MixedNuts comments on Nature: Red, in Truth and Qualia - Less Wrong

35 Post author: orthonormal 29 May 2011 11:50PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (62)
Tags: reductionism philosophy qualia

Comments (62)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: orthonormal 31 May 2011 03:29:22PM 1 point [-]

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.

Comment author: MixedNuts 31 May 2011 03:33:23PM 3 points [-]

I thought that was the consensus.

Harry had once read a famous book called Chimpanzee Politics. The book had described how an adult chimpanzee named Luit had confronted the aging alpha, Yeroen, with the help of a young, recently matured chimpanzee named Nikkie. Nikkie had not intervened directly in the fights between Luit and Yeroen, but had prevented Yeroen's other supporters in the tribe from coming to his aid, distracting them whenever a confrontation developed between Luit and Yeroen. And in time Luit had won, and become the new alpha, with Nikkie as the second most powerful...

...though it hadn't taken very long after that for Nikkie to form an alliance with the defeated Yeroen, overthrow Luit, and become the new new alpha.

It really made you appreciate what millions of years of hominids trying to outwit each other - an evolutionary arms race without limit - had led to in the way of increased mental capacity.

'Cause, y'know, a human would have totally seen that one coming.

HPMoR, chapter 24

Comment author: timtyler 31 May 2011 05:47:16PM *  3 points [-]

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.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit