Modern life and intelligence

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So here's a thought.

Many people seem convinced that the amenities and relative ease of modern life are going to make us -- or in fact, are already making us -- dumber as a species.

However, many social neuroscience researchers think that our high intelligence is a direct result not of overcoming hardships, but of our extremely large (compared to other species) social networks. 

Modern social networks are vastly larger and more complex, with many more tiers of interaction, than social networks have ever been at any time in the past. It stands to reason that people who are better able to manage these huge social networks, and thus manage the multitude of associations between people and contexts, will be more liked, will be able to exploit potentially lucrative connections, will be more successful and thrive better, and ultimately will be more numerous, than those who are less able.

Therefore, if the social network hypothesis of intelligence is correct, over time the relative ease of our lives and technology which allows us to expand our social networks may ultimately make our species significantly more intelligent.

In other words, Facebook might be making us smarter.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well yeah. People also share lots of D.Y.I type stuff on facebook too. I learned a lot from youtube especially cooking/pc hardware/tinkering.

[Cain]

Hopefully one day Facebook will make us smart enough to not use Facebook.

Snark aside, I'd broadly agree, but I worry the easy atomization that most online social networking allows acts as a counterbalance to any overall social improvements by increasing polarization, groupthink and popular consensus over the exchange of knowledge.

[LMNO]

I think many people who believe social networking, i.e. technology, is making us dumber are also the people who want all those kids to get off their lawns.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

As much shit as I give social networks, I think it can have a couple of easily visible positive effects on intelligence: it publicly shames gross stupidity in a way never before possible, and it spreads information at light speed which means it raises the lowest common denominator of basic knowledge like nothing ever has before. It's hard to see it while it's happening, but the Information Age in general is bound to have at least as much of an impact on public education as Gutenberg did, and on an astronomically larger scale.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Hopefully one day Facebook will make us smart enough to not use Facebook.

Snark aside, I'd broadly agree, but I worry the easy atomization that most online social networking allows acts as a counterbalance to any overall social improvements by increasing polarization, groupthink and popular consensus over the exchange of knowledge.

It's also possible that both are true.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think many people who believe social networking, i.e. technology, is making us dumber are also the people who want all those kids to get off their lawns.

And are functionally the same as the ones who thought that the printing press would destroy civilization.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

As much shit as I give social networks, I think it can have a couple of easily visible positive effects on intelligence: it publicly shames gross stupidity in a way never before possible, and it spreads information at light speed which means it raises the lowest common denominator of basic knowledge like nothing ever has before. It's hard to see it while it's happening, but the Information Age in general is bound to have at least as much of an impact on public education as Gutenberg did, and on an astronomically larger scale.

I have noticed that it has had a profound effect on the dissemination of misinformation; the ease with which anyone can publish misinformation that supports their particular pet agenda, and the general public's lack of knowledge about vetting sources for credibility, means that millions of Americans sincerely believe that vaccines are full of poison and that fluoridating water is a toxic means for disposing of an industrial waste product.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

All they have to do is Google it, and there are hundreds of sources that support these claims. Also, that you can cure cancer with cannabis oil.

Speaking of which, I have a damn good story about an old friend of my boyfriend's. So, he had stage 3 cancer, which is pretty bad. Then he met this Jamaican healer, who convinced him to sell everything he owned and fly back with him to Jamaica and grow his hair and smoke as much marijuana as he could. Well, the healer set him up in a quaint little Jamaican shack on a cot, and took off with all his money, leaving him to die. Some people found him after a few days, and he came back to the US and started seeing a doctor up at OHSU who put him on some new treatments and his cancer went into remission. The end.

[MasterBlaster]

I don't know the first thing about neuroscience, but it seems that the general state of human intelligence at any point in history represents an adaptation to the environment. So, it makes sense that more complex networking would bring a certain development. But it also makes sense that this development be specific to the kinds of networks formed. In other words, people from the past would probably be baffled in our world, but only in relation to the specific features of our time, whereas we are all very smart about gadget-use and all that, but basically wilderness-dumb.

Is there evidence that the contemporary mind may be more able to solve problems in general?

[Cain]

Hopefully one day Facebook will make us smart enough to not use Facebook.

