Can We Derive Hope From Progress And People Becoming Smarter Over Time

[Hydrogen]

There is much discussion and debate over how humans developed the capacity to become extremely skilled at making tools, leading to the development of big brain social dynamics.

Some scientists claim the pack hierarchy of mammals coupled with the dyanamic social interactions it necessitates. Drove the evolution of primates, dogs and dolphins towards larger cubic area cognition in contrast to body size. Complex social interactions require the processing of greater volumes of data. Which leads the brains of pack animals towards gaining in mass over time. This trend could align with greater capacity for tool making. But of course there are other considerations. A larger brain size requires more energy. Which could allow for high energy warm blooded mammals to develop better in this area. In contrast to cold blooded reptiles who are more dependent upon temperature for energy generation.

In the title, I claimed "people are becoming smarter over time".

If it is true that pack animals developed larger brain sizes through the necessity of processing larger raw amounts of data in complex social interactions.

It is possible people of today. Will develop larger brain sizes. Through the necessity of processing larger volumes of raw data. Found in daily advertisements, commercials and internet content. Our society being proliferate with scams forces us to engage in critical thinking. If the average person is exposed to more than 2,000 advertisements and commercials per day. That could give them 2,000 more opportunities to engage in critical thought and consider how many of those ads are scams. Than those in a pre electronic era had to consider.

Degrees of hyper communication introduced by the digital era. Where people can not communicate using social media, email, phone texts and other avenues of communication. Could also hyper accelerate any brain gains that were originally made by an increase in pack based interactions.

Processing greater amounts of raw data being a necessity in a modern world. It is possible that the trend will drive human evolution in a way that forces us to use our brains more. The long term effects of which could lead to modern people being better equipped to solve problems using raw cognition in contrast to our predecessors of past eras.

This could result in people of the current era developing larger brains. Becoming smarter. Which might give us hope that we can better overcome some of the obstacles life throws at us.

[jackg]

I've been under the impression that intelligence is directly linked to how well the brain is able to make and revisit connections between neurons/ideas it's made.

It's certainly possible that the people who handle the most raw data, reading and information will have be able to become a lot more intelligent but I think there are other things too (such as receiving information in multiple formats, I can learn something well if someone else already knows it and can quickly explain it and then answer any questions that arise).

People that overload themselves with information though or ones who try to learn too quickly are likely to remain overloaded (eg notice patterns that don't exist) and make to bad decisions.

[Hydrogen]

I've been under the impression that intelligence is directly linked to how well the brain is able to make and revisit connections between neurons/ideas it's made.

It's certainly possible that the people who handle the most raw data, reading and information will have be able to become a lot more intelligent but I think there are other things too (such as receiving information in multiple formats, I can learn something well if someone else already knows it and can quickly explain it and then answer any questions that arise).

The only difference between artificial intelligence in 1970 and 2022 is the amount of data chips can process.

In past decades, there were no processors with the computational capacity to calculate every possible move in chess. Self driving AI cars did not become possible until processors had improved to a point where they could effectively process large streams of data fed to them by sensors and navigational equipment.

Based on surface observations of advances made in artificial intelligence. A direct correlation can be drawn between higher data processing capacity and intelligence.

People being exposed to larger streams of data and information in the form of radio, television and the internet. Coupled with greater systemic threats from the environment in the form of financial scams. Along with more avenues and options for communication and complex social interactions. Could all converge to drive human intelligence in an uptrend over the long term.

It is possible that we're already seeing evidence of this happening. While it may have taken many many years for people to accept heliocentrism and the concept of the world being a sphere, rather than flat. Today people might be far more willing to test, challenge and overturn their base assumptions. It could be one indication of human intelligence growing and developing at a faster rate, in contrast to previous eras of history.

[lovesmayfamilis]

In addition, it can be said that some fans of brain biohacking are very brave in order to use all sorts of nootropic drugs to further activate their thought processes. Medicine also does not stand still; all the drugs that are being developed to improve people's IQ naturally turn society into a devoured information source. Dave Asprey, author of the book "Brain Biohacking," talks about this very interesting topic.

[Maus0728]

In addition, it can be said that some fans of brain biohacking are very brave in order to use all sorts of nootropic drugs to further activate their thought processes.

