[D66] Superintelligence, Intelligence, and Cognitive Performance: From Human Automatism to the Structure of the Kosmos

[René Oudeweg]

[new paper]

Superintelligence, Intelligence, and Cognitive
Performance: From Human Automatism to
the Structure of the Kosmos
René Oudeweg
December 28, 2025

Introduction

The question of intelligence—what it is, how it scales, and what happens
when it exceeds the human level—has moved from speculative philosophy to
urgent scientific and ethical concern. Advances in artificial 
intelligence have made plausible the emergence of systems whose 
cognitive capacities surpass those of humans across most or all domains. 
This possibility is most famously articulated in Superintelligence, 
where Nick Bostrom analyzes the trajectories, risks, and control 
problems associated with machine superintelligence. Yet the debate 
around superintelligence often presupposes unclear or conflated notions 
of intelligence itself. Intelligence is frequently confused with skills, 
knowledge, speed, or even consciousness. Without conceptual clarity, 
discussions of superintelligence risk becoming either science fiction or 
moral panic.
This essay aims to clarify several foundational concepts. First, it 
offers a concise definition of intelligence that distinguishes it from 
skills and learned competencies. Second, it explores the idea—emphasized 
by Donald Knuth—that humans perform a vast range of cognitively 
sophisticated tasks without conscious thought. Third, it introduces the 
concept of cognitive performance as a measurable and structural property 
of systems rather than a subjective mental experience. Finally, it 
situates cognitive performance within a broader metaphysical framework 
by examining its relationship to the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the 
Universe (CTMU), developed by Christopher Langan. In doing so, the essay 
argues that superintelligence is best understood not as a qualitative 
leap into something alien, but as an extreme extrapolation of the same 
structural principles that already govern human cognition and the
universe itself.

[...]
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: superintelligence.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 72048 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www.tuxtown.net/pipermail/d66/attachments/20251228/66481805/attachment-0001.pdf>