One of the most frequently used expressions in scientific research papers is "the mechanism is not fully understood" and this is a great motivator for researchers to strive to expand scientific knowledge.
In certain areas of science such as theoretical physics and biomedical science there seem to be frustrating and significantly large gaps in knowledge and obstacles to finding answers. Might it not be, that as no chimp will ever understand a Shakesperian drama or a central heating circuit diagram that humans too have a finite capacity to understand? Perhaps there are matters in science we will never understand or decipher.
Not sure this is a good argument:
1. Its not clear that brain size is entirely related to what we might define as intellect. Marginally larger brains in Neanderthals could be for a host of reasons, including diet (more protein and fat-rich - permitting better support for such an 'expensive tissue'), increased sensory acuity (vision, smell, etc).
2. Those Upper-Palaeolithic European cave paintings are impressive, but don't indicate greater intelligence in themselves (see Powell et al, 2009, Science 324:1298-1301).
3. Philosophy, like any cultural institution, tends to build on past foundations, so it is not surprising that we privilege the impressive Greek traditions. That doesn't mean we haven't move on and improved (see cultural evolution, below).
The fact is that in the evolution of the human intellect, cultural-evolutionary processes are absolutely key: Cumulative culture is the defining feature of our species (plenty of other species have culture, but none other than us has cumulative culture).
Without cumulative culture we would be little more than a monkey that is good at putting things in sequence.
Without cumulative culture we wouldn't be here, of course. Cumulative culture is our life-support system and without it we are non-viable (there are no Tarzans etc).
Without cumulative culture we certainly wouldn't be asking or attempting to answer this question!
When it comes to the evolution of the human intellect, the questions we should be asking are:
1. When did cumulative culture begin? I favour late Middle Stone Age, but many would put it earlier. The archaeological material culture record is pretty thin on this, but the longevity and lack of variation in Oldowan, and later, Acheulean stone tools suggests to me that those skills were mostly hard-wired.
2. How tightly coupled is human gene-culture co-evolution for increased behavioural sophistication / cognitive capacity?
3. What were the selective forces than favoured the gene-culture co-evolution of increased human behavioural sophistication /cognitive capacity (group size (Dunbar etc) / social coordination / language? Tool use? Planning? etc)? The answer may seem obvious when we look at our success as a species, but as the Irish saying goes, "if you want to get there I wouldn't start from here". Evolution has no foresight so every step in the process needs an adaptive explanation.
Of the above 3 questions, the most interesting (by far, in my view) is question 2. This is a potentially unifying question in anthropology. Without knowing at least something about this we will never understand the evolution of language, co-operation, social institutions, intellect, art, Imagination, etc.
Dear Barry,
Good question !
"Does the human intellect have finite capacity"
Yes, as a lot of "thing" in Nature, we are "finite" and mortal. But to my mind, that's not a reason to desesperate for more: increasing always our capacity, even in some human limits.
And you underline facts that we could analyze on two point of view:
- intrinsically: is universe ununderstandable, with some limits that we could aproach, or infinte; so even with infinite capacities (which are not ours) not entirely understandable ?
- or is it understandable at us only because we have finite capacities and "others" (ET ? :-) could understand it ?
For me, what is encouraging is new discoveries in neurphysiology:
- we thougt that our brain couldn't repair, with a fix number of neurons: that's not the case; there are some stems cells which can differentiate in neurons during all our life,
- we thought no possible repair of brain, less capacities with aging ... but wiht the paradxo that with its composition , at the end of our life, we have only used 10% of the neurons. So, which interest of the billion neurons we have in this case ?
The response at this second question is the first response, but also the fact that the neurons not used at a certain time in our brain, even without lesions, can "activate" themself and are able to connect to others: called "neuronal plasticity".
A neuron can establish from 1000 to 10.000 connections with others and incerasing the connections is stimulated by "work" (like muscles)
So, human brain capacities could increase in a much greater manner that we could imagine; a possiblity to understand "new parts" of universe, at the moment inaccessible to us.
A good reason to hope, no ?
Regards
Didier
Indeed a very good reason to hope, as an eternal optimist I always hope for the best and as an optimist find no problem in being part of a species with limitations. It is a great idea that our brains can expand their capacities but there is no evidence that having more neuronal connections would mean we have infinite, or even a vastly improved capacity for understanding.
Drawing a comparison between neurons and muscles is interesting if slightly inaccurate. Yes we can train muscles and increase their efficiency, sprinters do this all the time. Nevertheless while for over a century the world 100m record has been exceeded time and time again the increments have shrunk to thousands of a second and it will never be the case that a sprinter can run 100m in one second.
I hope you are correct and that our capacity to understand can be improved by training and education, like muscles can be with exercise. My understanding of how neurons and muscles work however leads me to conclude otherwise.
