There is an enormous difference between “increase skull size” when already well into diminishing returns for brain size given only 1e9s of training data, and an improvement that allows compressing knowledge, externalizing it, and sharing it permanently to train new minds.
After that cultural transition, each new mind can train on the compressed summary experiences of all previous minds of the tribe/nation/civilization. You go from having only 1e9s of training data that is thrown away when each individual dies, to having an effective training dataset that scales with total extant integrated population over time. It is a radical shift to a fundemental new scaling equation, and that is why it is a metasystems transition, whereas increasing skull size is not.
Increasing skull size would also let you have much larger working memory, have multiple trains of thought but still with high interconnect, etc., which would let you work on problems that are too hard to fit in one normal human’s working memory.
I simply don’t buy the training data limit. You have infinite free training data from internal events, aka math.
More zoomed out, I still haven’t seen you argue why there aren’t more shifts that change the scaling equation. (I’ve listed some that I think would do so.)
There is an enormous difference between “increase skull size” when already well into diminishing returns for brain size given only 1e9s of training data, and an improvement that allows compressing knowledge, externalizing it, and sharing it permanently to train new minds.
After that cultural transition, each new mind can train on the compressed summary experiences of all previous minds of the tribe/nation/civilization. You go from having only 1e9s of training data that is thrown away when each individual dies, to having an effective training dataset that scales with total extant integrated population over time. It is a radical shift to a fundemental new scaling equation, and that is why it is a metasystems transition, whereas increasing skull size is not.
Increasing skull size would also let you have much larger working memory, have multiple trains of thought but still with high interconnect, etc., which would let you work on problems that are too hard to fit in one normal human’s working memory.
I simply don’t buy the training data limit. You have infinite free training data from internal events, aka math.
More zoomed out, I still haven’t seen you argue why there aren’t more shifts that change the scaling equation. (I’ve listed some that I think would do so.)