarter humans. I think his intent was to rigorously prove that even if technology for some reason halted and all progress in machine learning ended along with moore's law we'd still reach super intelligence. From that standpoint I get it as a philosopher to create a bulletpr…

>The most likely approaches for increasing the intelligence of humans I agree, given the gestation time of a human, AI may well come first. Even if we perfected iterated embryo selection today, 18 years is a lot of time and perhaps AI would be developed before the super geniuses reach peak productivity. >Also I don't think there's an iq 200 set of genes, there's probably trade offs that would prevent this a brain has…

> 18 years

Why 18 years? You can harvest fertile gametes much earlier than that in an ordinary person. And with some unethical drugs you can reduce that age even more.

Just watch out you don't end up selecting for early maturation :)

> Everything I'm reading is saying the genes for IQ, as with most traits, are additive. And it really is as easy as putting as many high-IQ-associated genes into one genome as possible.

High IQ's come with large tradeoffs. Foremost among them is a much higher rate of depression. Second among them is a reduction in socialization.

Re: Increased intelligence is a myth so far (2014)

#32

Post by isoos »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #25

The idea of intelligence has always made me leery. I have a little brother who placed second in a state competition (musical instrument) for kids who almost doubled him in age before his tenth birthday. People like to say he's a genius, but only my family knows the truth: two hours of piano a day, four on weekends, since before he was even in kindergarten. I don't really believe in intelligence.

The Polgár sister's story backs you in that:

"Polgár and her two older sisters, Grandmaster Susan and International Master Sofia, were part of an educational experiment carried out by their father László Polgár, in an attempt to prove that children could make exceptional achievements if trained in a specialist subject from a very early age.[11] "Geniuses are made, not born," was László's thesis. He and his wife Klára educated their three daughters at home, with chess as the specialist subject."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r

Re: Increased intelligence is a myth so far (2014)

#33

Post by craigyk »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #13

I've been interested in brain training and nootropics for a very long time. The conclusion I've come to is intelligence is pretty much fixed, current psychopharmaceuticals are of very, very, very limited usefulness, and most of the differences in intelligence we see between people are caused by genetic factors not education or rearing. This was immensely disappointing for me - I'd literally give everything I own to b…

I disagree. I think many non-genetic factors affect "intelligence", even on a day to day basis. I myself have been able to detect noticeable and substantial variations in my faculties over these time frames. Brain-training exercises might not increase intelligence (I don't know) but there was a period of time when I found them valuable as a evaluation tool- I would do some sudoku puzzles every morning to "test" my myself that day (a very specific and narrow definition of intelligence). Even between days where I didn't feel noticeably different, I would still sometimes see a large difference in average time to solving the puzzles ( ie. as much as ~1min 30sec vs. ~5min! ).

I found the "fast" days where usually better spent focusing on specific, hard problems that had been vexing me, whereas the "slow" days might be better spent multitasking, organizing and communicating with peers to explore new ideas. I never quite pinned down how to influence these variations... though I suspect it was a combination of sleep, stress, caffeine, etc. In the end, I just roll with it. I haven't done the daily testing in a while, but I still try to be hyper-aware of which "mode" I might be in.

Re: Increased intelligence is a myth so far (2014)

#34

Post by [deleted] »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #25

The idea of intelligence has always made me leery. I have a little brother who placed second in a state competition (musical instrument) for kids who almost doubled him in age before his tenth birthday. People like to say he's a genius, but only my family knows the truth: two hours of piano a day, four on weekends, since before he was even in kindergarten. I don't really believe in intelligence.

[deleted]

Re: Increased intelligence is a myth so far (2014)

#36

Post by maxerickson »

scythe wrote: post #26

What is really most concerning about these studies is that the intervention too resembles the metric in order to believe they don't teach to the test. It's like treating depression by teaching people how to lie to psychiatrists. If you're measuring intelligence by performance on little 10-minute puzzles, and you show an improvement by teaching people to solve puzzles, I'm not really impressed. If you show an improvem…

A cartoonish description of cognitive behavioral therapy would be encouraging people to tell different lies to themselves. I think it might be hard to learn to effectively lie to a therapist without accidentally believing some of what you are saying, so I would not be stunned if that ended up having some effectiveness.

Re: Increased intelligence is a myth so far (2014)

#37

Post by rtl49 »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #17
fthssht wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like you've been reading Bostrom. I was actually annoyed about the amount of time he spent on the whole notion of genetically engineering smarter humans. I think his intent was to rigorously prove that even if technology for some reason halted and all progress in machine learning ended along with moore's law we'd still reach super intelligence. From that standpoint I get it as a philosopher to create a bulletpr…

>The most likely approaches for increasing the intelligence of humans I agree, given the gestation time of a human, AI may well come first. Even if we perfected iterated embryo selection today, 18 years is a lot of time and perhaps AI would be developed before the super geniuses reach peak productivity. >Also I don't think there's an iq 200 set of genes, there's probably trade offs that would prevent this a brain has…

Bear in mind that that each of the "high-IQ-associated genes" (alleles) is responsible for the synthesis of a polypeptide, and that the phenotypes produced by their interactions can be extremely difficult to predict.

I believe the studies you have in mind, one of which appeared on HN last week, find that high IQ is not associated with any small set of highly unusual alleles (i.e. "freak mutations"). This isn't to say that genetically engineering a person to have a high IQ is as simple as "putting as many high-IQ-associated genes into one genome as possible." It could be the case that certain specific interactions between the products of these alleles prove deleterious to the individual with respect to intelligence or other traits.

I agree that some of the sentiment on HN about the mutability of intelligence is wishful thinking, but our understanding of genomics and the genetic component of intelligence is still very much incomplete.

Re: Increased intelligence is a myth so far (2014)

#38

Post by maxander »

isoos wrote: post #32
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #25

The idea of intelligence has always made me leery. I have a little brother who placed second in a state competition (musical instrument) for kids who almost doubled him in age before his tenth birthday. People like to say he's a genius, but only my family knows the truth: two hours of piano a day, four on weekends, since before he was even in kindergarten. I don't really believe in intelligence.

The Polgár sister's story backs you in that: "Polgár and her two older sisters, Grandmaster Susan and International Master Sofia, were part of an educational experiment carried out by their father László Polgár, in an attempt to prove that children could make exceptional achievements if trained in a specialist subject from a very early age.[11] "Geniuses are made, not born," was László's thesis. He and his wife Klára…

Which begs the question, when people are willing to commit their children to this kind of super-intensive training regimen at such an early age, why on Earth are they doing it for games or music and not something (if you will excuse a crass way of saying it) useful?

Imagine a physicist or mathematician or engineer tutored in their discipline from age five! And imagine if those were as common as the little kids one sees dutifully going to piano practice every afternoon. The world would look very different.

Re: Increased intelligence is a myth so far (2014)

#39

Post by bordercases »

brobinson wrote: post #20
bordercases wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that embryo selection occurs when you freeze a collection and embryos and pick the ones that survive the thaw. Chinese scientists have done studies on this effect - the resulting children are considered to be extremely healthy, much more than normal. It's one of those border cases that gets me all giddy. Whatcha gonna do, ethicists; stop storing the embryos completely or find a way to do it without freezin…

That is really interesting... got any links to the studies (or articles talking about the studies) you mentioned?

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/05/eugenics-ready/ In here somewhere IIRC.

Re: Increased intelligence is a myth so far (2014)

#40

Post by brobinson »

bordercases wrote: post #39
brobinson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is really interesting... got any links to the studies (or articles talking about the studies) you mentioned?

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/05/eugenics-ready/ In here somewhere IIRC.

Thanks!
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