A good, difficult and old question...
1. If we conceive of the human brain as a computer, processing information, its capacity should be finite, however large.
2. But the disturbing fact is that we can use concepts which cannot rely on these kinds of "data processing". The best example is the concept of infinity in mathematics. By definition it cannot be realised by any occurence, or a batch of data, coming from perception of our senses. But not only we can define the concept, we can use it well to create more powerfull concepts. Actually the difference between a Turing machine (a computer) and the human brain is that a computer can check the validity of a predicate (but without any certainty with regard to its capacity to do it in any given time) but cannot produce concepts (which are axioms, or definitions) which reveal themselves useful for further studies.
3. The human brain accepts approximations, it compensates its limited capacity by a probabilist process : when it cannot check for sure, it guesses. And even in our concept the introduction of probability is a way to represent things that we cannot fully grasp. Quantum Mechanics is the paradigm of this approach : there is no quantic world (a reality which would behave in a singular way), there are physical concepts which are more easily dealt with by a probabilist model than by a determinist one.
4. Knowledge, and practically concepts, are not the products of a single brain. One of the most significant feature of scientific knowledge is that it translates concepts in an efficient language that can be understood by many, and by this enriched by others.
The question then would be : is there a limit to the capacity of Human (that is of Humanity) knowledge.
@ Barry. OK for the muscle, just an image.
But perhaps before all discussion, and to ask ourself if intellect has a finite capacity, we would have to define "thought", "intellect", transformation of a neuronal process in thought ... and so on. To know what we try to "measure" about our intellect. And this question is like other "existential" ones:, those of humanity since its origine (is there and what is soul, where are we coming from...).
Also, as said by Jean-Claude, how define infiny, as concept, but also with our brain.
So, no certitude in a sens or another: is it exists or not ?
Perhaps the reason why we have choosen to walk on the way of sciences (so did I); thinking that measure of phenomena could be more "objective" . Perhaps scientists would think in the past that they could give us answers to these fundamental questions, more than philosophists, or even artists, but with Einstein, quantic physic, incertainty came back and these demonstrations since 20th century led to more questions than we asked ourself in the past. All that, to my mind, evidently :-)
Regards
Didier
European scientific and philosophical tradition was historically trying to overcome the boundaries of thinking and understanding, so speaking - to transcend to another level.and another space.
This is one of the reasons of former European aggression, individualism, competition, free market, etc. This was also "transported" to North America, Australia, New Zealand and newly emerging East-European "tigers", which are now ahead with these features. More peaceful understanding embrace finite intellectualism and enhanced spiritualism for which is not necessary to conquer new territories in mind and in territory.
Arvydas Guogis
Overcoming of boundaries and huge obstacles require enormous intellectual and physical will and strength. But it can not last forever. If you win in the beginning it is very likely that You will be exhausted after some time and become an outsider. Sustainable development means gradual evolution, but not the permanent revolutions. Incremental development is more required for societal and personal health.
What is knowledge ? How do we acquire knowledge ? These very questions were asked, to be true, by europeeans : Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Popper and many others for more than 2000 years. There was nothing aggressive in their quest. And we have now some good vision of these issues. The fact that, today, so few scientist have even a limited knwoledge of philosophy and epistemology is sad, and one of the reasons for the predominant role of metaphysical concepts (such as a quantic world : something which is beyind our understanding) which would have ashamed Galileo.
Nowodays there are two ways to success in sciences : the safe way, by praising your teachers and your bosses, staying safely in the accepted consensus, and the bold way, by inventing new mysteries (Higgs bosons, dark matter, multiverse) that the media love so much. Experts get their power by the mysteries of their craft. Science is no exception : the more misteries, the better ! European science or western science has nothing to do with that, and I guess that countries which boast to be spiritually superior do not fare better !
"Experts get their power by the mysteries of their craft"
Excellent observation! And the constant and jealous maintenance of those mysteries I might add!
For me this is a normal question.
And I think it's possible no limits in Brain because is an evolving system.
The difference with computer is that we are creator system, more than consequence system. We look for news all time, perhaps because survival.
We are all time imaging the next step... Creating the next step... making the next step.
Imagination, dreams, are part of Intellect, brain. Where is imagination in reality? Where is "put" every dream. image, idea in reality? I think this is created in our brain, but this must be "put" in every please more in reality, not only in our brain.
All this is more than physical structure. (Or what we know about material word).
Utterly agree with Mark, unless this is a new definition of 'finite' that I was unaware of.
The question, "Perhaps there are matters in science we will never understand or decipher.", is not the same as questioning the finite capacity of the human mind.
