The Leverage and Centrality of Mind by Alexander Hoekstra and Preston Estep

Dear Turil,

We agree that many people are operating at low efficiencies on multiple levels. But we also believe that people functioning at their peak aren't either necessarily or sufficiently able to sustain humanity's current trajectory. People's brains (and general biology) have been selected for a slower and simpler time, and are maladapted to the complex world we have created. We simply don't have the rational foresight to manage this complexity. To survive and thrive we need to design and engineer minds specifically for this purpose.

Hello Tommaso,

Thanks for taking the time to read our essay carefully enough to detect similarities with Sabine Hossenfelder's essay. We agree that there are clear parallels in our summaries of current problems, although, as you point out, our proposed solutions are very different. We are in agreement that the root cause of human problems is the inabilities of what we call the "mind lost in time," but she believes it can be trained and tricked in various ways by diversions and rote adherence to individual and social constructs. We agree that this works to some degree, but we disagree that this will lead to sustained progress and to our best possible future, since some aspects of the mind are even more problematic than she realizes. We have commented on her essay. Take a look if you are interested.

Good question about mind and brain. Only after we uploaded the essay did we realize we should have defined these critical terms. Try these: The mind is a conceptual construct embodied by the functions of the brain together with the nervous and endocrine systems. We also accept that other kinds of minds are possible, including those consisting of non-biological systems.

Dear Ross,

Thank you for reading our essay and thank you very much for your kind words. How to go about making better minds is such an enormously complex topic that we thought it best to simply begin by making the argument we did, i.e. that it is the most efficient way to approach humanity's many disparate problems. As your comment affirms, this seems somewhat obvious, but our essay appears to be the only one in this competition to explicitly propose this as a general solution (although a few others focus on better thinking).

You raise two important and challenging issues. First, how to achieve levels of ability beyond normalcy is a key and difficult question. Nevertheless, there are some clues to how such things might be accomplished. For example, see this recent news article suggesting that reconfiguring the brain can release suppressed talents (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/06/brain-injury-jason-padgett-math-genius_n_5273609.html). Your second point is potentially even more challenging. We can only say that such questions are best answered at the highest levels with great deliberation. We envision and advocate an open, civilian project that would dwarf the space race. We need an international collaborative effort to tackle these issues, rather than leave mental enhancement to individual secret and military organizations around the world.

We'll take a look at your essay. Thanks again.

Dear Petio,

Thank you for taking time to read our essay and for understanding the limits of what we are able to address in the space available. Indeed, this is a major and complex issue. And thank you very much for your kind words.

Dear Mr. Fisher,

Thank you for your comments. We're sorry you are so displeased. Since you are already unhappy with our essay, we hope you don't mind much that we refer to your dismissal above and your own essay as Exhibit A and Exhibit B to support our case.

P.S., I will use the following rating scale to rate the essays of authors who tell me that they have rated my essay:

10 - the essay is perfection and I learned a tremendous amount

9 - the essay was extremely good, and I learned a lot

8 - the essay was very good, and I learned something

7 - the essay was good, and it had some helpful suggestions

6 - slightly favorable indifference

5 - unfavorable indifference

4 - the essay was pretty shoddy and boring

3 - the essay was of poor quality and boring

2 - the essay was of very poor quality and boring

1 - the essay was of shockingly poor quality and extremely flawed

After all, that is essentially what the numbers mean.

The following is a general observation:

Is it not ironic that so many authors who have written about how we should improve our future as a species, to a certain extent, appear to be motivated by self-interest in their rating practices? (As evidence, I offer the observation that no article under 3 deserves such a rating, and nearly every article above 4 deserves a higher rating.)

Indeed, and I see that the way to design more effective minds is to focus on how to give them the resources they need to grow healthfully. We have yet to have healthy brain development because we've either been suffering from deficiencies or toxicities, or both, but once we look to supporting our biology in getting the food, water, air, warmth, light, information, and ways to express excess stuff, we'll start to see both individual and collective brains truly achieve greatness. And yes, some of that will involve technology, both adding to our biology internally, and connecting our ideas externally with some artificial intelligence sort of element, I imagine. But again, at the core of all this is supporting the biology, so that it no longer is held back by low quality crap mucking up the system, and getting in the way of our brains honestly functioning at their peak, and able to do all sorts of things that no one imagined humans might be able to do.

Dear Hoekstra, Preston,

I must say am happy I got to read your essay. It was erudite.

But your view of the human mind is very much that of sabine hossenfelder's essay. And her's even goes ahead to show how we may "improve" (meddle) with the brain unlike yours (thankfully).

