Main point: yes neurons are not the best building block for communication speed, but you shouldn’t assume that increasing it would necessarily increase fitness. Muscles are much slower, retina even more, and even the fastest punch (mantris shrimps) is several time slower than communication speed in myelinated axons. That’s said, the overall conclusion that using neurons is an evolutionary trap is probably sound, as we know most of our genetic code is for tweaking something in the brain, without much change in how most neurons work and learn.
Tangent point: you’re assuming that 250IQ is a sound concept. If you were to pass an IQ test well designed for mouses, would you expect to reach 250? If you were to measure IQ in slim molt, what kind of result would you expect, and would that IQ level help predict the behavior below?
My point isn’t that blindly increasing neuron transmission speed would increase fitness. It probably would up to a point, but I don’t know enough about how sensitive the brain is to the speed of signals in a neuron to be sure. My point is that getting information from one part of the brain to another is clearly a fundamental task in cognitive processing and that the relatively slow speed of electrical signals is always going to be a limitation of neurons.
I think something like 250IQ is still a pretty sound concept, though I agree we would really benefit from better methods of measuring intelligence than the standard IQ test. For one, it would be helpful to measure subject-specific aptitudes.
“specific” My General intelligence is possibly above average but my maths co-processor is crap, my AiPU module for LLM is better than anyones, to the point I laugh at my own jokes in great pain, using the AiPU for maths is not great, I have a strong interior narrative, I am not a super-recogniser, not tone deaf, but have some weird fractal 2.23 mind’s eye (I can swap between wireframe rotations and rendered scenes plus some other stuff I cannot find words for)(def not aphantasic https://newworkinphilosophy.substack.com/p/margherita-arcangeli-institut-jean ), I have a good memory, auto-pilot is very strong and rarely get lost I think these two things are connected in me at least, about this memory thing my wife says I have a long memory and this is a bad thing. Putting all that into IQ is dumb.
Main point: yes neurons are not the best building block for communication speed, but you shouldn’t assume that increasing it would necessarily increase fitness. Muscles are much slower, retina even more, and even the fastest punch (mantris shrimps) is several time slower than communication speed in myelinated axons. That’s said, the overall conclusion that using neurons is an evolutionary trap is probably sound, as we know most of our genetic code is for tweaking something in the brain, without much change in how most neurons work and learn.
Tangent point: you’re assuming that 250IQ is a sound concept. If you were to pass an IQ test well designed for mouses, would you expect to reach 250? If you were to measure IQ in slim molt, what kind of result would you expect, and would that IQ level help predict the behavior below?
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/brainless-slime-mold-builds-a-replica-tokyo-subway
My point isn’t that blindly increasing neuron transmission speed would increase fitness. It probably would up to a point, but I don’t know enough about how sensitive the brain is to the speed of signals in a neuron to be sure. My point is that getting information from one part of the brain to another is clearly a fundamental task in cognitive processing and that the relatively slow speed of electrical signals is always going to be a limitation of neurons.
I think something like 250IQ is still a pretty sound concept, though I agree we would really benefit from better methods of measuring intelligence than the standard IQ test. For one, it would be helpful to measure subject-specific aptitudes.
“specific” My General intelligence is possibly above average but my maths co-processor is crap, my AiPU module for LLM is better than anyones, to the point I laugh at my own jokes in great pain, using the AiPU for maths is not great, I have a strong interior narrative, I am not a super-recogniser, not tone deaf, but have some weird fractal 2.23 mind’s eye (I can swap between wireframe rotations and rendered scenes plus some other stuff I cannot find words for)(def not aphantasic https://newworkinphilosophy.substack.com/p/margherita-arcangeli-institut-jean ), I have a good memory, auto-pilot is very strong and rarely get lost I think these two things are connected in me at least, about this memory thing my wife says I have a long memory and this is a bad thing. Putting all that into IQ is dumb.