(note, here I'm assuming that 'capacity' is referring to the throughput rather than the storage: a moot point as neither can plausibly be infinite)
It is possible that there will be scientific questions (ie, those that can be reproduced and made falsifiable) which will be fully comprehended, but perhaps not by purely organic brains. By this I suggest that all testable hypotheses might be computable or provable in other ways in finite time.
It is also possible that there will be non-scientific questions (untestable, etc.) that will exist and will defy all attempts at understanding, and will be Hard Questions.
Unless evidence arises that this universe can support the processing of an infinite amount of information (doesn't seem likely, expansion, heat death, etc.) then I do not see how an argument can be made for any intelligent entity to have a non-finite capacity.
Barry: may I enquire as to what line of research prompted this question? Epistemology? AI?
Looking at human evolutionary history, there are reasons to think human intellect may already have reached the glass ceiling:
1. Neanderthals had larger brains than modern humans.
2. Whoever painted animals in European caves was more intelligent than us today.
3. Ancient Greek philosophy has rarely been matched.
James. I am endlessly amused by speculation on the future in which the human capacity appears to be 'infinite'. The idea of there being science we cannot comprehend seems perfectly natural to me. It does not of course mean that we should stop striving for better understanding, rather that we should not be disappointed that many of the things we observe are beyond our understanding.
Not sure this is a good argument:
1. Its not clear that brain size is entirely related to what we might define as intellect. Marginally larger brains in Neanderthals could be for a host of reasons, including diet (more protein and fat-rich - permitting better support for such an 'expensive tissue'), increased sensory acuity (vision, smell, etc).
2. Those Upper-Palaeolithic European cave paintings are impressive, but don't indicate greater intelligence in themselves (see Powell et al, 2009, Science 324:1298-1301).
3. Philosophy, like any cultural institution, tends to build on past foundations, so it is not surprising that we privilege the impressive Greek traditions. That doesn't mean we haven't move on and improved (see cultural evolution, below).
The fact is that in the evolution of the human intellect, cultural-evolutionary processes are absolutely key: Cumulative culture is the defining feature of our species (plenty of other species have culture, but none other than us has cumulative culture).
Without cumulative culture we would be little more than a monkey that is good at putting things in sequence.
Without cumulative culture we wouldn't be here, of course. Cumulative culture is our life-support system and without it we are non-viable (there are no Tarzans etc).
Without cumulative culture we certainly wouldn't be asking or attempting to answer this question!
When it comes to the evolution of the human intellect, the questions we should be asking are:
1. When did cumulative culture begin? I favour late Middle Stone Age, but many would put it earlier. The archaeological material culture record is pretty thin on this, but the longevity and lack of variation in Oldowan, and later, Acheulean stone tools suggests to me that those skills were mostly hard-wired.
2. How tightly coupled is human gene-culture co-evolution for increased behavioural sophistication / cognitive capacity?
3. What were the selective forces than favoured the gene-culture co-evolution of increased human behavioural sophistication /cognitive capacity (group size (Dunbar etc) / social coordination / language? Tool use? Planning? etc)? The answer may seem obvious when we look at our success as a species, but as the Irish saying goes, "if you want to get there I wouldn't start from here". Evolution has no foresight so every step in the process needs an adaptive explanation.
Of the above 3 questions, the most interesting (by far, in my view) is question 2. This is a potentially unifying question in anthropology. Without knowing at least something about this we will never understand the evolution of language, co-operation, social institutions, intellect, art, Imagination, etc.
Probably there exists a limited capacity to every one of us, but as a combination the humanity has the ability to increase knowledge with a very high growth rate, provided that we will agree in next rules:
1)Our personal egotism will be by-passed when we observe that another proposal is more creative and efficient than ours (Current situation is quite contrary: All major scientists act like being at least non reproducible intellectual beings and they are prohibiting the entrance to new scientists who bring modern ideas with them. How do they prevent new theories? By simply desk or peer-reviewed rejecting all new manuscripts that are not compatible with their "standard models")
2)We have to make a reliable "brain network" which will not serve as an "impact factor" generator (like traditional journals do), but as a real center for exchange ideas (maybe an improved RG could serve for this task).
I think the main problem is scientific inertia which prevents the growth rate in knowledge.
Finally I wish to all the Chairmans: Have a nice sit! Scientific progress can wait untill your fully retirement!
@Bors,
why not? Human intellect is a fascinating feature of our brain.
"1. Its not clear that brain size is entirely related to what we might define as intellect"
OK, not a very large correlation, but it is very consisently found. See this from Wikipedia:
"Studies demonstrate a clear biological basis to intelligence, with larger brains predicting higher intelligence. The majority of MRI studies report correlations around 0.3 to 0.4 between brain volume and intelligence. The most consistent associations are observed within the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes, the hippocampi, and the cerebellum, but only account for a relatively small amount of variance in IQ, which suggests that while brain size may be related to human intelligence, other factors also play a role"
The onus now must be on anyone who doubts this link to produce an example of human groups that differ in IQ but where the one with the larger brain has the lower IQ. I actually think this is the most interesting and significant of the 3 arguments I put. It is also really important because it is likely to be only reliable indicator of intellectual level in our distant ancestors.
