Leonid comments on The Gift We Give To Tomorrow - Less Wrong

44 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 17 July 2008 06:07AM

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Comment author: Leonid 18 July 2008 01:26:00PM 1 point [-]

Elliot: “Once hunting music was created, females could select mates not just by how well they hunted directly (which they often didn't directly observe), but also by the quality of their hunting music... So music became a useless display (useless for survival) used in sexual selection, like the peacock's tail. ”

The majority of people (including non-hunting females) enjoy listening to music without even trying to perform it themselves. Among those few, who did learn how to play musical instruments, most could get greater boost to their sex-appeal by devoting their time to body-building instead. Using the peacock analogy, I would say that our “musical tail” seems too large judged by its effect on the other sex.