I spend about 30 minutes reading this thread and links from it: I don't really follow your line of argument. I find it fascinating and well-communicated, the lack of understanding is on me: my attention flits around like a butterfly, in a way that makes it hard for me to follow people writing original content.
High level, I see a distinction between theory and practice, between an oracle predicting without explanation, and a well-thought out theory built on a partnership between theory and experiment over centuries, ex. gravity.
I have this feeling I can't shake that the knife you're using is too sharp, both in the specific example we're discussing, and in general.
In the specific example, folding, my understanding is we know how proteins fold & the mechanisms at work. It just takes an ungodly amount of time to compute and you'd still confirm with reality anyway. I might be completely wrong on that.
Given that, the proposal to "dedicate...engineer[s] towards finding ethical ways to improve...intelligence so that we can appreciate the underlying principles better" begs the question of if we're not appreciating the underlying principles.
It feels like a close cousin of physics theory/experimentalist debate pre-LHC, circa 2006: the experimentalists wanted more focus on building colliders or new experimental methods, and at the extremes, thought string theory was a complete was of time.
Which was working towards appreciating the underlying principles?
I don't really know. I'm not sure there's a strong divide between the work of recording reality and explaining it. I'll peer into a microscope in the afternoon, and take a shower in the evening, and all of a sudden, free associating gives me a more high-minded explanation for what I saw.
I'm not sure a distinction exists for protein folding, yes, I'm virtually certain this distinction does not exist in reality, only in extremely stilted examples (i.e. a very successful oracle at Delphi)
High level, I see a distinction between theory and practice, between an oracle predicting without explanation, and a well-thought out theory built on a partnership between theory and experiment over centuries, ex. gravity.
I have this feeling I can't shake that the knife you're using is too sharp, both in the specific example we're discussing, and in general.
In the specific example, folding, my understanding is we know how proteins fold & the mechanisms at work. It just takes an ungodly amount of time to compute and you'd still confirm with reality anyway. I might be completely wrong on that.
Given that, the proposal to "dedicate...engineer[s] towards finding ethical ways to improve...intelligence so that we can appreciate the underlying principles better" begs the question of if we're not appreciating the underlying principles.
It feels like a close cousin of physics theory/experimentalist debate pre-LHC, circa 2006: the experimentalists wanted more focus on building colliders or new experimental methods, and at the extremes, thought string theory was a complete was of time.
Which was working towards appreciating the underlying principles?
I don't really know. I'm not sure there's a strong divide between the work of recording reality and explaining it. I'll peer into a microscope in the afternoon, and take a shower in the evening, and all of a sudden, free associating gives me a more high-minded explanation for what I saw.
I'm not sure a distinction exists for protein folding, yes, I'm virtually certain this distinction does not exist in reality, only in extremely stilted examples (i.e. a very successful oracle at Delphi)