"2. Those Upper-Palaeolithic European cave paintings are impressive, but don't indicate greater intelligence in themselves"
They can easily be scored using the Draw-a-Horse IQ test, where they come out with a superior IQ. It could be argued that only the best artists drew in the caves, but where are the naff or practice images?
"3. Philosophy, like any cultural institution, tends to build on past foundations, so it is not surprising that we privilege the impressive Greek traditions. That doesn't mean we haven't move on and improved"
We don't priviledge Greek medicine as a whole, and don't take it seriously. As it happens, I think Hippocrates had a sophisticated idea of how the body works, eg the CSF-lymphatic circulatory system, which modern medicine has missed. Even alternative medicine prefers the mystical ancient Indian and Chinese systems, and ignores ancient Greek medicine.
Can someone please explain why it is assumed that recent human evolution relied on the acquisition of new genes, by mutation for example? It seems to me that it could just as well be due to genomic rearrangement, large numbers of dodgy genes being discarded as weak infants died when infant mortality was very high (the Spartan option).
RE 1 (brain size), I agree that a correlation exists, but that is in modern humans, who are all closely related. Neanderthals are (with some minor exceptions due to introgression in the last 100 k years) separated from us by more that 300 k years, and had a distinct ecology, with their own unique adaptations.
It may well be that they were smarter than us in some ways (I get nervous about the idea of general intelligence). Their material culture was quite impressive, but nowhere near that of contemporary Upper Palaeolithic anatomically modern humans.
Interestingly, when we do come across species that have very advanced behaviours / the suggestion of culture, they often have bigger brains in relation to their body size, but their absolute brain size is often still small (e.g. corvids - New Caladonian crows are a pretty cool example). I find this quite difficult to make sense of, but I guess one explanation is that most of the brain is being used for things we don't usually think of as clever (including us).
RE 2 (Those Upper-Palaeolithic European cave paintings), the European Upper-Palaeolithic is an amazing explosion in technology, and I find it difficult to believe that it was due to a rapid evolution of cognitive capacity. I much prefer the demographic cause argument (partly because I was an author on Powell et al, 2009, Science 324:1298-1301) :-)
RE 3 (Greek medicine): not really my area but from what I know there wasn't much to build on until the 19th century (four humors etc). As for alternative medicine preferring the mystical ancient Indian and Chinese systems, if I was an ancient Greek medic i'd take that as a compliment.
But that's straying from the point. For various reasons they had the social institutions to encourage the development of their philosophies, and key among those social institutions was schools / academies (Socrates -> Plato -> Aristotle, etc). Obviously these were bright guys, but it's still cumulative culture that makes their achievements spectacular.
Re Anthony Gordon on practice cave paintings: Dale Guthrie's 2005 book The Nature of Paleolithic Art (Chicago) analyzes the large corpus of amateurish cave art. He presents some evidence that this art was made by adolescent boys and compares it to the art of modern adolescents. People were practicing!
Elsewhere, Baja California, South Africa, and Australia at least, much stone age art was executed rock shelter walls, and much art elsewhere was engraved on open-air stone surfaces. These sites are exposed to weathering and are unlikely to persist for 10s of thousands of years. Likely, much of the training of post adolescent UP master painters took place above ground. Perhaps most of the great painting was done in open air situations that perished long ago.
Dear Colleague,
Concerning brain size and eventually correlation with human skills, neurophysiology and anatomy learned us that i) it doesn't correlate necessary with the number of neurons (grey substance in surface being cellular body, and white substance axons and intersticial cells composing glial tissue) ii) size is not nessacy correlate with brain efficiency (see hydrocephalus with decrease capacity) iii) "actual" measurement of neuron number at the beginning and the end of life shows that only 10% have been "used" during life; so, whatever a difference in size would be only due to difference in neuron number, it wouldn't be significant in term of brain capacity differences.
Finally, last researches have shown that's not the number of neuron (and not brain size) which would be correlated with brain skills, but the number of neuronal connection between them (defined as "neuronal network") which can vary during one neuron life from 1000 to 10.000 (see above my comment); and these connections could be more correlated with brain capacity (like computer awith multiple processors with connections built in parralel or series, increasing greatly their capacities).
So, even if used frequently, to my mind , that's very hazardous to correlate intelligence , or simply brain capacities, with brain size (or weight), as made in the past.