It seems to me such views as expressed by your two essays stem from putting way too much weight on the present understanding of Darwin's theory of evolution. This theory is not even "quantized" yet. Here is what I mean, any progression (picture a stair case) can be viewed MINIMALLY in two ways: as an ascendance (in the Darwinian sense that the mind has evolved from lower life and hence will continue to evolve; as negative entropy) or as a descendance (in the sense of entropy in 2nd law of thermodynamics so that the mind is an ideal state like ideal gas which observably degrades into non-life phenomena).

These two views are not choice to be made, they are LOGICAL NECESSITY; any successor function must have this dual property (similar to a wave/corpuscular nature). So Darwin's theory is only one side of the picture, it is classical; it has yet to be "quantized".

However, your basic thesis is to me most inspiring namely: to manage the future of man we must manage his mind/mindset. You say, "Minds are central; they are the foundation of humanity's past, its present, and its future. Human minds are the root cause of all problem-solving inefficiencies, but they are also the only creative engines capable of taking on each of these challenges, and of designing and building a better future."

I think your essay deserves better rating and am going to give it but I'll appreciate your own critique of my own approach

to this subject.

Best,

Chidi

Dear Alexander and Preston,

As, Observational science is prime for all scientific developments; your conclusion on science that is young, indicates that the Observational science is not matured enough to proceeds with further scientific developments, though the technological developments is on proliferation.

This is causal for the imperfections in technological developments that effect re-engineering and constant up-gradations, causing environmental degradation, economic impairment and wastage of human efforts.

For the development of observational science, defining the nature and emergence of time is much imperative, in that I agree mind is central to analyse the past with the present for predicting the future.

Thus redefining the nature of matter to describe the emergence of time with the dynamics of the substrate of mind, is fundamental.

With best wishes,

Jayakar

Alex and Preston,

Your focus on improving minds is noteworthy. All needs, problems and changes we face start there. Our current course has taken us closer to an environmental Armageddon. Our attitudes are comfort-based rather than long-term survival based.

Like your essay I speak to the mind as a microcosm of the universe, containing our past, present and our future. That is my "looking within" My "looking beyond" involves an escape from solar-system-based thinking.

The changes we need do start with the mind.

Good job.

Jim

I find that I rated it on the 15th.

Preston and Alex,

Thank you for an interesting essay. I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but my own views are somewhat less pessimistic about the current state of human minds.

For instance, you say that "human minds are not good at science" (bottom of p.2); I would say that they are fairly good at science, but of course not spectacularly good (compared to what more advanced intelligences could achieve). Let us remember, for instance, that we already understand gravity well enough to predict in advance the complex trajectory of a probe to Saturn, and it gets there 10 years later within seconds of the predicted arrival time. (And we haven't even yet unified General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics!)

You say that the proof that humans minds are not good at science is that good science "would be capable of assuaging most or all human suffering", and since there is still suffering, either we don't care or we're not intelligent enough. But I would say that, compared to the often idealized but in practice fairly short and painful lives of our ancestors, we've made significant progress -- even though we've created new problems and the benefits of civilization are not optimally distributed.

At the very end of your essay, you briefly propose that we should start by removing the limitations of the human mind by focusing on eradicating mind diseases, and then proceed to enhance normal minds via mind engineering (but you do not give any specifics). I would say that our minds are already somewhat enhanced by the ability to Google information, the ability to communicate with like-minded individuals without ever having met them (like we are doing right now), and the availability of mind-empowering software like Wolfram Alpha -- for a physicist, it's like having a math co-processor in your brain! To this rudimentary form of AI (augmented intelligence), the next decades may very well add true AI (general artificial intelligence), and the synergy between our limited brains and these new forms of intelligence will hopefully help us to steer the future better.

I completely agree with you when you say that "understanding the present well enough to predict the future with reasonable accuracy is an extremely important type of intelligence, and it contributes to good science". In that respect, any effort that we make to raise our abilites (via the Futurocentric Education Initiative that I propose, or via mind engineering, or why not both) should be beneficial.

I hadn't yet rated your essay, and I just did. Good luck in the contest!

Marc

Hello Alexander & Preston

You suggest that 'there is only one most-efficient strategy' & it is 'fixing and improving minds'.

In my essay "How Should Humanity Steer the Future ?" by Margriet Anne O'Regan, I point out that if we follow nature's laws to the letter the universe will allow us to ascend to its highest existential plane - indeed propel us all the way up there - which high status among other boons would have us well-nigh omniscient - that is to say, having (near) perfect minds in the possession of (almost) complete wisdom including exactly how to fix everything - both our minds & our circumstances.

Nature has been busily 'fixing & improving' our minds ever since life began on this earth & barring the rise of patriarchy (gulp !!!) we humans would have been there by now !!!!!

