[aurareturn]

I know it must be obvious but this proves to me that biological intelligence hasn't nearly reached its peak. If we select for pure intelligence, biological brains can get much smarter. Imagine if we had 5 million geniuses as smart or smarter than Tao doing quantum physics. But life doesn't select for pure intelligence, it selects for survival.

In the Dune books, they banned computers so they bred super mentally capable humans.

[keiferski]

Sure. But it doesn’t really seem clear to me that selecting for intelligence actually results in a better world. It’s a fallacy to think that intelligence = more rational or immune to human flaws, as a cursory glance at any “intelligent” social group should make obvious.

I think we’d be better off optimizing for conscientiousness or empathy, frankly. Even a world run by gardeners would probably be more beautiful and meaningful than one run by math geniuses.

[PaulHoule]

Physics is not stuck because we don't have smart theoreticians who have good ideas: it is stuck because we don't have big enough particle accelerators and detectors to distinguish correct from incorrect theories.

[illuminator83]

Intelligent people tend to reproduce a lot less than other people. You wanna be average (or slightly above) for the best chance at successful procreation. And hyper-intelligent people are especially bad at procreation.

[riffraff]

it's been a while, but I think mentats in Dune are trained not bred. Also, they use mind enhancing drugs (sapho juice IIRC). Which I guess makes a interesting point too, though different from yours :D

(I do agree biological intelligence is not close to its peak)

[SirHumphrey]

There is a slightly unexplored tangent in Brave New World about an experiment on Cyprus, where a society of humans bread to be intelligent descended in to civil war because nobody wanted to do menial work.

[lupire]

This is the theory of Elite Overproduction

[baxtr]

Interesting thought experiment.

The question is: what do we want to optimize for?

Minimize pain and suffering for humans? The spread of mankind throughout the universe?

I’m pretty sure your idea would help with the latter. Not so sure about the former tbh.

[Jolter]

Strictly speaking, evolution selects for viable offspring, not simply surviving. But that’s a nitpick, quite beside your point.

[Simon321]

> Imagine if we had 5 million geniuses as smart or smarter than Tao doing quantum physics.

This is a real possibility in our lifetimes due to AI.

[indy]

Careful, we live in a society which has taken a side in the nature vs. nurture debate and if you're deemed to be on the wrong side of that then you'll be accused of being a nazi

[jama211]

Not sure it works like that, I think his biggest superpower was intrinsic motivation. Any child who read maths textbooks with enthusiasm for 3-4 hours a day for years could in theory at least get close to doing what he did, but what kid had that level of motivation?

[jonahx]

> Any child who read maths textbooks with enthusiasm for 3-4 hours a day for years could in theory at least get close to doing what he did

No, they couldn't. And neither could most adults, for that matter.

Innate ability is real.

[apt-apt-apt-apt]

The important factors seem to be intrinsic motivation and other good mental faculties like great memory for concepts and formulas, understanding.

It's hard to say whether the motivation came from the good skills (understanding, memory) e.g. "I'm good at this, I like it!", or that the good skills came from the motivation. I believe both are important though, and that they are intertwined.

[weatherlite]

No .. not really. Not even close. Just like even if I practiced music 8 hours a day I wouldn't be able to come up with the music Kurt Cobain has or Mozart. There are plenty of musicians who try really hard but lack the innate talent - at best they can learn to play other people's music but never can come up with good original music, at least not something other people want to hear.

As someone wrote here innate ability is a real thing

[aurareturn]

  Any child who read maths textbooks with enthusiasm for 3-4 hours a day for years could in theory at least get close to doing what he did, but what kid had that level of motivation?

There is no way this is true. I've met and worked with enough people to know that not everyone has the same mental ability. There are some exceptionally sharp people and many dim witted ones too.

[alisonkisk]

There are probably hundreds of people on this site who had the same enthusiasm for math and time dedication as Terence Tao, but lacked his extreme outlier fluid intelligence, processing speed, perfect memory, and even handwriting talent(!). Terence Tao mastered calculus at an age when most future-mathemician geniuses weren't yet strong readers of chapter books.

[mmooss]

Another requirement is the emotional capacity at 8 years old to focus, feel confident, and feel safe.

I think that is the main obstacle to most people doing highly effective work and putting in long hours. You hear some call people who don't 'work hard' lazy, but my impression is that it's emotional capacity, and a lot of that comes from family.

I wonder if there is a correlation between prodigies and emotionally stable, healthy, present parents. It's hard to imagine children under a lot of stress - e.g., from abusive parents, highly unreliable parents (e.g., overwhelmed by addictions to drugs), emotionally unstable parents (e.g., narcissists), highly neglectful parents (e.g., who abandon their kids) ... - it's hard to imagine those kids doing what Tao did, regardless of their talent.

[cm2012]

There is a massive body of research showing this is not true

[markus_zhang]

I actually agree with you on the first part, that is his super power is more on that persistence. But I’m not sure about the second part.

[qsera]

I think it has to be both. You need some ability to understand and thus find happiness in the thing that you are reading which leads to the motivation.

[bendbro]

I take it you've never met another human before