Last point, the general correlation established between a factor (brain size) and an another (intelligence or organ capacity) shows us the limits of statistics if you don't know the other 'confonding' factors participating in analysis (which could be the case for archeology and anthropology). If you take in account only one factor acting on the evolution of human skills (in this case brain capacity), you could wrongly correlate them. Statistics are a very good tool, useful especially in biology with important interindividual variability , but to which we can make say what we want. In extreme cases, you can correlate earth quake in Japan with movment of butterflies in USA; a demonstration made by a mathematician having build "theory ot the disasters" , R.Thom.
Best regards
Didier
RE A Gordon's "Can someone please explain why it is assumed that recent human evolution relied on the acquisition of new genes, by mutation for example? "
I don't think this is assumed by serious geneticists. There are many mechanisms by which phenotypes can evolve, including:
- mutations leading to structural changes in proteins,
- mutations leading to changes in gene expression patterns,
- duplications leading to increases in gene expression, and possibly divergence of gene function (e.g. globins, amylase)
- mutations/ deletions leading to loss of gene function (less is more - maybebe very important),
- mutations leading to changes in transcript splicing / variable transcript splicing
- changes in methylation patterns / imprinting / epigenetic change,
- genomic rearrangements leading to gene fusion / new functionality,
- retroviral insertion leading to loss of gene function,
- retroviral insertion leading to increases in gene expression,
- transposon and other repetitive element insertion and excision,
- changes in RNA genes and RNA gene expression / antisense RNA (e.g. HARs - maybe very important for brain evolution),
- copy number variation,
- chromosomal rearrangements,
- etc
Also, subtle changes in any of the above can have dramatic effects on metabolic networks, or vice versa, some metabolic networks can be very robust to big changes in expression of their components.
As for :large numbers of dodgy genes being discarded as weak infants died when infant mortality was very high (the Spartan option)", high infant mortality is the rule, not the exception (we live in exceptional times).
" high infant mortality is the rule, not the exception (we live in exceptional times)"
Which explains why, at least in the developed world nowadays, the Flynn effect for IQ seems to have ground to a halt. As has the secular increase in height, probably for the same reason.
Barry,
do You have measure of capacity of human intellect to say finite it or not?
@ Mark, Its not clear that brain size is entirely related to what we might define as intellect. I think that the human intellect have finite capacity.
When we change our name to other. (Human --> ? new being) (But human continues).
If evolve not finish, capability can grow for ever (at less during of Universe). If Universe change its name for other... (Finish and begin) I can continue seeing an infinite. (Its possible infinite evolve).
In the "choice" I can look an infinite.
Mix matter with infinite combinations, new molecules, new atoms, new spins... more and more. Why not.
"this art was made by adolescent boys"
In which case their IQ turns out to be even more superior, as I was assuming it was done by adults.
"much stone age art was executed rock shelter walls, and much art elsewhere was engraved on open-air stone surfaces. These sites are exposed to weathering and are unlikely to persist"
Does this argument apply to the European cave artists?
Eugene
I am not using the word finite in an empirical sense. The question relates to tthe extent of the ability of humans to understand the natural world. Are there things/phenomea we will never understand?
Anthony, I think yes.
Why you look more evolve in this draws?
In the Past we encompass all our experimental knowledge to that time without words, and with feelings, and sounds, colors, odors. Now we less safe use of some of them but develop other.
About piety we changed so much.
Barry,
this question has been already discussed for half year in the thread, where we meet each other. The result is zero.
Regards,
Eugene.
Yes, human intellect is limited, BUT there are many people trying different approaches (limited of course, by their social conditioning) so solutions are often found, albeit unrecognized and unrewarded. (You didn't specify WHICH problems); also, problems diminish as one's paradigm improves. Brain processing may be limited by the inertia of its own mass, certainly by the speed & quality of biochemical pathways, which can be affected by a host of outside human & environmental factors, etc.
Human?
Define "human". define "limit", define "finite", define "infinit". Define "time" in "human", define "space" in "human", define end and why.
All of these definitions are available in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Barry,
ask Raveendra about the meaning (sense) of this definitions.
What does it mean "Aye canny like!"? It is unknown for me language.
On an individual level the human intellect is limited to their life span; as a whole the human intellect is ever expanding. When it comes to problems that has humanity stumped, they are just waiting on someone to look at them differently. The human intellect as a whole will only be finite capacity when the human imagination is.
Yes, a kind of "Memory of Humanity", and each individual would be like one neuro of a "all humanity brain" (also called in some old esoteric traditions "Akhashic annals").
Yes ! Imagination ? as yo say, always needed, or ... an unprovable reality :-)
Regards
Didier
Good question!