I've been taking 30 mg of noopept every morning for a while, and I can attest that it does help daily to improve cognitive performance. I initially considered buying Adderall, but when I learned that it required a prescription and that you must have been diagnosed with ADHD, I instead looked for a nootropic that had effects comparable to ADD but didn't require a prescription and could be purchased over-the-counter (OTC) and luckily using BTC

The only drawback is that as the dose wears off, you start to feel lethargic, but generally, the heigtened focus and prolonged alertness are fairly useful, especially when engaging in activities that requires too much brain power or watching tutorials for an extended period of time.

[Gozie51]

Discussing human evolution and progress so far to being smarter than in the past, we have to look at the theories that have been formulated from one of the evolutionary, the study by Charles Darwin will be resourceful. With Darwin's theory we could see the evolutionary progress of humans until it got to the missing link from where humans became bipedal. There so much to discuss on that actually but the point is to say that human is the most gifted and talented to dominate the world with all sorts of innovation and creation to be able to adapt and subdue her environment which ascribes man to culture and traditions based on her environment and here the theory of adaptation and natural selection referred to Spencer deserves some thought. After I found a place in the bible (in Daniel 12) making reference that at the end time, knowledge will increase, I then got some understanding that it was natural that the increase are seen in all human lives like socio-economics, politics, religion, agriculture , now blockchain technological growth is the new rave.

[Upgrade00]

Processing greater amounts of raw data being a necessity in a modern world. It is possible that the trend will drive human evolution in a way that forces us to use our brains more. The long term effects of which could lead to modern people being better equipped to solve problems using raw cognition in contrast to our predecessors of past eras.

A counter argument could be that, the modern world involves use of computers and devices, many of which does most of the critical thinking for us, making people need to do less and hence process less amounts of information independently.
Simple tasks like typing is now heavily promoted by text predictors, which only requires the individual to enter the first 2 or 3 letters they associate to that word and it would take it from there, this has been linked to reduced ability to recognize spellings and word structure in some.

The era of search engines also means people retain less and consult Google at the slightest inquiry, as opposed to before, when learning was more practical.

This improved technology is of course a positive as it makes learning significantly easier and automated but the ease of it all could make the newer generation lazier overtime.

[fiulpro]

People becoming smarter ? We getting cyborgs and at the same time using machines everywhere, what you think is gonna happen ? There are loads of things happening as well in countries like Japan where people are getting their food delivered by the robots as well, I do think that this is just going to increase and get better over time as well. I think when we talk about people being intellectual beings, they will ofcourse get better over time, after homo erectus we got loads of new species, even lost the one with more cranial capacity. People will ofcourse become smarter to integrate themselves with the growing world there is also a epic research telling us how the brain have decreased in volume :

He rattles off some dismaying numbers: Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion.

It's definitely not the same as cranial capacity, intelligence is not like the movie where you take the pill and use 100% of your brain, it doesn't work like that, we use various sections every once in a while, this I do think when we are going to be processing data it would depend on your : environment+ genetics 🧬 but ofcourse the survival of the fittest is going to pertain.

[vv181]

A drawback about content economy is it's amplifying one worldview, especially if it is seen within a centralized social media. People are being bombarded by advertisements and algorithmic content, few questions that would arise is does it really benefit the brain as a whole? And how many percentages does people are really comprehending the near real-time content that they view with critical thinking/thought?

Do note that the information flow we could get is limited, and it is solely based on our choices. Most people are likely just freely let their life controlled by an eloquence machine learning that maximizes screen time.

[be.open]

I think that the level of access to education is growing on the planet, and the level of critical thinking, on the contrary, is falling. People in general are becoming more infantile, more suggestible. I am not too hopeful for positive quantitative progress in this regard, but I am sure that evolution has many interesting qualitative leaps up its sleeve for humanity. And perhaps our today's species disadvantages will tomorrow become our evolutionary advantages.

[Gyfts]

People being exposed to larger streams of data and information in the form of radio, television and the internet. Coupled with greater systemic threats from the environment in the form of financial scams. Along with more avenues and options for communication and complex social interactions. Could all converge to drive human intelligence in an uptrend over the long term.

It is possible that we're already seeing evidence of this happening. While it may have taken many many years for people to accept heliocentrism and the concept of the world being a sphere, rather than flat. Today people might be far more willing to test, challenge and overturn their base assumptions. It could be one indication of human intelligence growing and developing at a faster rate, in contrast to previous eras of history.

People are bound by their IQ, and IQ is purely genetic. Limiting environmental factors can reduce IQ (like malnutrition in poor countries) but your upper bound is still limited.

