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>I say cannibalized, because avoiding eating your own species is a higher brain function that would've came far later, Two convergent intuitions as to why thi

>I say cannibalized, because avoiding eating your own species is a higher brain function that would've came far later, Two convergent intuitions as to why this is true, but for the wrong reasons: Species (maybe only [di?]morphic ones) rarely kill other instances of their own species, only maim - usually to the point of socially/reproductive shame/selective behavior; as infra-species violence is usually done for sexual signaling. Like squirrels neutering each other, giraffes ruffling neck-fights, etc, it is not generally advantageous to actually hurt the opponent more than needed to signal dominance in a social hierarchy - this "gentleman" agreement is similar to all emergent collusion behavior exhibited by "free agents" in a limited pool; even without communication, the self-interested incentive to all follow a convergent rule will eventually emerge. Whether it be price fixing, social norms, or any other system where partially-regulated complex systems compete. Additionally, for cannibalizing to be a positive-selective-trait, the species would had either adapted to eating the liver - the "resilience/filter" of a system, or had been "lucky" enough to identify/delineate/get repulsed by it. Eating your own species liver would be nearly self-defeating-ly impossible from an evolutionary point of view and avoiding it but still eating your own species is too "taboo" (evolutionary artifact) of a benefit to ever randomly stumble into, especially against the benefits of 'good-sportsman-ship'.

quantadev 2y ago
I have no idea what you meant by liver. Maybe it's a biology term I'm unaware of. Certainly you didn't mean the organ. lolz. Anyway, an interesting point about evolution is that things had to have been eating other smaller things long before the brain had enough processing power for "Species Recognition". It would've initially been a simple brain and rod/cone eye neuron and motor neuron in a fish that executed primary the rule of "See movement then execute tail wag, open mouth, close mouth" in that order. It takes like 5 neurons wired in a specific way to accomplish that. The first neurons had to have been that simple. Indeed the chain reaction of "input photon and convert energy into motor neuron charge potential" had to have been the actual chemical process that eventually developed the first neuron to begin with. It was only after MUCH more evolution that avoidance of eating one's own species would've been possible by visual inspection of the prey. However, it's true it could have been a 'taste' signal where the scales of your own species had a bad enough taste that you spit it out rather than eating it, and that can be accomplished also with a brain of only a few neurons.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
  Liver/kidneys are organs where toxins are filtered, from the prey the predator consumes. I am not a biologist obviously. Because of the "food chain" actually being a pyramid, those organs contain the same "toxins" that are to be avoided, exponentially accumulating in whatever "organ" had the function to add resiliency by storing these toxins.
  - quantadev 2y ago
    Oh, I see. You expected people to infer "toxins" from the words "resilience/filter". Got it. However, liver eating is a moot point regardless, because evolutionary theory would suggest eating toxins would have a bad taste/smell, so that organ would simply be avoided, while eating the rest. So it has no bearing on whether cannibalism happens or not.
    - Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
      yes, Q.E.D; the ambiguity of our lingua franca can be an "accumulate toxin" of sorts when trying to articulate higher-order ideas, as words (especially used as analogies) can carry implicit deprecated weight, and without the resilience of good-faith inference, can lead to misunderstandings, mis-alignment, or walking/talking write/right past each other.
      - quantadev 2y ago
        --or-- yes, when someone writes a very unclear sentence and then blames the reader for not understanding it...even going so far as to accuse the reader of bad-faith motivations.
        Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
        >>> ...for cannibalizing to be a positive-selective-trait, the species would had either adapted to eating the liver - the "resilience/filter" of a system, ... >I have no idea what you meant by liver. Maybe it's a biology term I'm unaware of. Certainly you didn't mean the organ. lolz. >writes a very unclear sentence and then blames the reader...to accuse the reader of bad-faith motivations.... How would I know my reader would had misconstrued my "unclear" (read: perfectly grammatically specific) intentions a priori? Did we both edit our posts....to improve accuracy, increase resiliency, and to compete ideas? literally mesa-Q.E.D.
smolder 2y ago
> it is not generally advantageous to actually hurt the opponent more than needed to signal dominance It is advantageous to beat a rival and take their energy even within a species. That's part of the whole 'survival of the fittest' thing. Preserving them for cooperation or something like slavery happens, but it's a rare strategy specific to intelligent animals like the GP implies.
- quantadev 2y ago
  As Dawkins points out in `Selfish Gene`, it's the DNA sequence that's the evolutionary entity. For example, all mothers (and most fathers) protect their young even though it's a food source. Eating your own species (even children of other mothers) is counterproductive for the DNA itself, despite being productive for the particular copy of the animal doing the eating.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
  >reserving them for cooperation or something like slavery happens, but it's a rare strategy specific to intelligent animals Exactly, GP thinks this is a higher order behavior. I should had clarified, this is lower, more intuitive behavior. It is not, which is why it arises emergently in lower-complexity/class systems. >beat a rival and take their energy even within a species Beating a rival and taking their energy is awesome! And if done with literal, figurative, social, and complex "CLASS", it is literally sexy too! National Geographic is entertaining for many dimensions of reasons. Actually dismembering your sexual-rival and literally consuming their poor caloric conversion is pitifully inefficient compared to making them a sub-ling, whether it be via hen-pecking or innate dominance. It made sense before sexual dimorphication (moreso), but less so now. Ladies like a gentleman, and gentleman's agreements are literally non-colluding emergent behavior to abide by unspoken higher-order rules for one's own explicit conscious self-incentive (lower order, high entropy), but also the implicit collective unconsciousness incentive (higher social order, lower entropy) Both are reslience traits, which only emerge when selected for.