Intellect is the mind's capacity for knowledge and reason i.e. it is knowing a lot of things. Intelligence is more about putting knowledge to use in innovative, analytical, and practical ways. In my opinion if we put together intellect and intelligence then the intellect would be infinite. In the other words intelligence is the practical manifestation of the ability to think in complex and pioneering ways and because of this are no limits.
Eugene The language is Geordie, Aye canny like means I agree with you you in this context. Aye, means yes. Canny means good, agreeable, excellent depending on the circumstances in which it is used. Like is a redundant word used as a stop.
I know that the question has been asked countless times but it as relevant today as it was in the dim and distant past when it was first asked. It is not meant to elicit a final and conclusive answer, indeed that is not possible. Its purpose is to make us pause and think whenever we read in an academic journal those famous words "the mechanism is not fully understood".
I read Spanish dictionary and I understand this words very well.
Define human limits, For example : in space-time only or more...
Which is your limit to talk?
Human limits are defined by physical boundaries. No human can lift 50 tonnes or ever will be able to. No human can run 100 meters in 3 seconds nor ever will be able to and it is therefore logical to accept that no human will ever be able to solve every intellectual problem. Vast areas of biological science and physics remain illusive and poorly understood. It may very well be that rather than us not have discovered those thugs yet that we may never be able to understand them.
If we examine our closest relatives in the animal kingdom they posses amazing abilities but we can recognise their limits while they cannot. I have just read a superb article in The New Scientist on pigeons and there apparent ability to think about the future and to plan ahead. This makes them very much more intelligent than we at one time thought but they are still hugely limited in the intellectual tasks they can perform.
We must be too.
It is scepticism, Barry. But it is not productive.
Regards,
Eugene.
Eugene, There is no necessity to be productive, that is the capitalist model of science!
Barry,
product is chaos, as we see it every day.
If people believe in nothing, they receive nothing.
It's simply realistic to admit one's limitations, belief is but a motivation to find out, the goal is to know. This issue crosses the border from matter into spirit. Humans throughout history have received answers (higher knowledge) through prayer, fasting, vision-questing. It wasn't their own intellects that discovered, but the answers were given to them, from a realm beyond.
Dean,
it is the essence of our existence - we and realm beyond. Someone totally rejects it, but to my mind it is naive.
Regards,
Eugene.
"Humans throughout history have received answers (higher knowledge) through prayer, fasting, vision-questing."
Why should hallucinations provoked by weight loss be any more valid than the very similar ones induced by medical illnesses, fever, drugs, mental illness, spooky noises, etc? Luther was far from clear whether his hallucinations came from God, Satan or, as he suspected, probably correctly, from his misbehaving ear.
Anthony,
these hallucinations have radical consequences for us all.
Not every spiritual or super-natural event is a hallucination, not when good or useful information that exceeds the intellect is received. A lot of people want to judge without doing the experiment. If God &/or the spirit world is real, then it must be testable, I didn't say it's easy within all cultural paradigms. A lack of faith often accompanies an unwillingness to find out.
I believe there is no question that the human intellect has finite capacity; for example, we can not visualize spatial dimensions more than 3 (despite the fact that we can mathematically write them down). However, that capacity may gradually increase with time (through evolution etc..). On the other hand, I personally believe that at any given time (i.e. in the future) our intellects will still be limited.
I think Barry's original question is really a slightly different one: the things that we classify as "mechanism not fully understood". It is very possible that we may understand most of these currently not fully understood concepts with time but it is very likely that they will lead to new questions that we can not understand, and ultimately (my personal belief) we will never be able to understand everything.
Of course it does, but that is no reason to fear creative thinking and hypothesis building.
And I think we have to separate (even if linked) the point of view of the scientist (anatomy, neurophysiology, anthropology and archeology ..), the point of view of the philosophist and psychanalist, and finally the religious (faith)-spiritualist-esoterical point of view. Because it seems to me that the above answers were in different fields of knowledges, and didn't correspond to the same things (holographic vision of a same object ?).
Regards
Didier
Baris,
see D. Hilbert and S. Cohn-Vossen, "Anschauliche Geometrie", Berlin,1932.
Regards,
Eugene.
@Eugene,
you you present a copy of the cited passage please.
Thanks and regards
Hanno,
I have this book only in Russian (hard copy). It contains pictures of 4-dimensional objects.
Regards,
Eugene.
Eugene,
it´s a pity. Do you think, you could scan a single picture, don´t mind if the text is russian. But thanks.
Hanno,
it is difficult for me.
It is strange for me, that German copy is not reachable.
You can draw it yourself. It will be more interesting. It is projections of 4-dimensional polyhedra on 3-dimensional space.
Regards,
Eugene.
'Anschauliche' is the clue here!
Warp drive, inertial dampers and the Heisenberg compensator work on a similar model.