The rapid rise in information is mainly due to the internet, not an inherent upward trajectory in human intelligence. Over time, it's been recorded that human IQ's are increasing, but this is a generational observation and not attributable to what computational physics has given us.

If you're referring to fluid intelligence, then yes, the internet, radio, whatever, has absolutely made it easier to increase fluid intelligence.

[jackg]

The only difference between artificial intelligence in 1970 and 2022 is the amount of data chips can process.

In past decades, there were no processors with the computational capacity to calculate every possible move in chess.

Algorithms and tests came out to calculate processing with chess afaik. They still can't calculate what every move will do but they can use minimax and other algorithms to determine what the best immediate move will be.

We did still need the smaller computing chips for that but also better algorithms. There were thoughts a few years ago that they couldn't make a computer better at playing go (a strategy game) than normal players but one managed to compete using a neural network to do it.

Self driving AI cars did not become possible until processors had improved to a point where they could effectively process large streams of data fed to them by sensors and navigational equipment.

This is a lot more accurate since parallel processing a cheap peripherals came about. A lot of phones are able to compete with regular computers now too because of how compact technology has become.

It is possible that we're already seeing evidence of this happening. While it may have taken many many years for people to accept heliocentrism and the concept of the world being a sphere, rather than flat. Today people might be far more willing to test, challenge and overturn their base assumptions. It could be one indication of human intelligence growing and developing at a faster rate, in contrast to previous eras of history.

This will certainly be the case with the amount of knowledge sharing too that's available and free verifiable informstion that's given. As long as information can be verified (/proven) and is interesting/useful to the prover in some way then it'll be beneficial and memorable for them as long as they know how to retain it and remember what was fact and what wasn't.

Sadly, while most generic scams follow the same trends, some will always be outliers and innovative so there might be a long time before everyone understands and adapts to them (take the transition with crypto from ponzi schemes that relied on trust to signing airdrop tokens with malicious contracts to electrum's phishing attack).

People are bound by their IQ, and IQ is purely genetic. Limiting environmental factors can reduce IQ (like malnutrition in poor countries) but your upper bound is still limited.

The rapid rise in information is mainly due to the internet, not an inherent upward trajectory in human intelligence. Over time, it's been recorded that human IQ's are increasing, but this is a generational observation and not attributable to what computational physics has given us.

Environmental limits are less profound now than they have been historically (who knows for how long that'll last though).

Information accessibility has become easier generation to generation though. Schools aren't run by factories or transitioning from that and libraries and other publicly available spaces seem.more widespread than they were (as well as transportation making it easier to get around) - diesel/steam ships instead of rowing/sailing ones (and fewer people being limited to however far they or their horse could walk - if they had any free time they didn't want to spend with family).

I think that the level of access to education is growing on the planet, and the level of critical thinking, on the contrary, is falling. People in general are becoming more infantile, more suggestible.

I think people have always been infantile in their ways they've just found ways to hide it in the past/haven't been explicit with it or to pay people to hide it for them (in case of people considered nobles - royalty seems known for having jesters historically).

This might depend on which demographics you think have become more infantile though too.

[Hydrogen]

In addition, it can be said that some fans of brain biohacking are very brave in order to use all sorts of nootropic drugs to further activate their thought processes. Medicine also does not stand still; all the drugs that are being developed to improve people's IQ naturally turn society into a devoured information source. Dave Asprey, author of the book "Brain Biohacking," talks about this very interesting topic.

Improving basic health, nutrition and fitness is also a good method to reduce fatigue and brain fog. And better the thought process.

I think that the level of access to education is growing on the planet, and the level of critical thinking, on the contrary, is falling. People in general are becoming more infantile, more suggestible.

There are clips of youtube where people on the street are polled and unable to find australia on a map.

When we think of the past. We think only of the greats. Einstein, Newton, Leonardo Da Vinci. We estimate the intelligence of everyone who lived in those eras by their best, rather than their worst case scenario.

It is possible that the uneducated and uninformed of today. Are heads and shoulders smarter and more knowledgeable in contrast to their peers of past eras.

In the same way that women of today are probably hotter and healthier than women of centuries past. Simply due to improved health, sanitation and hygiene. Those health and cosmetic benefits might trickle down to higher intelligence and capability to think critically and solve problems as well.

People are being bombarded by advertisements and algorithmic content, few questions that would arise is does it really benefit the brain as a whole? And how many percentages does people are really comprehending the near real-time content that they view with critical thinking/thought?