Please read & rate my essay to see what I mean ????!!!

I enjoyed your essay,

Margriet.

Alexander and Preston,

You and I are totally in sync on "As circumstances change dramatically, so must our thinking". Your references to Copernicus, Galileo and Newton are also in my essay (here).

We also agree on "human minds are the foundation of humanity's past, present and future".

Your essay stops with the point that a change in thinking is necessary while I go on to make the case for individual action on a global scale as the next step.

I look forward to your comments on my essay (here).

-- Ajay

Dear Alexander and Preston,

Wonderful and important essay. Yes I concur that "Minds are central; they are the foundation of humanity's past, its present, and its future." Yes science is the most important of mankind discovery and treasure. Without it, we shall extinct as a species. However, uncontrolled science not governed by Scientific Outlook Rule of Law and Principle would also doom our species because we will create our own final creation, they would cause us to extinct as a species. Just like our previous ancestors of single and multicellular cells created and distributed us, Homo sapiens, we regard our ancestors as inferior species that fit only as our goods and we eat them.

However this gift of abstract thought is threaten by self interested government-religious and even pseudo-scholars alliance. Science could be made as the tool of oppression and it can be silence like it was in the past both in the West and East. We must be alert to this real danger lurking from everywhere. That is why we must eliminate ignorance and scarcity and we must advance wisdom, knowledge and abundance as quickly as possible before the force of darkness reigns supreme again. We must work together to build the force of light reigns not only our earth but also the whole universe. Xuan Yuan's Anti-entropic Operating System 2.0 as the force of light reins all Existence.

From my research in China, science started a very long time ago about 5000-4711 years ago founded by Fu Xi and Xuan Yuan who founded the concept of Bagua that all things are represented by digital eight trigrams (Ôÿ░ Ôÿ▒ Ôÿ▓ Ôÿ│ Ôÿ┤ ÔÿÁ ÔÿÂ ÔÿÀ). Interestingly, Pythagoras similarly stated about two thousands years later: "All things are numbers." Somehow and fortunately, Pythagoras' abstraction of reality despite of up and down took hold in the West. Unfortunately, Fu Xi and Xuan Yuan's science as the abstraction of reality did not take hold in China as was the case in the West. I would add the Aristotle's conception of A = A as a crucial layers of abstraction that help launch the scientific revolution in the West and now the whole world. However, I must note that Aristotle's hypothesis A = A has been overthrown with the discovery of Quantum Mechanics. Now science is facing a great challenge as you put it from "conventionalism" and I would add from special interested group who would like man to be kept in the dark and not able to see the light. They want to keep Humanity in the darkness covered by ignorance and scarcity. So that they will be in charged and would get most of the benefits.

Please look at and comment on my essay. I rated your important essay 10 as it deserved.

Thanks for sharing and hopefully we shall work together in the future to improve the state of Existence.

Best wishes,

Leo KoGuan

Joe,

I am worried, I think you are starting to make sense.

Don Limuti

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your question on my page, I'm sure our exchange will provide clarification for many. I've responded, and have added the intriguing essay you and your colleague have prepared to my list. All the best to you both!

Warmly,

Aaron

Dear Alex and Preston,

Your collaboration has resulted in a fantastic essay! I especially liked the following statement: "The most efficient and generalizable solution to all human problems is to enhance our fundamental abilities to solve problems." That is an exciting approach to helping our species, and I believe that your genetic work could very well eventually play a key role in that lofty goal, provided certain technological hurdles are overcome and legislative questions are answered to everyone's satisfaction. I found your website and I am intrigued by the scope and importance of your contributions.

I have rated your essay highly and I wish you both continued success!

Sincerely,

Aaron

Hi Alex and Preston,

Thanks for the interesting essay. I agree with it, except for one aspect - I think that intersubjective effects need further attention. From some perspectives people are a result of the cumulative effects of all their interactions with others. So it is the interactions themselves that are critical (mental health can be improved with "talk therapy", just by interacting with another). Just as weightlifting, running, and shooting baskets by yourself cannot make you a "good" basketball player, improving the function of the brains in a society cannot solve the larger ills of that society which result from collective dysfunction. Individual work is necessary, but not sufficient for the benefits.

You might be interested in my essay on computationally intelligent personal dialogic agents. A prototype was developed as part of a National Science Foundation CAREER award to investigate approaches to team training. The prototype can deliver guidance, education, and interventions with an android device, in the moment of action.

I'd appreciate a rating on my essay, if you can do that, since I am a bit short on ratings. I'm also interested in collaborators to further develop the dialogic web. If you know of someone that might be interested, please give them my contact info. My gmail username is my first name, then a period, then my last name.

Thanks,

Ray Luechtefeld, PhD