Re: answers I'd like from an SI

From: Norman Noman (overturnedchair@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Nov 13 2007 - 19:05:24 MST


On Nov 12, 2007 5:55 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13/11/2007, Norman Noman <overturnedchair@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, speaking from personal experience, I can explain general
> > relativity in nontechnical terms a hell of a lot better than I've seen
> > anyone else do it, and I find it hard to believe my explanation is the
> > best one.
>
> Maybe so, but what about, say, teaching reading and writing without
> rewiring a child's brain? Do you really think that even a godlike
> intelligence could improve more than marginally than the methods used
> over the centuries by human teachers? Maybe there are some things we
> feeble-minded creatures have figured out as well as it possible to
> figure them out.

Yes, I do think a godlike intelligence could improve on these methods,
tremendously. The performance you can squeak out of even simple
systems is often mind-boggling. The way a superintelligence would
teach a kid to read, if efficiency was its only goal, would be like a
videogame speedrun, an antenna produced by evolutionary algorythms, a
busy beaver turing machine, and a langford basilisk all rolled into
one. It would appear to be insane. And it would be impossibly fast.



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