The Copper Hypothesis of Intelligence

Desiderata #18: links and commentary - by Erik Hoel (substack.com)

The Iron Law of Intelligence (Edge.org)

A couple of days ago I found the Iron Law of Intelligence in my news feed. Aside from the fact that calling an unproven hypothesis a “law” is horrifically pseudoscientific, I highly doubt there’s an Iron Law of Intelligence. I’ve always thought the exact opposite, that the more you know, the more other things you know, because everything is connected. This lead me to come up with the term Copper Hypothesis of Intelligence, partially because copper in computers is what makes the circuit and allows information to be stored and gained via, well, connectivity, and partially because I liked the poetic contrast of copper vs. iron, which is Venus vs. Mars, so sort of metaphorically female vs. male.

I think most people know that the better you are at some things, the better you tend to be at everything.

Rolf Degen on X: "People automatically assume that members of a group they belong to are more intelligent than others. And not just Mensa members. https://t.co/KQW978Q6DB https://t.co/bW23fGfAQf" / X (twitter.com)

Of course, the idea of an “iron law of intelligence” is playing back into the kind of scientifically-excused nihilism that I think is never actually true, and trying to dethrone humanity as much as possible no matter how absurd and pseudoscientific the nihilists have to be to defend their nihilism.