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
