The Future of Intelligence: Biological and Artificial

Description

It is not a scientist who is studying the human brain, it is, rather, the community of science. It has a complex structure of its own, with published papers, with frequent conferences, with communications in which different thinkers present different pictures, different interpretations, different observations. In kaleidoscopic fashion, these all melt together and grow almost without the volition of any individual, so that understanding increases at a speed and to an extent that any one person would find amazing. What we (who are intelligent but who have done no work on intelligence) need is someone who has followed the work being done on all the aspects of science that impinge on intelligence to present them to us in orderly fashion and, if possible, with his own thoughts and ideas added to the mix. This is precisely what Victor Serebriakoff has done. Himself a person of monstrous intelligence, he has obviously read, studied, and thought about every aspect of human intelligence, and here it is for us to share with him. - Isaac Asimov My hope is that the ideas or some others on similar lines may prove to be seminal. I say that because of my grave fear that that central and distinguishing aspect of our race, mankind, is being devalued and, worse, demeaned by a trend in modern thinking that is as genuine and compassionately motivated as it is dangerous. I refer to the trend to reject, despise and devalue excellence and especially the most important kind of excellence, cognitive excellence. This book is one man’s attempt to examine what he sees as the most important phenomenon in the universe, intelligence in all its many forms. - Victor Serebriakoff