Consumers being bombarded by commercials and ads triggered an arms race of suggestive content and defensive skepticism.

We're constantly forced into a position where our self interests align with suspension of blind belief in suggestive proposals and claims.

Con artists often target the elderly. A generation who didn't grow up being bombarded by commercials and ads. Who generally believe everything as a result.

In that age gap we might see people becoming smarter and more skeptical as a result of having been born and raised in an environment where they couldn't believe every commercial and ad to maintain their own health and wellness.

People becoming smarter ? We getting cyborgs and at the same time using machines everywhere, what you think is gonna happen ? There are loads of things happening as well in countries like Japan where people are getting their food delivered by the robots as well, I do think that this is just going to increase and get better over time as well. I think when we talk about people being intellectual beings, they will ofcourse get better over time, after homo erectus we got loads of new species, even lost the one with more cranial capacity. People will ofcourse become smarter to integrate themselves with the growing world there is also a epic research telling us how the brain have decreased in volume :

He rattles off some dismaying numbers: Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion.

It's definitely not the same as cranial capacity, intelligence is not like the movie where you take the pill and use 100% of your brain, it doesn't work like that, we use various sections every once in a while, this I do think when we are going to be processing data it would depend on your : environment+ genetics 🧬 but ofcourse the survival of the fittest is going to pertain.

A segment of the brain is devoted towards motor cortex -- control of muscles. It is possible the motor cortex portion of the brain is shrinking as people become less physically active and athletic in their daily lives. But this does not mean that people are becoming less intelligent imo.

The idea that people use only 15% to 25% of their brains is a quote out of context. Originally a researcher was famous for saying most people will only develop 15% to 25% of the full potential their brain is capable of. Somehow it was misquoted as people using only 15% to 25% of their brain, with the rest being unused.

I think most believe they're better off not knowing things and not learning or improving themselves. That's where the greatest resistance to progress comes from.

A counter argument could be that, the modern world involves use of computers and devices, many of which does most of the critical thinking for us, making people need to do less and hence process less amounts of information independently.
Simple tasks like typing is now heavily promoted by text predictors, which only requires the individual to enter the first 2 or 3 letters they associate to that word and it would take it from there, this has been linked to reduced ability to recognize spellings and word structure in some.

The era of search engines also means people retain less and consult Google at the slightest inquiry, as opposed to before, when learning was more practical.

This improved technology is of course a positive as it makes learning significantly easier and automated but the ease of it all could make the newer generation lazier overtime.

I would be interested to know how often people of past eras read.

If the average person who lived 200 years ago, read 50 words per day.

And the average person today reads 5,000 words per day on social media.

Could it be considered an upgrade?

The common claim is our pace of life having increased dramatically. If that claim holds true, it correlates with greater exposure to data and information. The content could be less relevant and fact based due to environmental differences. There are probably forces working for and against human intelligence in the current era. Just as in every era.

If nothing else, can we say that ancient people not having access to basic books and reading materials. With only an oral story telling tradition to rely upon for content. Would definitely be exposed to far less data in contrast to the modern world where we have developing stories, news and information being constantly directed at us from a massive number of sources.

[kryptqnick]

I think the problem isn't with the intellectual capabilities as much as it is with emotional intelligence and basic morality. People indeed need to process more information on daily basis now than they needed in the past. That doesn't mean people are more critical thinkers than they used to be, though, but I hope they largely are, especially because the world has never been such an educated place as it is right now. That being said, I too used to believe in human progress up until very recently. It was not because the events that happened were particularly out of place but rather because when they happened elsewhere, I didn't pay enough attention and didn't fully realize it. What I'm talking about if the Russo-Ukrainian war. If a country can still invade another to grab territories, if they can torture PoWs and civilians, almost completely destroy towns and cities, and YET the government and the troops of this country can maintain strong support within their country despite plenty of available evidence... If the rest of the world can weigh gas prices and utility bills over what now several countries recognize as genocide... I am not sure humanity is making progress and that there's hope in that. If after thousands of years of development and tons of terrible devastating wars and other things like the Holocaust people didn't finally figure out that terrible things must be prevented and that many things are completely unacceptable, have we really make ANY reasonable progress to be proud of? Technologically, maybe, but without moral progress, the technological progress poses a threat to become a weapon of greater destruction.

