The right question, of course, is not “Could Democritus have predicted an intelligence explosion”, but rather “How could Democritus have predicted an intelligence explosion?”
(Similarly, a question that I am particularly interested in: “How could Isaac Newton have invented general relativity?”)
What would be the minimum of knowledge you would need to tell him about so that the concept would be only a single inferential step away, and thus so that he would have thought of it spontaneously? (And thus what corresponding concept(s) are we missing?)
My guess at the answer to the Democritus question is similar to yours: the computer, and industrial technology more generally, really helps to implant physicalism into one’s “gut”anticipations.
The right question, of course, is not “Could Democritus have predicted an intelligence explosion”, but rather “How could Democritus have predicted an intelligence explosion?”
(Similarly, a question that I am particularly interested in: “How could Isaac Newton have invented general relativity?”)
What would be the minimum of knowledge you would need to tell him about so that the concept would be only a single inferential step away, and thus so that he would have thought of it spontaneously? (And thus what corresponding concept(s) are we missing?)
My guess at the answer to the Democritus question is similar to yours: the computer, and industrial technology more generally, really helps to implant physicalism into one’s “gut” anticipations.