Thanks Eugene,
the thing with the copy is a problem, because I´m retired.
I know hypercube of Dali and the interpretation, but would you please comment the short text from WIKI, which follows.
"Just as God exists in a space that is incomprehensible to humans, the hypercube exists in four spatial dimensions, which is equally inaccessible to the mind."
My opinion is the same like from Berry, "'Anschauliche' is the clue here!"
Hanno,
Dali wanted to say: If You look in 4-dimensional space, You'l see Christos.
Regards,
Eugene.
Be patient, Barry!
Second example: Heops piramide is the element of 3-dimensional projection of 4-dimensional 24-cell.
Regards,
Eugene.
Hanno,
WIKI is for hausfrauen. Four dimensional space is accessible to the mind, as well is all the other dimensions. But in what space exists God is unknown for us.
Regards,
Eugene.
Eeeehh lad I were sat thinking' about that only yesterday, eeee, i don't know....well I'll go to the foot of ours stairs!
We are but finite instruments, tools, meat-puppets of protoplasm; only the imagination permits us to think otherwise. Of course we have potential to be upgraded, if something bigger than us deigns to do designer inputs. Can a bucket upgrade itself? Does it have "infinite potential?" Still, it can carry a lot of liquid over it's life.
Dean, I think a similar question arises: Yes a bucket cannot upgrade itself, but if we were to be able to build very sophisticated robots in the future, would those robots potentially be able to upgrade themselves? I think that this may be possible. Even we humans might be able to 'upgrade' parts of ourselves in the future and make us more efficient. However, there are boundaries to what we (and robots and such) can and will be able to do.
Man or woman limits are defined, Human limits not... It's evolve system.
Where do you put the limit of an idea? Or of many dreams?
And in an election and a choice you make an unlimited probability.
I think we have all time unlimited moments...
Ilimitado... bonita palabra.
Actually the limit is biological and humans do give themselves way too much credit for the little bit of intellect they've been entrusted, evidenced by how often they missuse it. But maybe the question SHOULD be how humans can increase their intellect, given how science has already shown us how to dumb people and animals down, via STRESS and morbid repetition
Does the human intellect have finite capacity? What an interesting question!
The first problem is to understand the question…
If by human intellect, Barry Turner means “the power or faculty of the mind by which one knows or understands, as distinguished from that by which one feels and that by which one wills” or “the understanding of reality” or “the faculty of thinking and acquiring knowledge” or “the systemic processing of a subject or an object by hundreds of thousands of neurons and proteins in order to build an idea, an explanation that correspond to a sentiment that we have conscience of and that we have the capacity to communicate to another human intellect”, any of those meaning bring me to say that human intellect has no intrinsic limits.
Why? Because the faculty (power or capacity) of individual intelligence built itself on simple concepts that can be “logically” or “mathematically” analysed and organized in new concepts, ideas, theories, hypothesis, stories, inductions, deductions etc. which, under certain rules, can be communicate to other individuals intelligences that also have the power to process the “messages” that have been communicate.
If there were a limit, I would call it a frictional constraint (internal and external) which I relate to the time lapses before the objective structure of the new “knowledge” (the intellectual output) become robust and optimized, either for an individual intelligence or for a community of intelligences.
The now individually accessible computerized global knowledge management reduces this “frictional” constraint, increasing and diversifying the intellectual outputs of human intellect.
If I might use an analogy, the amount of information a computer can process, is limited by it's capacity, allocation, and integrity. All (DNA) machines have finite limits. If the machine could be upgraded then more might be possible, but infinity isn't possible of a finite instrument.
Where is the finish of Humanity? The word humanity is an evolve system.
A man or a woman can be an finite instrument (or not, philosophical or physics question), but humanity is a continuum.
If we go back to the initial question of Barry, he used the term"finite capacity", and even if we analyze it on a scientific, anatomic, physiological point of view, or by contrats philosophical, spiritual one, if we respond "no", that doesn't mean by contrast that we define our capacity has "infinite". In langages, we often used the contrary of a world to define it by the negative. I am not sure that's right on a semantic point of view. Especiallly because if we could define the world "finite" (end), our mind can have a great difficulty to define "infinite". Our brain is not built to well understand the notion of "infiny"; so leading to "speculations", and abstractic definitions, which lead to difficulties to determine the field of the definition (physics, phylosophy). We can "notice" that we are finite (so with finite capacities), especially due to the fact that we are mortal, but we don't know if we could be "infinite" (perhaps the day when we would become immortal ? :-)
Regards
Didier
Eeeeh.... well I'll go to the foot of our stairs! Human intellect means the capacity of the species to understand, not the capacity of the individual either now or at some indeterminate point in the evolutionary future. I was just wondering if perhaps we may already have evolved to a point beyond which where there is no likelihood of advancement, except in the tiniest of detail.
