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> He argued -- or quoted people who argued this -- that it's likely human intelligence arose as a side-effect from the brain structures needed for an upright st

> He argued -- or quoted people who argued this -- that it's likely human intelligence arose as a side-effect from the brain structures needed for an upright stance. As stated this doesn't pass the smell test because a long list of animals are able to "stand" and walk upright (cats, primates, bears, what have you...) if they so chose. Not to mention kangaroos, birds (who are also capable of things like flight with generally much smaller brains), etc. On top of that we have taught neural nets to control a humanoid body doing plenty of things, even parkour, but we didn't manage to teach them human levels of intelligence yet. Even non-neural-network solutions do pretty well here with just old-school algorithms. Walking upright really seems like something you don't need "much of a brain" for. You don't even need to teach a monkey to do it.

the_af 7y ago
You raise some good points, for which I don't have the answer. However: > Walking upright really seems like something you don't need "much of a brain" for. You don't even need to teach a monkey to do it. You do need much of a brain for it -- not intelligence, but brain; Gould argued that "intelligence" and higher brain functions arose as a side-effect. Keep in mind that AI researchers found out "the easy things are hard and the hard things are easy" (i.e. locomotion and fine-grained motor skills are harder than they seem, while logic games, chess and go are easier than they seem). From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox): "Moravec's paradox is the observation by artificial intelligence and robotics researchers that, contrary to traditional assumptions, high-level reasoning requires very little computation, but low-level sensorimotor skills require enormous computational resources." > As stated this doesn't pass the smell test because a long list of animals are able to "stand" and walk upright (cats, primates, bears, what have you...) None of those walk upright as their primary means of locomotion, nor are they capable of walking exactly like humans do. > Not to mention kangaroos, birds (who are also capable of things like flight with generally much smaller brains), etc. Good point. I don't have an answer for this. Guess you'll have to read some Stephen Jay Gould. I recommend his writing, which is fascinating :)
- chmod775 7y ago
  I was just trying to make the point that as stated I wouldn't buy it. I'm sure who you paraphrased gave it some more in-depth thought though. For instance if you were to tell me that walking upright opened up possibilities, such as creating and using advanced tools, which required larger brains, then I'd definitely be on board with that possibility. I just choose to interpret that sentence literally and narrowly to make a point about it specifically, not about Gould's theory as a whole (which I haven't read).
  - the_af 7y ago
    > For instance if you were to tell me that walking upright opened up possibilities, such as creating and using advanced tools, which required larger brains I can't quote him exactly because I don't have the book nearby, but Gould argued that higher brain functions (intelligence) were a byproduct of the brain development required for walking upright, no tools or opened possibilities. It's not that walking upright enabled the development of tools and this in turn helped develop intelligence; it's that the brain structure necessary for bipedal walking had the potential to be used for other things, they had "emergent properties". I think he argued the same about the body shape itself, the shape of hips, legs and arms all "enabled" the emergence of human-like intelligence. Stephen Jay Gould was a pretty well-known scientist (who sadly passed away in 2002) and, regardless of what you think of my possibly misleading summary, I urge to read his books if you have any interest at all in evolutionary science and biology.

the_af 7y ago

You raise some good points, for which I don't have the answer. However: > Walking upright really seems like something you don't need "much of a brain" for. You don't even need to teach a monkey to do it. You do need much of a brain for it -- not intelligence, but brain; Gould argued that "intelligence" and higher brain functions arose as a side-effect. Keep in mind that AI researchers found out "the easy things are hard and the hard things are easy" (i.e. locomotion and fine-grained motor skills are harder than they seem, while logic games, chess and go are easier than they seem). From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox): "Moravec's paradox is the observation by artificial intelligence and robotics researchers that, contrary to traditional assumptions, high-level reasoning requires very little computation, but low-level sensorimotor skills require enormous computational resources." > As stated this doesn't pass the smell test because a long list of animals are able to "stand" and walk upright (cats, primates, bears, what have you...) None of those walk upright as their primary means of locomotion, nor are they capable of walking exactly like humans do. > Not to mention kangaroos, birds (who are also capable of things like flight with generally much smaller brains), etc. Good point. I don't have an answer for this. Guess you'll have to read some Stephen Jay Gould. I recommend his writing, which is fascinating :)

chmod775 7y ago
I was just trying to make the point that as stated I wouldn't buy it. I'm sure who you paraphrased gave it some more in-depth thought though. For instance if you were to tell me that walking upright opened up possibilities, such as creating and using advanced tools, which required larger brains, then I'd definitely be on board with that possibility. I just choose to interpret that sentence literally and narrowly to make a point about it specifically, not about Gould's theory as a whole (which I haven't read).
- the_af 7y ago
  > For instance if you were to tell me that walking upright opened up possibilities, such as creating and using advanced tools, which required larger brains I can't quote him exactly because I don't have the book nearby, but Gould argued that higher brain functions (intelligence) were a byproduct of the brain development required for walking upright, no tools or opened possibilities. It's not that walking upright enabled the development of tools and this in turn helped develop intelligence; it's that the brain structure necessary for bipedal walking had the potential to be used for other things, they had "emergent properties". I think he argued the same about the body shape itself, the shape of hips, legs and arms all "enabled" the emergence of human-like intelligence. Stephen Jay Gould was a pretty well-known scientist (who sadly passed away in 2002) and, regardless of what you think of my possibly misleading summary, I urge to read his books if you have any interest at all in evolutionary science and biology.