Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/393
#1 Fall 2008 27 ploying underpowered brains to continue devising superficial solutions to these ex- tremely serious problems. H+: I realize that it's not part of this project, but do you worry at all about the quality of the information that human brains will be linking to? In other words, if my brain is directly hooked up to the Internet, or more specifically to Wikipe- dia, I'm still going to experience the same frustrating quantity of crap — errors, ir- relevancies, and the tendency of Internet informational materials to exclude im- portant bits of data. PWE: I am very concerned with the data quality issue but when we consider the downside of what we might get with new technologies, we should carefully re- flect on the quality of what we already have and ask why and how it got that way. e reason our public discussions and databases give us some garbage out is because people put garbage in. Wikipedia has gotten much better over time and in many cases is sur- prisingly good, which shows that mature technologies eventually establish an ac- ceptable signal-to-noise ratio. One of the problems of the naturally evolved mind try- ing to sift through large amounts of data in a complex modern world is that we don't have efficient filters. We do have filters, lots of them, but they are not very good at rapidly sorting through complex data. is is another area that should benefit greatly from increasingly direct interfaces with computers. But your question raises some very vexing downstream questions that will take a long time to sort out. Nevertheless, we're already painfully aware of excessive noise in at least parts of our essential com- munications systems like the Internet, and we feel the impact from time to time. is is a really serious problem, and like any other really serious problem, faster and more ac- curate learning and memory, and increased overall cognition and intelligence, should contribute to more rapid and satisfactory solutions. H+: Do you see a relationship between this project and neural performance en- hancement oriented projects like brain exercises, nutrients, and "smart drugs?" PWE: I'd say there's only a weak rela- tionship. I'm certainly an advocate of those approaches since they're all we've got right now; but their potential is very limited rela- tive to what we would like to accomplish — although, right now I'd be happy with anything to remind me to return emails or phone calls on time! It might sound a little futuristic at this point but I think for what we'd like to achieve there is a much greater upside to investments in brain im- aging, biocompatible materials science, mi- croelectronics, and information technology, than in inherently weaker approaches for tweaking our existing biology. I support the continuation of basic research on brain function using brain exercises, drugs, and other approaches but I'd like to see each person thinking "outside the box" that sits on his or her shoulders. We have expanded our intelligence and reach in unexpected ways in the past and I'd like people to contemplate possible future expansions. Richard Dawkins' seminal book e Extended Phenotype is an exploration of the selection for genotypes that result in organisms creating various extensions of themselves, including physical extensions of their biological selves (a more succinct treatment can also be found in the second and later editions of e Selfish Gene, in the chapter "e Long Reach of the Gene"). is process can be very abstract; it can ex- tend to the establishment of various novel relationships and can be extremely reward- ing. Consider our relationship with dogs. Dogs are not just a human's best friend, they are one of our greatest creations ... well, we didn't exactly create dogs as much as cultivate them from a preexisting spe- cies, the wolf. But everyone knows a dog is not equivalent to a wolf. We used a crude but effective understanding of trait-based selective breeding to enrich our proto-dog companions for behavioral tendencies to herd, protect, hunt, and probably to show obvious appreciation and affection for us. ey have intelligences and abilities that are complementary to ours and we turned a marginal initial relationship. into an ex- tremely mutually rewarding relationship that we valued then and probably value even more now because they have become increasingly what we wanted them to be. I think we should go forward with an extremely optimistic belief that we can es- tablish even more rewarding and comple- mentary relationships with other intelli- gences — including one another — by all becoming more like we'd like ourselves and others to be. the human brain is a magnificent… collection of abilities, but for fast and accurate storage and retrieval of important information, even a humble keychain flash drive has overtaken us. Resources InnerSpace Foundation www.InnerSpacefoundation.org Brain Stimulant brainstimulant.blogspot.com Brain Waves brainwaves.corante.com I m a g e b y D C S p e n s l e y