Barry:
I disagree with your definition meaning capacity of the species because all growth is personal. You cannot take credit or ride on the coat-tails of another's abilities. Certainly any one person has the potential to learn things in time, but life-times are limited too. Can you grow wings? or wheels? It's silly to talk about "we" until you prove it with "I."
Just a detail, Dean: if you want, you can correct a text you have written, going at the upper right corner of it and you have a little arrow with "edit or delete" (only the writter can do it). I have already done it because I am not fluent in english and regularly make errors.
Regards
Didier
Dean.
It is not about proof. The purpose of the question is to cause self reflection both as individuals and/or as a member of the species. No I cannot grow wings! Humans do not need them to fly, we use our brains to do that by inventing flying machines.
I am interested in capacity of thought, it is becoming evident (not proof, simple evidence) that we are limited in our abilities as individuals and as a species to understand things. I am not trying to prove we cannot understand things, simply asking where our abilities may extend to.
We can imagine time travel, interstellar travel, curing all diseases and reading minds. Do you think we will ever be able to do them?
I think we must start with a clarification of the meaning of your question: "Does the human intellect have finite capacity?" This is a yes/no answer, so it's a decision problem. I suppose that an answer to this question should be verifiable and, therefore, a clear definition of finite intellectual capacity is required. I take it that by "finite capacity" you mean limited, in the sense that human intellect has "finite capacity" if there are questions for which we cannot possibly have verifiable answers.
Certainly, our ability to answer questions has been evolving but, is there a limit? It doesn't seem that there is a contradiction in asserting that there is a limit, because, as it has been observed, there are living organisms that, apparently, cannot answer questions at all, despite the universality of the genetic code. Therefore, unless we make the assumption that we are the last word in evolution in this matter, we cannot discard the possibility that there is a limit. But this poses a problem: A lot of mathematical proofs, those that are not constructive, rely on the principle that for any proposition P, either P is true and ~P is false or P is false and ~P is true. When we apply Mathematics to natural science, the symbols true and false have meaning: A statement is true if its content corresponds to reality.
The possibility that there are questions for which we cannot produce verifiable answers in natural science, forces us to consider changing our assumptions in applied mathematics, theoretical Physics in particular: For any proposition P: either P is true, P is false, or P is undecidable, which I think has consequences in the applicability of the classical theory of probabilities: in statistical physics and quantum mechanics.
We would indeed be presumptuous, even arrogant to assume that we were the last word in evolution since there is plenty of time left for other species to develop with higher intellectual capacity and function. It is in any case a mistake to believe that simply because we can think in abstract terms and do complicated science that we are necessarily at the top of the evolutionary tree.
Whatever happens in the distant future humans must have a finite capacity for everything because everything is finite. Paul Davies in his book, The Last Three Minutes postulates the survival of thought after the annihilation of matter in a cosmic big crunch, that however is so far in the future that it is evolutionarily unlikely that the last thoughts in the universe will be circulating in human minds.
Throughout history and presently, thanks to books and modern communication, we have accounts of persons who were contacted by cosmic spirit entities, angels, saints, persons who have moved on into further dimensional existence. They have expanded capacities (not just intellectual) but no longer considered human by our standards. So growth is possible when we move beyond the physical limitations of our meat-puppets.
I think there are layers to the question. One might be the importance we attach to intellectual thinking with respect to others. If we consider "thinking" in terms of computer processing, we see that different activities are assigned to different parts of the brain, such as hearing, visual, tactile/sensory, organic processes, via the wiring harness of nerves. We might further model the brain as an ultra short-wave TV/radio transmitter/receiver of thought-pictures, allowing for certain paranormal phenomenon, however just like those other inputs and outputs, the number of neurons dedicated to a given task are indeed limited by the Creator of same. Also we see that some people have more or less limitations than others, governed by age, inheritance, nutrition, environment, and quality of inputs. One thing we can value is creation of human language that lets us record our thought processes so others can learn from them without having to experience an infinite number of lifetimes.
Excellent question.
"Might it not be, that as no chimp will ever understand a Shakesperian drama or a central heating circuit diagram that humans too have a finite capacity to understand? Perhaps there are matters in science we will never understand or decipher. "
Probably not. With that regard, I have empirical evidences and strong reasons to be optimistic. However, it may also depend strongly from the level of humbleness and overall attitude that such researchers are able to achieve. It may require much patience, work, good will and perseverance.
No.. Definitely not.. It is infinite but as long as one remain in our receiving organs it is finite.
Jayadevan,
You state that a finite device (the brain), operating for a finite amount of time, can process infinitely complex problems?
How did you show this to be true?
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