Algernon's Law 1.1

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Evolution at this point would consist primarily of small optimizations that make us less vulnerable to insanity and other inconveniences. Since many of the major cognitive mechanisms are evolutionarily recent, there should be few super-interdependent mechanisms that would make additional evolution difficult. If there are any simple mutations (*) that would grant a huge intelligence boost, they must have side effects that would make them net evolutionary disadvantages. Despite this, there is still hope for the coming Age of Neurohackers, the gestating discipline of cognitive engineering, and the Singularity dependent upon them. Not all evolutionary disadvantages are fatal, intolerable, or unmitigable. Global cognitive degradation may be tolerable in exchange for a powerful local enhancement. If the resulting Specialization is powerful enough to be impossible without diverting nearby cognitive resources - impossible without Specialization - the effect would be to increase the collective

The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20010202171200/http://sysopmind.com:80/algernon.html Algernon's Law: A Practical Guide to Neurosurgical Intelligence Enhancement Using Current Technology. A.k.a. "Neurohacking 102". DEFN: Algernon's Law: Any simple major enhancement to human intelligence is a net evolutionary disadvantage. DEFN: Algernon: Any human who, via artificial or natural means, has some type of mental enhancement which carries a price. NOTE: The "g" in "Algernon" is pronounced "j", thus "Al-jer-non". Despite the literary origin, I use the term as if it were…

Algernon's Law 1.1

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