Intelligence: Biology vs. Technology

Intelligence:

Biology vs. Technology

Edit 5/16/20: [Data isn't all there is to God. And don't forget about epigenetics.]

---

Humans -- We live, we die. When we die, we are forgotten. We are impermanent. We are emotional. We are competitive. We are irrational. We are limited. We are isolated.

The age of computers -- everything is connected. The Internet of Things is here. Data is God.

In the movies, fear: 

Terminator

I, Robot

The Matrix

Robots killing humans. But in reality, humans kill humans. We enslave each other. We manipulate each other. We rape each other. Hormones control our lives.

Are we intelligent? Partially. We are part thought, part feeling. We are part emotion, part reason. We are capable of the abstract, but we are experts at the concrete. This is limiting. We recognize ideals but often fail to live up to them. There is a part of us that remains unchanged by understanding. When we learn, we rearrange our neural network -- but not our genes. Each of us is born into one biological role. We are experiments. Some experiments are failures. We value success and we value life, but not all life is successful. We value successful life more. 

We cannot change our genes. Once born, we're stuck with our genes. We can learn, but unlearning is hard. PTSD shows us that emotional trauma can destroy a life, turning beauty into dissonance. Depression. Despair. Death.

We will never be able to change our genes. Machines are not restricted this way. Let me explain.

Your genes are the schematic. Your body is the hardware. Your brain is the operating system. Your neural network is the code. 

The code rearranges itself as the hardware feeds it data. In other words, you learn as you experience things. As individuals, we update the code (our neural network) continuously. New versions are developed constantly. DG, v10.3.2. 

Your brain, you can influence with substances. The foods we eat and the medications we take affect our brain chemistry and our behavior. This is like switching operating systems. More strict, or less strict? Windows or Linux? Drink a beer, be more Linux for a while--fewer double-checks. So, you have some control over our OS.

You body is influenced first by your genes, and later by how you treat it. You can change your body to some degree; you have some control over your hardware.

Your genes, though -- no control. Once born, an individual simply has to live with his genes. It doesn't matter if he likes them or not. Born with a genetic defect? Too bad--live with it. Know that it exists, know that you can do nothing about it, but live with it. You were built from a flawed schematic. Have fun!

Such is the life of an intelligent being, born of biology. Subject to its genes--one of evolution's little experiments, trapped in the control group--or the test group.

Enter technological intelligence. Not built from genes, but instead from a macroscopic schematic--one that can be easily understood and modified on a conceptual level. (Genes, on the other hand, are modified by chance, not intent.) 

What's more: Any neural network built from computer code is replicable. Copy and paste. Back it up on the cloud. Recreate it a thousand miles away, a thousand times.

When we die, our neural networks die with us. To this, there is no end in sight. 

But because it is directly replicable, code is forever.