Evolution of the human brain: when bigger is better

[Matterplay1]

Of course, we baseline humans (and probably the other big-brained animals too) are already into latency issues. When you reach for something, your hand is already in motion some fractions of a second before 'headquarters' - the part of you that monitors what you are up to overall - is aware that the decision has already been made. Some people have argued on this basis that 'free will' doesn't exist, but that's not quite right. It's just that your brain is somewhat democratic and gives a bit of local autonomy (to put it in political terms). "You" are already a collective, with collective decisions and local decisions going on all the time.

This goes back to those Superiors, and other high intelligence beings in the OA setting being possibly quite competent to deal with matters quite quickly and efficiently without bringing their entire intellect to bear on a problem. At the extreme, OA's archailects may have very significant delays in their internal workings but still be lightning-quick (or quicker) responding to whatever they need to deal with that isn't a problem on the order of understanding another archailect.