Evolution of the human brain: when bigger is better

[stevebowers]

Of course this could be managed with cybernetic implants, but presumably a being that cultivated such a massive brain would prefer to be able to rely on their biological tissue alone. After all, they must have a bioist outlook or they would simply have become uploads and could scale to as much 'brain tissue' (i.e. drytech computronium) as they pleased.

I'm coming to believe that biological enhancements wouldn't be enough in many cases. Superior-level humans would benefit from neurotech enhancements to speed up their connectome; vacuum-adapted humans would benefit from additional respiration equipment to allow them to remain in vacuum longer, or even indefinitely; merpeople would benefit from additional oxygen reservoirs and external fins/flippers to wear, and so on. The best use of genetic engineering in many cases would be to help the sophont interface with artificial augmentations that an unaltered baseline could not utilise efficiently. In the past I've called this concept 'cybertweaking'- the genetic modification of an organism so that it can interface better with technology. But maybe that is a topic outside the scope of this discussion.