quantadev 2y ago

I have no idea what you meant by liver. Maybe it's a biology term I'm unaware of. Certainly you didn't mean the organ. lolz. Anyway, an interesting point about evolution is that things had to have been eating other smaller things long before the brain had enough processing power for "Species Recognition". It would've initially been a simple brain and rod/cone eye neuron and motor neuron in a fish that executed primary the rule of "See movement then execute tail wag, open mouth, close mouth" in that order. It takes like 5 neurons wired in a specific way to accomplish that. The first neurons had to have been that simple. Indeed the chain reaction of "input photon and convert energy into motor neuron charge potential" had to have been the actual chemical process that eventually developed the first neuron to begin with. It was only after MUCH more evolution that avoidance of eating one's own species would've been possible by visual inspection of the prey. However, it's true it could have been a 'taste' signal where the scales of your own species had a bad enough taste that you spit it out rather than eating it, and that can be accomplished also with a brain of only a few neurons.

Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
Liver/kidneys are organs where toxins are filtered, from the prey the predator consumes. I am not a biologist obviously. Because of the "food chain" actually being a pyramid, those organs contain the same "toxins" that are to be avoided, exponentially accumulating in whatever "organ" had the function to add resiliency by storing these toxins.
- quantadev 2y ago
  Oh, I see. You expected people to infer "toxins" from the words "resilience/filter". Got it. However, liver eating is a moot point regardless, because evolutionary theory would suggest eating toxins would have a bad taste/smell, so that organ would simply be avoided, while eating the rest. So it has no bearing on whether cannibalism happens or not.
  - Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
    yes, Q.E.D; the ambiguity of our lingua franca can be an "accumulate toxin" of sorts when trying to articulate higher-order ideas, as words (especially used as analogies) can carry implicit deprecated weight, and without the resilience of good-faith inference, can lead to misunderstandings, mis-alignment, or walking/talking write/right past each other.
    - quantadev 2y ago
      --or-- yes, when someone writes a very unclear sentence and then blames the reader for not understanding it...even going so far as to accuse the reader of bad-faith motivations.
      - Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
        >>> ...for cannibalizing to be a positive-selective-trait, the species would had either adapted to eating the liver - the "resilience/filter" of a system, ... >I have no idea what you meant by liver. Maybe it's a biology term I'm unaware of. Certainly you didn't mean the organ. lolz. >writes a very unclear sentence and then blames the reader...to accuse the reader of bad-faith motivations.... How would I know my reader would had misconstrued my "unclear" (read: perfectly grammatically specific) intentions a priori? Did we both edit our posts....to improve accuracy, increase resiliency, and to compete ideas? literally mesa-Q.E.D.

smolder 2y ago

> it is not generally advantageous to actually hurt the opponent more than needed to signal dominance It is advantageous to beat a rival and take their energy even within a species. That's part of the whole 'survival of the fittest' thing. Preserving them for cooperation or something like slavery happens, but it's a rare strategy specific to intelligent animals like the GP implies.

quantadev 2y ago
As Dawkins points out in `Selfish Gene`, it's the DNA sequence that's the evolutionary entity. For example, all mothers (and most fathers) protect their young even though it's a food source. Eating your own species (even children of other mothers) is counterproductive for the DNA itself, despite being productive for the particular copy of the animal doing the eating.
Jerrrrrrry 2y ago
>reserving them for cooperation or something like slavery happens, but it's a rare strategy specific to intelligent animals Exactly, GP thinks this is a higher order behavior. I should had clarified, this is lower, more intuitive behavior. It is not, which is why it arises emergently in lower-complexity/class systems. >beat a rival and take their energy even within a species Beating a rival and taking their energy is awesome! And if done with literal, figurative, social, and complex "CLASS", it is literally sexy too! National Geographic is entertaining for many dimensions of reasons. Actually dismembering your sexual-rival and literally consuming their poor caloric conversion is pitifully inefficient compared to making them a sub-ling, whether it be via hen-pecking or innate dominance. It made sense before sexual dimorphication (moreso), but less so now. Ladies like a gentleman, and gentleman's agreements are literally non-colluding emergent behavior to abide by unspoken higher-order rules for one's own explicit conscious self-incentive (lower order, high entropy), but also the implicit collective unconsciousness incentive (higher social order, lower entropy) Both are reslience traits, which only emerge when selected for.