In a recent intelligence explosion discussion, someone mentioned that Vinge didn’t seem to think that brain-computer interfaces would increase intelligence much, and cited Marooned in Realtime and Tunç Blumenthal, who was the most advanced traveller but didn’t seem all that powerful. I replied indignantly, “But Tunç lost most of his hardware! He was crippled!” And then I did a mental double-take and thought to myself: What the hell am I saying.
If the question is about what Vinge seems to think then this reasoning is perfectly appropriate. Tunc doesn’t really exist, but if you want to know what Vinge thinks, the details of the scenario that Vinge wrote are relevant—if Vinge wrote Tunc as not having much increased intelligence because he was crippled, this doesn’t show what Vinge thinks about increased intelligence in general.
Old post but...
If the question is about what Vinge seems to think then this reasoning is perfectly appropriate. Tunc doesn’t really exist, but if you want to know what Vinge thinks, the details of the scenario that Vinge wrote are relevant—if Vinge wrote Tunc as not having much increased intelligence because he was crippled, this doesn’t show what Vinge thinks about increased intelligence in general.