Comment by graycat

The article has

> In particular, there's no physical law that puts a cap on intelligence at the level of human beings.

and in that section goes on with more such claims in this theme.

I don't agree: My guess is that in this universe human intelligence is essentially the end of increases in intelligence, has reached the "cap", can't be much improved on.

The only possible improvements are doing the same things as now but faster.

In simple terms, for a big issue and limitation, intelligence, any case of intelligence, can't use what it doesn't yet know. So to be more intelligent, have to know more. To know more, that is mostly essentially the job of science. But we know how science works; we have lots of examples. E.g., for black holes, need Einstein's general relativity. For that need Newton's calculus, Riemann's differential geometry, Einstein's special relativity, the Michelson-Morley experiment, Newton's law of gravity, plus some. With all those in place, we can take another step -- LIGO (laser interferometer gravitational observatory), frame dragging, etc.

For another example, using a big antenna at Bell Labs, Penzias and Wilson got a noise signal. With further analysis, we concluded they detected 3 degree K background radiation left over from the big bang. Before detecting that noise signal, the idea of the background radiation was just a wild guess. Science was waiting on that suitable antenna and that signal, and without those two intelligence was not enough.

I've been sole author of peer-reviewed, published original research in pure/applied math, and from that experience, my view is: Get familiar with what is known and maybe relevant. Make guesses. Formulate theorems. Make guesses looking for counterexamples or proofs. Can hope to do the work faster. But since can't use what don't yet know, can't much hope to do the work smarter. Sorry 'bout that.

Soooo, what about some results in, say, number theory, e.g., Fermat's last theorem? Okay, we take what we know, formulate and prove some theorems, and hope that we get lucky and see a solution with a proof. Searching for those two is not much more intelligent than making guesses -- the work could be improved by guessing faster, but, again, no intelligence can use what it doesn't yet know.

Maybe a big surprise is that apparently this universe is knowable and some observational data, guesses, and if-then-else operations can make progress on knowing this universe. Yup, we can work faster and make the progress faster, but there is no royal road that can let us take big shortcuts on the steps of the observational data, guesses, and if-then-else operations. Sorry 'bout that.