humanbeings

It is surprising how limited the human mind is. As by far the most intelligent entity yet known, we are surprisingly limited. Think about it.

We can not even recall fully a single moment of our lives. When in an unusually good, joyful situation, we might try mightily to commit it to memory with perfection. But we can't. Never can we ever remember the exact events, moment by moment, with full and total recall of all the crucial emotions, sensory stimuli, and temporal flow of events. Rather, we simply commit to memory an approximation. This approximation will only be recalled if we recall it to mind later a few times, pondering and savoring the memories. In fact, most of our memories, if not all, are really memories of memories, rather then memories of the actual events. What really gives our memories meaning is the connections our minds make between and among various memories, concepts, images and ideas.

We also can hold only a limited number of concepts in mind at one time. Maybe seven, maybe more; but the human mind cannot keep a whole book in mind at once, including all the details. We are marvelous at data compression; but we lack a lot in mental equipment.

In fact, we can imagine intelligences much greater than our own. We would like to be able to have total photographic and encyclopedic recall of limitless amounts of data and thoughts. We would
like to be able to perform much more complex mental manipulations in our heads. But we can't

The fact that we can imagine intelligences so much greater than our own may be our best quality. For we can help to create them.

To imagine that the human species as it now stands is the last and furthermost outpost on the evolutionary development of intelligence, heart, and soul is impossible. We are a way station, and we stand at the crossroads.

I strongly suspect that, for a long , long time, the future evolution of intelligence on earth and its environs will involve some combination of our own biologically based minds, in intimate symbiosis with computing machinery. To think that computing machinery can, all by its self, quickly duplicate the heart of man, the soul, the emotions, the love, the longings, is I suspect impossible. So I hypothesize an evolving society of humans in concert with "artificial intelligence", but merged into networks which we can not at this time anticipate.

In the longer run, who knows what form mind may take? We don't know. But it will continue to evolve. As it does, let us remember where we came from, our roots, our raising. There is much to cherish in our seemingly poor old human heritage.

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