Perhaps this is too obvious to need mentioning, but: “Levels” (defined in any way like the one used here) are topic-dependent as well as path-dependent. A might be a couple of levels above B in mathematics but a couple of levels below B in programming, or something. (That particular situation seems unlikely to happen if you’re looking at “Immutable Levels”, since mathematics and programming are quite closely related—though it’s certainly not obviously impossible. With other pairs of fields it could probably happen with “Immutable Levels” too.)
If you think that “Immutable Levels” can be subject-specific, then you’re probably forgetting to think reductionistically about the subjects in question.
There is unlikely to be a specific mathematics- or programming-module in the brain (that could be stronger in one person than another), since there wasn’t any mathematics or programming per se in the ancestral environment. Rather, what we perceive as “ability” in these subjects reduces to more basic lower-level cognitive abilities, which may differ among people. But there’s no law that says everyone has to use the same set of lower-level abilities, in the same way, in order to perform feats of programming or mathematics. There are likely a variety of possible low-level cognitive paths to any higher-level human cultural function, and I suspect that anybody with significant intellectual ability in one domain could develop comparable ability in any other given appropriate motivation, rationality training, and social support.
I’m sure there aren’t specific mathematics and programming modules in the brain. There certainly are different kinds of functionality in the brain (how helpful it is to think of it as divided into modules is debatable) and some of it is more useful for doing mathematics or programming or whatever than other parts.
(Camera A may be better than camera B for landscape photography and camera B better than camera A for taking pictures at rock concerts. That doesn’t require that the cameras have landscape-specific modules. All it needs is that, e.g., A has better optics and a higher-resolution sensor, while B has better autofocus and less noise when its sensitivity is cranked way up.)
So, if it sometimes happens that (1) two people’s natural mental faculties differ drastically in their “distribution of power” and (2) there’s a substantial difference in how useful the bits where they differ are for two different kinds of thinking, then there will be subject-specific “immutable levels”.
Prima facie it seems that both #1 and #2 do happen. Of course it might turn out that #2 doesn’t really, because (a) differences in intellectual power are all malleable, so that no kinds of “immutable levels” are real, or (b) differences in mental power are concentrated in some universal “g-factor” that affects all kinds of thinking equally, or (c) it just so happens that more specific variations always more or less cancel out overall (it’s hard to see how that would work, but who knows?).
I’d be interested to see evidence for any of those, or for any other good reason to reject #1 and #2. So far, though, they look pretty plausible, and I don’t see where I’ve failed at reductionism any further than we all have to on account of not actually knowing very much about how intelligence works.
It’s also worth noting that “immutable” means something like “largely fixed from adulthood on” rather than “largely determined by one’s genes”, and whatever there may have been in our ancestral environments there are all kinds of interesting things in our early environments when our brains are most malleable that might correlate with later ability in fields like number theory, psychology, AI programming, music, etc.
(Examples, in case they’re needed, of mental faculties that seem like reasonable candidates for varying differently in different people, and that could be of varying importance across different fields: Visual imagination. Short-term memory. Modelling of other people’s likely feelings, thoughts, and behaviour. Language acquisition. Visual pattern-spotting. Auditory pattern-spotting.)
I agree. For instance, I have very little experience in programming (limited to one semester of C++ in college), and so I cannot discuss even fairly basic level programming topics intelligently. On the other hand, I can easily discuss high level biology/chemistry etc. I have a good intuitive grasp of mathematics/programming; I’ve always learned those subjects faster than the people around me, so I think I probably could develop those skills pretty far, but I have never had the time/pragmatic incentive to learn the more advanced stuff.
Perhaps this is too obvious to need mentioning, but: “Levels” (defined in any way like the one used here) are topic-dependent as well as path-dependent. A might be a couple of levels above B in mathematics but a couple of levels below B in programming, or something. (That particular situation seems unlikely to happen if you’re looking at “Immutable Levels”, since mathematics and programming are quite closely related—though it’s certainly not obviously impossible. With other pairs of fields it could probably happen with “Immutable Levels” too.)
If you think that “Immutable Levels” can be subject-specific, then you’re probably forgetting to think reductionistically about the subjects in question.
There is unlikely to be a specific mathematics- or programming-module in the brain (that could be stronger in one person than another), since there wasn’t any mathematics or programming per se in the ancestral environment. Rather, what we perceive as “ability” in these subjects reduces to more basic lower-level cognitive abilities, which may differ among people. But there’s no law that says everyone has to use the same set of lower-level abilities, in the same way, in order to perform feats of programming or mathematics. There are likely a variety of possible low-level cognitive paths to any higher-level human cultural function, and I suspect that anybody with significant intellectual ability in one domain could develop comparable ability in any other given appropriate motivation, rationality training, and social support.
I’m sure there aren’t specific mathematics and programming modules in the brain. There certainly are different kinds of functionality in the brain (how helpful it is to think of it as divided into modules is debatable) and some of it is more useful for doing mathematics or programming or whatever than other parts.
(Camera A may be better than camera B for landscape photography and camera B better than camera A for taking pictures at rock concerts. That doesn’t require that the cameras have landscape-specific modules. All it needs is that, e.g., A has better optics and a higher-resolution sensor, while B has better autofocus and less noise when its sensitivity is cranked way up.)
So, if it sometimes happens that (1) two people’s natural mental faculties differ drastically in their “distribution of power” and (2) there’s a substantial difference in how useful the bits where they differ are for two different kinds of thinking, then there will be subject-specific “immutable levels”.
Prima facie it seems that both #1 and #2 do happen. Of course it might turn out that #2 doesn’t really, because (a) differences in intellectual power are all malleable, so that no kinds of “immutable levels” are real, or (b) differences in mental power are concentrated in some universal “g-factor” that affects all kinds of thinking equally, or (c) it just so happens that more specific variations always more or less cancel out overall (it’s hard to see how that would work, but who knows?).
I’d be interested to see evidence for any of those, or for any other good reason to reject #1 and #2. So far, though, they look pretty plausible, and I don’t see where I’ve failed at reductionism any further than we all have to on account of not actually knowing very much about how intelligence works.
It’s also worth noting that “immutable” means something like “largely fixed from adulthood on” rather than “largely determined by one’s genes”, and whatever there may have been in our ancestral environments there are all kinds of interesting things in our early environments when our brains are most malleable that might correlate with later ability in fields like number theory, psychology, AI programming, music, etc.
(Examples, in case they’re needed, of mental faculties that seem like reasonable candidates for varying differently in different people, and that could be of varying importance across different fields: Visual imagination. Short-term memory. Modelling of other people’s likely feelings, thoughts, and behaviour. Language acquisition. Visual pattern-spotting. Auditory pattern-spotting.)
Of course, agreed.
I agree. For instance, I have very little experience in programming (limited to one semester of C++ in college), and so I cannot discuss even fairly basic level programming topics intelligently. On the other hand, I can easily discuss high level biology/chemistry etc. I have a good intuitive grasp of mathematics/programming; I’ve always learned those subjects faster than the people around me, so I think I probably could develop those skills pretty far, but I have never had the time/pragmatic incentive to learn the more advanced stuff.