Snark aside, I'd broadly agree, but I worry the easy atomization that most online social networking allows acts as a counterbalance to any overall social improvements by increasing polarization, groupthink and popular consensus over the exchange of knowledge.

It's also possible that both are true.

Oh absolutely.  I don't see it as an either/or distinction, but a matter of competing tendencies and trends.  I hope the right one wins out...but some days, I don't have a lot of faith in that outcome

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Hopefully one day Facebook will make us smart enough to not use Facebook.

Snark aside, I'd broadly agree, but I worry the easy atomization that most online social networking allows acts as a counterbalance to any overall social improvements by increasing polarization, groupthink and popular consensus over the exchange of knowledge.

It's also possible that both are true.

Oh absolutely.  I don't see it as an either/or distinction, but a matter of competing tendencies and trends.  I hope the right one wins out...but some days, I don't have a lot of faith in that outcome

I actually think we're all gonna die or at least be flung back into a great dark age.

But yeah, if not, it will be interesting to see what happens.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't know the first thing about neuroscience, but it seems that the general state of human intelligence at any point in history represents an adaptation to the environment. So, it makes sense that more complex networking would bring a certain development. But it also makes sense that this development be specific to the kinds of networks formed. In other words, people from the past would probably be baffled in our world, but only in relation to the specific features of our time, whereas we are all very smart about gadget-use and all that, but basically wilderness-dumb.

Is there evidence that the contemporary mind may be more able to solve problems in general?

What you're talking about is acquired knowledge, not cognitive potential. And yes, at any given time in history our cognitive potential is utilized adaptively in accordance with the demands of our environment.

Yes, there is evidence that the contemporary mind may have a greater average cognitive potential than it has had historically, but there are a lot of conflicting hypotheses about why that is. To read about some of them, google "Flynn Effect". There's also a discussion about it on the board somewhere, but I don't remember what thread it's in. You might be able to find it with some clever searching.

[Dildo Argentino]

[...] many social neuroscience researchers think that our high intelligence is a direct result not of overcoming hardships, but of our extremely large (compared to other species) social networks.

Do you mean the social brain hypothesis? Could you name a few current proponents, please?

Modern social networks are vastly larger and more complex, with many more tiers of interaction, than social networks have ever been at any time in the past. It stands to reason that people who are better able to manage these huge social networks, and thus manage the multitude of associations between people and contexts, will be more liked, will be able to exploit potentially lucrative connections, will be more successful and thrive better, and ultimately will be more numerous, than those who are less able.

I think size and complexity are not the only things that have changed though. A Hungarian professor of human ethology, Vilmos Csányi, makes quite a convincing case for the claim that today's interpersonal relationships bear a closer similarity to intercultural relationships a few hundred years ago than to interpersonal relationships between people in the same monolithic culture, and that we are moving towards what could be termed single-person cultures: so the character of those very large and complex social networks is very different from those that gave rise (at least according to the social brain hypothesis) to the intelligence boost. The interpersonal relationships that persist in a tribe (I imagine) are very high bandwidth, including intimate knowledge of the other's physical appearance, gestures, moods: the kind of intimate attunement that most people these days have with only a much smaller number of people, many with none at all: while the hundreds of relationships they have with others are objectified, low bandwith, utilitarian and often also sub-clinically delusional, so to speak. In many relationships it is not particularly important for my representation of the other to be highly accurate, as long as I get the few important things right most of the time, it will do. So maybe these new kinds of social contexts are making us smarter, AND dumber, and probably different in other ways too.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I think we're reconfiguring our cognition. Who remembers phone numbers anymore? Who remembered seven digit numbers before there were phones? As tech does more stuff for us we can offload more and more of our cognitive function to it. GPS is better at nav than a brain so why bother using inferior brain-nav systems? Habit? Of course the downside is, unused functions will atrophy.

Once we have ubiquitous AR, things like facial recognition (an area that machines already outperform us on) will fall by the wayside. Leave the meat to do what it does best - creative problem solving, emotional intelligence, artistic shit. Ditch the stuff we're useless at - counting, memory, data analysis. We're already most of the way there. The stuff our current machines are doing are light years in advance of our capabilities but there's still this mechanical interface that prevents us outsourcing the last vestiges. Checking your change at the counter. Knowing what day it is. That'll pass.

We're becoming vastly more intelligent but it's an aggregate gain - us plus our technology.