We have no way to even measure intelligence, let alone determine how close to capacity we’re at. We could be 90% there, or 1%, and we have no way, presently, of distinguishing between the two.
We are the smartest creatures ever to have lived on the planet Earth as far as we can tell, and given that we have seen no signs of extraterrestrial civilization, we could very well be the most intelligent creatures in the galaxy for all we know.
As for shoving out humans, isn’t the simplest solution to that simply growing them in artificial wombs?
We already have a simpler solution than that, namely the Cesarian section. It hasn’t been a safe option long enough to have had a significant impact as an evolutionary force though. Plus, there hasn’t been a lot of evolutionary pressure for increased intelligence since the advent of agriculture.
We might be the most intelligent creatures in the galaxy, but that’s a very different matter from being near the most intelligent things that could be constructed out of a comparable amount of matter. Natural selection isn’t that great a process for optimizing intelligence, it’s backpedaled on hominids before given the right niche to fill, so while we don’t have a process for measuring how close we are to the ceiling, I think the reasonable prior on our being close to it is pretty low.
We have no way to even measure intelligence, let alone determine how close to capacity we’re at. We could be 90% there, or 1%, and we have no way, presently, of distinguishing between the two.
We are the smartest creatures ever to have lived on the planet Earth as far as we can tell, and given that we have seen no signs of extraterrestrial civilization, we could very well be the most intelligent creatures in the galaxy for all we know.
As for shoving out humans, isn’t the simplest solution to that simply growing them in artificial wombs?
We already have a simpler solution than that, namely the Cesarian section. It hasn’t been a safe option long enough to have had a significant impact as an evolutionary force though. Plus, there hasn’t been a lot of evolutionary pressure for increased intelligence since the advent of agriculture.
We might be the most intelligent creatures in the galaxy, but that’s a very different matter from being near the most intelligent things that could be constructed out of a comparable amount of matter. Natural selection isn’t that great a process for optimizing intelligence, it’s backpedaled on hominids before given the right niche to fill, so while we don’t have a process for measuring how close we are to the ceiling, I think the reasonable prior on our being close to it is pretty low.