Cognitive enhancement and the new Salmantica

Real intelligence or artificial cognitive enhancement will soon be indistinguishable.

Reasoning takes some effort of course, but the elements and pieces that compose it are like “qualia of the thought”: they are ineffable and you cannot break it into more elemental pieces (unless you are using a formal language, and try to solve the puzzle without “thinking” but following some algorithm (like the Chinese room)). I mean, working memory, speed of thought, all contribute to the feeling that one is thinking and one can direct one’s attention to a problem, but the thinking itself is happening under the hoods. 

One can direct focus and attention to pieces of the problem, based on previous knowledge - something you can explain verbally - but intuition and even the elemental pieces of inference are mostly unconscious processes. 

Higher IQs are like better natural athletes: they can maybe work to improve some aspects of their body, but then, when performing they don’t “work” harder than an average person. On the contrary. So, in both cases it is just like having a magic superpower, something one cannot explain nor really control. One can try to have it, but as the saying goes, "Quod natura non dat, Salmantica non præstat ".

Now enters a time in which maybe technology can “lend” that, and the question is: will it be just like normal intelligence? I say yes, if the beneficiary can be made to believe/feel that she/he is in control, even if she/he cannot explain HOW she does it. It won’t be like faking it, like looking up the answers on google… It will be second nature, so we will not give it a second thought.


Related: Ramanujan on his mathematical visions / robocop reflexes and skills, that "he think he is doing it, but in fact the machine is doing it”.