Yesterday I was writing about habits and a potential future where we could have an app that allows us to behaviours on and off at will. And while that sounds pretty far-fetched, I suspect that it isn't necessarily that far away, considering they are already putting chips into the brain. Once technology advances far enough, it will become possible to have far more granular control over our brains.
Will we be smart about it?
Probably not.
But intelligence is obviously another area that we are currently dabbling in as a species, looking to create efficiencies and more profits using machines. However, this too is going to eventually (sooner rather than later would be my guess) be integrated into our bodies as some kind of enhancement, and many will be eager to get their hands on it.
Over the years I have run various thought experiments in articles around intelligence, like if everyone was given a pill that made their IQ 500+ and what that might mean. I suspect that if we really were very intelligent, we would probably become far more peaceful and collaborative, as we would quickly realise that there is more to gain from working together, than competing with and destroying others. Problems like energy availability, pollution and social most social problems would melt away, because while power corrupts, once intelligent enough to see that power is in itself an unnecessary weakness, it wouldn't be sought.
Power doesn't seem like a weakness.
But it is. Power is not only easily corrupted, it also creates an environment have haves and have nots, and that will ultimately lead to conflict which will inevitably end in power being lost or transferred. It is an endless cycle that doesn't advance individuals or communities as fast or effectively as they could be. And I think that this is an important point to highlight, because we say we keep improving technology to advance our species and make things more effective and efficient, but are we?
I suspect not.
The advancements in tech we make aren't to give us new capabilities and potential for species advancement, it is to create more efficient and effective actions toward keeping things the same, where power (in some form) is the goal. As I have said many times earlier, the goal of society to maximise wealth is fundamentally wrong, because it can be successful without advancing the species. Wealth doesn't equal better conditions. And I think that if we were smart enough, we would realise that this is the case and would overhaul the entire economy and the incentives to focus on human advancement, summed up as "wellbeing" perhaps.
The challenge for most people with the extremely high intelligence scenario, is that it is actually unimaginable. We cannot actually know what someone with a 500 or 1000 IQ would be like and what kinds of conclusions they would come to, or how they could affect their own behaviours. It is possible for instance that once smart enough, a person would be able to rewire their behaviours easily, changing their "habits" on the fly to suit the situation, because they may be far, far more sensitive to the needs of the environment and, have the capabilities to change their behaviour in an instant.
Most people I have talked to around these topics think that if we were all suddenly much smarter, we would be just like now, with greed and desire driving our behaviours. But, I think that is a straight line extrapolation based on the average intelligence we have now. Instead, I reckon that it wouldn't be a straight line growth arc and would instead see steps of enlightenment happen, where once we got to a certain point as an individual, we would just "get" the situation and start adjusting. And then if we kept improving our intelligence, we would see more and more to the point that well, who knows?
And this is the problem with intelligence, because we don't know what happens at the levels where we have no experience. As an example, it might be like a cave person looking at a lump of metal. It is hard, heavy and cold. If we then throw that metal into the fire, the cave person can likely predict from experience that it is going to get hot, but can they predict it is going to melt? Can they predict that when it cools it will retain the melted shape and be hard again?
It is just a state of mind.
What if our minds are similar, where intelligence is the catalyst like the fire, and once we get our brains hot enough with intelligence, our minds change state. Of course, I am predicting that the state change once smart enough would see us supercharge humanity for the better, but it could also go the other way, where we become the most vicious, horrible beings in the universe. If we aren't already. However, I think the former is more likely when considering that the smartest people in our known history, have tended to lean toward peace, even as they created weapons of mass destruction.
Of course, I only use "IQ" here as a placeholder, because it becomes largely irrelevant at some point also and not really indicative of much. Even now, there are plenty of high IQ people who can't get their life in order. But I suspect that if we all had high enough intelligence (in all the ways that mattered), we wouldn't have such issues at any level of society, because all of society would function toward the common goal of improvement.
Even now without our very low intelligence levels, if we turned our minds toward advancement and wellbeing of the species, we would be able to not only do some great things, but clean up the majority of the mess we have made of this world and society. Things would be unimaginably better. The thing is, although John Lennon said "It's easy if you try", most people can't imagine a world without religion, or without countries or without things to kill and die for. It isn't easy, because we have never experienced it. But an unknown doesn't mean it is impossible.
Maybe we just need the right state of mind.
And be intelligent enough to implement the changes necessary.
Taraz
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