I’ve talked here before how history can be seen as a sequence of periods of steady exponential growth, separated by a few sudden jumps to new modes. A new paper in Science offers a nice concrete model of how a new mode can be triggered by an old mode reaching a particular level. In this case the new mode is humans using culture to share and improve complex behavior like art and tool construction. The model says the new mode was not possible until humans were dense enough so that skill improvements from groups copying each other could overcome the tendency of a lone group’s skills to devolve.
I've solved the puzzle of reflection in AI that long stumped ... er certain other people... for so long. I will post a short abstract of my solution in next month's Open Thread, publically proving once and for all that *my* Reflection trumps *his* IQ. Robin, that next post in the Open Thread will be my last on this blog - promise ;)
The traditional timeline looks something like this:
* Hunting & Gathering;* Herding 15,000 BC;* Agricultre 10,000 BC;* Urban 8000 BC - cities form;
Agriculture and group living seem fairly strongly associated with each other. Living in groups allowed humans to specialise - and move away from the shaman-hunter-gatherer-chief model into one where there were many different roles in society.
The guy was agreeing with you (I think) and constrasting your post to what he thinks Eliezer believes. And don't be so jealous of Eliezier stealing your thunder :/.
I think that technological and cultural innovation receives its main support from the luxury of leisure. Or, I suppose more accurately, the time to focus on things other than the immediate. If this were true, the first innovations would have begun simply due to economies of scale, which is what I think this shows. I'm not sure what precipitated the agricultural revolution, but I don't think it could have happened had people not been secure enough in their situation to wait in one place for months for their main food supply to mature. You would expect similar boosts from the invention of slavery and the industrial revolution, as the returns to small inputs in labor became high enough to support more and more people working outside of the survival sector (although I'm not sure the latter is possible in a society until the former is removed).
mjgeddes, perhaps it escaped your attention that I not Eliezer was the author of the post, which had nothing to do with IQ? Eliezer doesn't even post here at OB anymore. Perhaps you could take your obsession with him somewhere else?
What this tells us once again is that Eliezer Yudkowsky is wrong about everything. IQ is not the most powerful force in the universe. It's the interaction/communication/signalling between agents that resulted in the explosion of innovation, not any increase in raw IQ.
And what cognitive ability does interaction/communication/signalling involve? Clearly, the ability to form analogies (mappings) between between concepts - the core aspect of communication, i.e. case-based reasoning.
The most powerful force in the universe is reflection (the ability to translate between and communicate different knowledge representations), not intelligence. It's actually this reflective/communicative/signalling ability that's at the heart of the growth mode jumps.
I recently returned to this site after an extended break and read a large number of posts in rapid succession. I noticed that a very high %, at least 6 of the last 7 posts, were about explaining some phenomena via status signaling or the desire to be associated with high status individuals.
There are a lot of things going on, and most phenomena have a multitude of causes. This many posts about one this smells like a pet theory. That doesn't mean any of the posts are wrong, they may all be right, but it should set off alarm bells in your head.
> So did the efficient exchange of farming innovations require a different higher density threshold, or did farming require a certain minimum accumulation of tech abillities, or what?
More likely, it required a certain accumulation of genetic adaptations in domesticated species, rather than technologies. These behave similarly, in that they require a minimum population density to sustain trade networks to carry seeds; but unlike technology, they also accumulate over time in a way that's much harder to lose.
ShardPhoenix,
I've solved the puzzle of reflection in AI that long stumped ... er certain other people... for so long. I will post a short abstract of my solution in next month's Open Thread, publically proving once and for all that *my* Reflection trumps *his* IQ. Robin, that next post in the Open Thread will be my last on this blog - promise ;)
The traditional timeline looks something like this:
* Hunting & Gathering;* Herding 15,000 BC;* Agricultre 10,000 BC;* Urban 8000 BC - cities form;
Agriculture and group living seem fairly strongly associated with each other. Living in groups allowed humans to specialise - and move away from the shaman-hunter-gatherer-chief model into one where there were many different roles in society.
The guy was agreeing with you (I think) and constrasting your post to what he thinks Eliezer believes. And don't be so jealous of Eliezier stealing your thunder :/.
Elizezer is all about reflection, and I don't think he's ever been obsessed with "IQ" in the shallow way you're accusing him of here.
I think that technological and cultural innovation receives its main support from the luxury of leisure. Or, I suppose more accurately, the time to focus on things other than the immediate. If this were true, the first innovations would have begun simply due to economies of scale, which is what I think this shows. I'm not sure what precipitated the agricultural revolution, but I don't think it could have happened had people not been secure enough in their situation to wait in one place for months for their main food supply to mature. You would expect similar boosts from the invention of slavery and the industrial revolution, as the returns to small inputs in labor became high enough to support more and more people working outside of the survival sector (although I'm not sure the latter is possible in a society until the former is removed).
Nice affinities with recent work of Axelrod. Some version of Kuramoto model could be used here also.
evil, this is my person blog, and signaling is one of my interest areas. Why should I not focus my post topics on my interest areas?
mjgeddes, perhaps it escaped your attention that I not Eliezer was the author of the post, which had nothing to do with IQ? Eliezer doesn't even post here at OB anymore. Perhaps you could take your obsession with him somewhere else?
What this tells us once again is that Eliezer Yudkowsky is wrong about everything. IQ is not the most powerful force in the universe. It's the interaction/communication/signalling between agents that resulted in the explosion of innovation, not any increase in raw IQ.
And what cognitive ability does interaction/communication/signalling involve? Clearly, the ability to form analogies (mappings) between between concepts - the core aspect of communication, i.e. case-based reasoning.
The most powerful force in the universe is reflection (the ability to translate between and communicate different knowledge representations), not intelligence. It's actually this reflective/communicative/signalling ability that's at the heart of the growth mode jumps.
John Hawks discusses the paper here.
Robin,
I recently returned to this site after an extended break and read a large number of posts in rapid succession. I noticed that a very high %, at least 6 of the last 7 posts, were about explaining some phenomena via status signaling or the desire to be associated with high status individuals.
There are a lot of things going on, and most phenomena have a multitude of causes. This many posts about one this smells like a pet theory. That doesn't mean any of the posts are wrong, they may all be right, but it should set off alarm bells in your head.
So the $million question is: what does this tell us about the next transition?
> So did the efficient exchange of farming innovations require a different higher density threshold, or did farming require a certain minimum accumulation of tech abillities, or what?
More likely, it required a certain accumulation of genetic adaptations in domesticated species, rather than technologies. These behave similarly, in that they require a minimum population density to sustain trade networks to carry seeds; but unlike technology, they also accumulate over time in a way that's much harder to lose.