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> The fact that both we and it survive proves that it must have some adaptive function No, no, no, absolutely not, no, it doesn't. No. A feature can maintain i
by bambax 10y ago
> The fact that both we and it survive proves that it must have some adaptive function
No, no, no, absolutely not, no, it doesn't. No. A feature can maintain itself in a population for a number of reasons:
- it's neutral or not detrimental enough to drive affected individuals to extinction (ie, to get them killed before they have a chance to reproduce)
- it's linked to some other trait that provides actual benefits
- it's so recent it didn't leave time to be selected against
- or, yes, it actually has some adaptive function.
But just because a feature is found does NOT "prove" anything in and of itself.
> Living in small bands of hunter-gatherers, our ancestors were primarily concerned with their social standing, and with making sure that they weren’t the ones risking their lives on the hunt while others loafed around in the cave. There was little advantage in reasoning clearly, while much was to be gained from winning arguments.
Excuse me, what?? There's little advantage in reasoning clearly while hunting prey and making tools and building traps to catch huge mean animals that can and will kill you if you do anything wrong?
And there's much to be gained from "winning arguments" in a cave, while pondering about one's social standing?? Come on.
* * *
I suggest a more simple and straightforward explanation for the limitations of "reason": our brain is, in fact, write only.
We usually don't notice it because it also has a huge capacity and so we can always write more, it never gets full.
But to one given named item corresponds a unique value, that cannot be overwritten.
If you want to store a new value you have to create a new name to store it with.
To "overwrite" something you can create lookup tables of sort, that tell you that the old value is in fact "wrong" and that said item should be associated with another, newer item. But this is costly, and so is avoided whenever possible (because the first rule of life is to be lazy, ie to conserve resources).
- komali2 10y agoThe only problem I take with the "write only" mindset is that memory has been demonstrated to be able to be "changed" after the fact - i.e. making a person "remember" that the color of the truck was red, even though it was blue and they had correctly stated remembering it being blue.
- manmal 10y agoYeah I don't think it's as simple as write only. There is also memory compression, which could not happen in a write only memory.
- betenoire 10y agoI don't share your interpretation at all. The gist is that humans are not rational computing machines. And that we can't expect each other to respond rationally to every word spoken or act observed. If you don't see the merit in winning arguments over being correct, uh... I dunno broaden your social circle maybe?
- lazyasciiart 10y agoI think the personal attack was unnecessary there.
- betenoire 10y agoFair enough. It wasn't meant as at attack, but I can see that.
- Silhouette 10y agoI suggest a more simple and straightforward explanation for the limitations of "reason": our brain is, in fact, write only. That seems to be inconsistent with the research described in the article where subjects were asked for an opinion, then in some way required to explain that opinion, and then asked for another opinion on the same issue. People apparently did weaken in their convictions, but only when forced to confront them by examining the details.
- bambax 10y agoIf you're referring to this paragraph: > A recent experiment performed by Mercier and some European colleagues neatly demonstrates this asymmetry. Participants were asked to answer a series of simple reasoning problems... then no. While I don't know the exact content of the experiment or the wording of the questions, a reasoning problem isn't an opinion, it's a process. A process (a function) can indeed yield a different result when some parameters are tweaked or a different input is used. But my theory is that opinions, once formed, are difficult / impossible to change, not for some unfalsifiable evolutionary explanation, but for a very simple structural reason that the brain is a WORM system. Also, my theory is just that: a hypothesis, a thought experiment. I don't pretend to know how the brain works; I'm just asking the question, if we think of the brain as WORM, can we explain more behaviors?
- Silhouette 10y agoI was referring to the third section, about Sloman and Fernbach's work.
- majewsky 10y ago> my theory is that opinions, once formed, are difficult / impossible to change How can you explain that this completely contradicts my experience, down to basic everyday experiences like: "I didn't like this album initially, but it has grown on me"?
- cortesoft 10y agoYeah, I think it is more like 'lazy loading' than write only; we assume we have strong reasons for believing something, and only realize we don't when we are asked to actually explain why we believe something.
- vacri 10y agoIt's also wrong. Hunter-gatherer societies are much less concerned about social standing than agrarian ones.
- noir_lord 10y agoNot that I'm doubting you (I simply don't know) but how do we know that was/is the case?
- vacri 10y agoFrom modern-era studies of existing hunter-gatherers, as well as nomads. They're a lot more egalitarian (though of course there are some status differences) as there is less scope for specialisation. Agrarian societies are much larger, allow for much more specialisation, and as such have much more power on offer. Think about all the power levels in an agrarian society. At the macro level, we have working, middle, and upper classes. Each of these is divided again into more and more levels. Look at the different titles for British peers for example - from Baron, through Viscount and Earl, Marquis, Duke, Prince, King, plus the female versions of all of these, plus that all peers above Baron are also Barons, and all of these titles means different roles and privileges. Then you go down the ladder and you get knights and dames of the various orders, awards, and so forth. Then you can start looking at the middle classes... It's an extreme example, but it isn't hard to see similar in other places. Take a 'new world' anglo country, and compare how seriously people take the word of a senator versus a teacher versus a homeless person. The simple counter to the statement in question is: "people in agrarian societies are primarily concerned with social standing, making sure they're not the ones doing the back-breaking work in the fields". Field work is gruelling, and requires a lot of labour. In comparison, hunter-gatherers historically only needed to work ~2 hours/day to meet their needs.
- eutropia 10y agoyeah but being cast out of your tribe got you killed. It's why shame is so painful to feel.
- sheldoan 10y ago'Spandrel' is the technical term for a feature that is the byproduct of some other evolutionary adaptation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandrel_(biology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandrel_(biology)
- noobiemcfoob 10y ago> write only I doubt it. Coming from neural algorithms, it would seem the current theories point more to extreme compression algorithms. After a point, your brain stops or at least reduces the amount of "new data" and instead starts to represent new experiences as composites of fragments from the existing memory base. Memory drift or fabrication could be explained as the existing set of fragments becoming altered either by loss or the natural re-weighting of the brain.