Of course not! That would be RACIST!
:dubious:
Respectfully, you have not established that understanding the entirety of the universe necessarily requires becoming as smart as it is possible to be. For all anyone knows, we just have to understand one more thing and it all falls into place.
At best, you have a tautology (I think.) “Once the universe is understood, there is nothing more to understand, and therefore further understanding is impossible.” That says nothing at all about evolution and selective pressure.
In other words, how do you assign a value to the difficulty of understanding the universe unless you actually can understand the universe? Is one inch past your reach any different from one mile past your reach, if you cannot see the goal?
Maybe, but it’s unlikely that we could understand that one thing since it’s unlikely we’re as smart as it is possible to be.
I think it’s more a matter of definition. Being as smart as is possible necessarily means understanding the entirety of the universe-- if there were something else to understand it would be part of the universe. But the definition is informative as we evaluate the probability of us having evolved that level of smartness, as I said above. At any rate, the paper in the OP concurs with my statements, so I’ll use that as my “cite”. Have you got one to counter it?
And, this being GQ, we probably should stick more to factual discussions. This digression, which I admit I initiated, is more in the realm of speculation.
What does it mean to understand something? And is it “cheating” if you use memory devices outside of your brain?
For example, suppose you are trying to understand a web of corporations described in a document. It’s difficult or impossible to have all the corporations and relationships in your brain at once. But if you use pen and paper, you can draw a picture and feel that you understand.
In many ways, such a device can be seen as an extension of one’s brain.
For example, many children do not use datebooks. They just remember appointments and telephone numbers. Eventually, they may get a datebook or a PDA and start storing information in the PDA that used to be stored in their brain.
So I don’t think it’s necessary to double the size of your brain to grasp the fundamental truths of the universe (if they exist). You just need use of a good computer.
We will never completely understand the Universe, no matter where evolution or augmentation takes us in the future. If nothing else, we ourselves are part of the Universe, and the Turing and Gödel theorems, and others like them, put bounds on the extent to which any system can “understand” itself.