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timtyler comments on Nature: Red, in Truth and Qualia - Less Wrong
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Surely chimps do that too. The primary cognitive attribute that we have but chimps mostly don't is cultural inheritance. The picture there is one of apes with infected brains, whose brain cases swelled up to provide more room for their mutualist breathren. This is quite a different picture.
This seems wrong. Different chimp populations have different behavioral sets that seem learned from each other rather than genetic. See e.g. this summary. Humans have more effective methods of transmitting culture (especially through language), but chimps have quite a bit.
Well, I did say "mostly". Human cultural inheritance and human language are leaps and bounds ahead of chimpanzee abilities in these areas.
In terms of culture, chimpanzees haven't made it as far as their "stone age" yet - and it wasn't until that point was reached that the human brain started inflating.
Citation needed. This is a specific question (do chimps model the minds of other chimps?) that cognitive scientists have considered in detail. But I don't remember specific studies or conclusions.
I don't have a reference ready, but I remember this from a book by Frans de Waal (probably "Chimpanzee Politics" - or maybe it was mentioned here):
Several primate species live in societies where only the Alpha male has reproduction rights - which doesn't mean the other males don't fool around when the Alpha isn't watching; and if the Alpha catches them, they will grovel and beg for mercy.
If a non-Alpha baboon mates while the Alpha is away, and then encounters the Alpha (who has no idea what happened), it will also grovel and beg for mercy - "Please don't hit me sir!". However, if a non-Alpha chimp does the same, when it encounters the Alpha it will pretend nothing happened - "Morning sir, hope all's fine sir!". That seems to indicate that chimps are better at modeling others than baboons are.
(some details are probably wrong, I'm not sure it was baboons)
"Empathy" is a useful keyword here - so see, for example:
Chimps Not So Selfish: Comforting Behavior May Well Be Expression Of Empathy.
Empathy is pretty basic for social mammals - e.g.see: Dogs Probably Feel Sorry For Us.
I hypothesize that, for whatever reason, there was a runaway selection in humans but not chimps for better modeling of others' behavior. Maybe our societies were more complicated, or less based on simple violent conflicts, than theirs. But of course, I only raised this as a suspicion.
I'm having a tough time seeing how the gene-level selection works in your account, though. Genes don't inherently care about memes, and larger cranial capacity comes with major disadvantages that require overwhelming genetic selective advantages to compensate.
I thought that was the consensus.
HPMoR, chapter 24
That one is called the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis - and it is covered in The Runaway Brain - and by Robin Dunbar in his "The Social Brain Hypothesis".
There are some other noteworthy ideas in the space as well - for instance the idea that omega-3 fats represented a nutritional constraint that got lifted by dietary changes. That hypothesis is laid out in The Driving Force.
No doubt all of these ideas have something to them - but the "memes did it" hypothesis is the one that gets my gold star these days.
Memes have benefits to genes. Copying avoids the costs of individual learning. It allows you to obtain lots of good ideas quickly, by copying them from successful individuals. Good ideas are important. They can be mastery of fire, hunting techniques, love songs or negotiating strategies. Thus we have meme-spreading adaptations: our incessant babbling, our ultrasociality.
These costs apply equally to any theory of human cranial expansion. Not much besides the enormous benefits afforded by cultural inheritance can reasonably expect to pay for them.
Certainly our big brains are the result of a sexually-selected arms race - but what was sexy was a GSOH, being able to sing love songs, etc. IOW, the products of cultural inheritance.