[Rruchi man]

It is possible people of today. Will develop larger brain sizes. Through the necessity of processing larger volumes of raw data.

If you study the concept of evolution and understand how scientists proposed that it has been working over the years you discovere that some features were prompted as a result of necessity. Take for instance the giraffe which scientist will tell you that originally did not have the long necks but developed it because of the habit of them eating leaves from the high branches of trees. do you do the necessity of processing larger volumes of raw data just as OP has highlighted, it is very possible that people will develop larger brains and become smarter over time.

[dothebeats]

But the thing is, the younger generation aren't keen in making themselves more intelligent and capable of thinking critically. They are so caught up in social media that they no longer think of anything other than their social image and getting viral. Also, the dietary habits of today's generation doesn't also help. If you want to enrich your brain, you also need to eat rich and healthy, but with food delivery apps and fastfood takeaways, I doubt they can achieve that.

Not a lot of youngsters are also engaged in reading and making their mind work. Technology has become so advanced that it also breed a generation of lazy people that doesn't want to think, just Google. While there are still some percentage that wants to get into STEM programs, or those who just wants to finish their degree and pursue a relevant job in line with what they studied, it's still worrying that they are overwhelmed by the number of people who just wants to make it big on the internet and do nothing. I personally don't think Man is becoming more intelligent over time. We might be developing larger brain sizes and all that, but the connections in the brain which are more important in memory retention and critical thinking skills might not be doing well.

[vv181]

People are being bombarded by advertisements and algorithmic content, few questions that would arise is does it really benefit the brain as a whole? And how many percentages does people are really comprehending the near real-time content that they view with critical thinking/thought?

Consumers being bombarded by commercials and ads triggered an arms race of suggestive content and defensive skepticism.

We're constantly forced into a position where our self interests align with suspension of blind belief in suggestive proposals and claims.

Con artists often target the elderly. A generation who didn't grow up being bombarded by commercials and ads. Who generally believe everything as a result.

In that age gap we might see people becoming smarter and more skeptical as a result of having been born and raised in an environment where they couldn't believe every commercial and ad to maintain their own health and wellness.

I don't think people became skeptic just because they were raised in a hostile commercial or ad environment. They might be immune toward of them, but they likely just shift away their belief toward somewhere else, we have known that people believe a single person or personal entity more rather than a brand, within the social media world speaking. The so-called influencer does really empower how the masses think and what kind of things get resonated.

Don't get me wrong, the idea of people constantly get a bullshit by any commercial or ads do somewhat likely benefit the people too, as what have you said. Nevertheless, generally speaking, IMO, the good does not outweigh the bad. The problem I tried to convey is fixated on how social media is widely bad for most people.

[Darker45]

Hope is indeed seen in the fact that technologies are developing quite fast. We've seen how human lives are becoming longer because of technological developments. We've seen how, despite the ballooning population, food is more or less readily available thanks, again, to technological progress. Explorations and, therefore, discoveries in so many areas of life and even the universe are a world faster because of technologies. There must be a lot hope in all of this.

Obstacles abound, however. But it would be another story.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Could also hyper accelerate any brain gains that were originally made by an increase in pack based interactions.

Eh.  Those "brain gains" you mentioned happen over an extremely long period of time, and nature gives us no guarantees that the trend will continue, right?

I don't believe people are or ever will become smarter in the long run.  Science will always give the world more knowledge as long as there are scientists, but if we're talking about intelligence....that won't happen unless it comes about as a result of long-term evolution.  And even then, it would have to be the frontal cortex that enlarges for that to happen.  If other parts of the brain become more functional/efficient, people might become more emotional, have greater dexterity, or have other gains related to brain function.

But that's all speculation.  I think technology is making a lot of folks less interested in learning and more focused on themselves and their image.

[davis196]

This could result in people of the current era developing larger brains. Becoming smarter. Which might give us hope that we can better overcome some of the obstacles life throws at us.

It took thousands of years for the homo sapiens sapiens to develop a bigger brain. Evolution takes a long time.
I actually think that internet makes us dumber, not smarter. The easier access to information makes our brains lazy. We don't properly analyze the tons of the information that we get online, which makes everything even worse.
The amount of online scams doesn't develop our critical thinking. If less people were falling into online scams, the scammers would simply find new ways to scam.
Living an unhealthy life makes us dumber, because the digestive system is really important for optimal cognitive function.
Sitting in front of a computer for hours and using a smartphone 24/7 definitely doesn't seem healthy.