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In this interview they speculate about whether our attraction to music might be a by-product of the fact that we have evolved other specialized skills that aid
by aptsurdist 16y ago
In this interview they speculate about whether our attraction to music might be a by-product of the fact that we have evolved other specialized skills that aid our individual survival. For example, our survival is aided by our rhythm analysis which helps us walk upright, and our speech analyzing mechanisms which help us in many obvious ways - the idea is that we enjoy music because we are obsessively attuned to these survival-aiding perceptions.
I've always enjoyed contemplating the inverse of this theory; what if we gained appreciation for music and other collective rituals because by acting out these rituals (as individuals), our collective tribe benefited. These rituals cause us individuals to 'tune' ourselves as a collective and as a result, the tribe has increased chances of survival.
If this were the case, it would be more appropriate to say that our collective tribes evolved music and rituals for the tribe's sake - it doesn't directly help an individual survive and the individual might not even understand their compulsion to participate. For example, a drum beat might compel a soldier into battle. A religious ritual might compel an individual to supersede their allegiance in order to serve a king. If you look at other species like bees and ants that function as a collective, you see that their 'dance' is not an individual's language but one that evolved because it enabled the collective to survive. Again, the individuals might not understand their dance - they just wanna dance!
So actually, I like the idea that maybe speech, language, and what we call intelligence are all byproducts of adaptations like music and rhythm that appear worthless to individual survival, but in fact are crucial to the survival of the collective. What do you all think?
- zemaj 16y agoSeems unlikely. While music may be beneficial to a collective, a collective would not be able exist without some form of communication. It appears that the generation and appreciation of music relies on a number of genes that seem unlikely to have evolved purely for music. The selection pressure would almost certainly be stronger on very basic levels of communication before any higher levels of tribal organisation, if purely because they can't exist without the basic selection on communication.
- goodside 16y ago"I've always enjoyed contemplating the inverse of this theory; what if we gained appreciation for music and other collective rituals because by acting out these rituals (as individuals), our collective tribe benefited. These rituals cause us individuals to 'tune' ourselves as a collective and as a result, the tribe has increased chances of survival." This is called group selection. It's ironic that you mention it in response to this interview; Dawkins became famous by explaining the fact that group selection doesn't exist, and why theories like the one you've just suggested violate very fundamental principles of evolution. More: http://amzn.com/0199291152 http://amzn.com/0199291152
- Jach 16y agoWell said. Even more (no need to get a book out): http://lesswrong.com/lw/kw/the_tragedy_of_group_selectionism/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/kw/the_tragedy_of_group_selectionism...
- aptsurdist 16y agothanks for the tips - I've been meaning to check out 'The Selfish Gene'. I checked out the lesswrong.com article - I'm not sure that my argument is the same as what they are trying to disprove - it sounds like their models are based on individuals that collude or act altruistically in order to benefit collectively. I don't think that 'intention' is a good concept for understanding evolution in the first place. Also, from checking out the Wikipedia article on group selection, it doesn't sound like there is scientific agreement that this concept is disproved: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection I'll go and read The selfish Gene before I write more, but one more pesky comment about the experiment in the lesswrong.com article: I am suspicious of their conclusion that their case study disproves group selection. This does not seem to respect the vast scope of evolutionary time scale. Maybe group selection is like quantum tunneling - with large clusters of individuals, the chances of it happening are infinitesimal - you won't see it in the laboratory. But on an evolutionary time scale, infinitesimal chances do happen occasionally - and if they yield advantageous results, they will shape life's future. Maybe our love for music came about from freak genetic mutations that in fact didn't serve much purpose for individual survival, but this collective activity caused individuals to synchronize their behavior. Maybe this synchronization helps low-advantage/individual traits 'tunnel' probabilistically and exist long afterward because the same traits are high-advantage/collective traits. (?)
- asdflkj 16y agoA beehive or an ant colony is actually one organism, from the point of view of evolution. The individual insects are genetically identical within a collective.
- avar 16y agoNo it isn't, you should read The Selfish Gene by Dawkins. There's a chapter explaining that this is a myth with little grounds in reality. There's a lot of backstabbing and competition that goes on within individual hives of the social insects.
- asdflkj 16y agoI've read it, a long time ago. IIRC, there is competition among the very few breeders, but the non-breeding workers are in fact identical. The social cohesion parent was talking about happens among the workers.