The answer has to be Twitter.
Why are our brains shrinking?
51–60 of 199 posts
Re: Why are our brains shrinking?
#52Because we are being domesticated. Domesticated animals are all dumber than their wild counterparts. Every wild animal that ends up being domesticated ends up with a smaller brain. I should rephrase and maybe say that this doesn't necessarily mean the animals get dumber but they definitely change in the process of domestication and a smaller brain is one of those adaptations. [1] > The reduced amount of white matter…
I think the only thing I really quibble a bit with is the description of "dumber". Our "domestication" has historically been more that we've gone from a generalist species to a specialist society. With that, things that were previously probably a boon for survival and reproduction become less so (For example, quick reaction times don't matter so much when you have a city wall to keep out predators and a backup huntin…
Sounds like we need to take control of this evolutionary process and start engineering it. Just because we are no longer required to use these abilities on a daily basis doesn't mean we don't want them. Evolution can go to hell with its "pressures", humanity is supposed to get better over time, not worse.
Re: Why are our brains shrinking?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Domestic animals have safe, boring and predictable environment. It's expected that they'd simplify their brain - the organ that consumes so much energy. If domesticated animals started playing chess, that would be a different story, but they spend their life mindlessly walking between a food dispenser and a litter box, taking naps in between.
>they'd simplify their brain This is not how evolution works! They are not in control of their breeding. Evolution is not some intelligent agent with goals. It is like a river, responding to to the path of least resistance in reproduction. Intelligence and/or brain size not a dominant evolutionary factor unless they are specifically bread for intelligence and/or brain size. Domesticated animal's dominant evolutionary…
This is a good point but it does seem like people consistently select for less intelligence because less intelligent animals are more tame and easier to control.
Re: Why are our brains shrinking?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
And most of it has been offloaded to computers (big data, deep learning, etc). I don't think we're going to have "mentats" any time soon.
You have this backwards. We are dealing with orders of magnitude more information than we did in ancient times, and we are required to remember a good chunk of it and to be able to recall and use it at a moments notice. Computers are a big factor in generating all of that information, even if they help process some of it the net effect is a huge surplus.
> We are dealing with orders of magnitude more information than we did in ancient times, and we are required to remember a good chunk of it and to be able to recall and use it at a moments notice.
Surely you mean required, meaning you could end up embarassing yourself in front of your coworkers if you aren't able to recall that particular bit of information.
It's very different from REQUIRED, meaning that if you take a left turn instead of a right turn while running away from a predator you end up in a canyon... or the predator eats you because you have no way to escape...or both.
Re: Why are our brains shrinking?
#55Because we are being domesticated. Domesticated animals are all dumber than their wild counterparts. Every wild animal that ends up being domesticated ends up with a smaller brain. I should rephrase and maybe say that this doesn't necessarily mean the animals get dumber but they definitely change in the process of domestication and a smaller brain is one of those adaptations. [1] > The reduced amount of white matter…
I think the only thing I really quibble a bit with is the description of "dumber". Our "domestication" has historically been more that we've gone from a generalist species to a specialist society. With that, things that were previously probably a boon for survival and reproduction become less so (For example, quick reaction times don't matter so much when you have a city wall to keep out predators and a backup huntin…
I agree that smaller brain does not mean dumber. This is a very simplistic idea of what brains are for. Whales have huge brains, but I would guess that has more to do with their size.
I don't understand what you mean by "generalist" vs "specialist". I think intelligence is related to why, for example, human beings lack armor, fur, and all sorts of specialized features, functions, and excellences that other species have. Human intelligence can dream up an indefinite if not infinite number of functions which are "offloaded" to technology. We wear clothing and can adjust it depending on the climate which allow us to adapt to environments more than any other species. We have optical instruments which can extend our vision beyond that of any other species depending on need. We have all sorts of communication instruments which allow us a greater range of communication than any other species. We can harvest food in ways that put all other species to shame. We can outrun, fly, and swim any other animal. I could go on. Any capacity other species have we can (at least in principle) exceed with the help of technology, all thanks to human intelligence.
Assuming selection as an explanatory model, I don't see why we should expect to see that basic feature going away. Even with greater specialization in one direction or another, you still need much of that basic underlying generality.
Re: Why are our brains shrinking?
#56Easy: we've offloaded some of our information storage to external media, i.e. writing.
The article argues community living, ie domestication hypothesis.
Kind of hard to argue when we can today offload brain power used for memorization with a simple google search
Re: Why are our brains shrinking?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the only thing I really quibble a bit with is the description of "dumber". Our "domestication" has historically been more that we've gone from a generalist species to a specialist society. With that, things that were previously probably a boon for survival and reproduction become less so (For example, quick reaction times don't matter so much when you have a city wall to keep out predators and a backup huntin…
Sounds like we need to take control of this evolutionary process and start engineering it. Just because we are no longer required to use these abilities on a daily basis doesn't mean we don't want them. Evolution can go to hell with its "pressures", humanity is supposed to get better over time, not worse.
Sounds like eugenics. Heh, no thanks.
Also "better" and "worse" only mean something relative to an end. I do not deny ends (I take human nature to be teleological, for example), but many "evolutionists" (i.e., those who accept a basically materialistic worldview) do deny the reality of ends (and are wholly incapable of accounting for them even if reduced to mental phenomena by virtue of having painted themselves into a metaphysical corner).
Re: Why are our brains shrinking?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the only thing I really quibble a bit with is the description of "dumber". Our "domestication" has historically been more that we've gone from a generalist species to a specialist society. With that, things that were previously probably a boon for survival and reproduction become less so (For example, quick reaction times don't matter so much when you have a city wall to keep out predators and a backup huntin…
I agree that smaller brain does not mean dumber. This is a very simplistic idea of what brains are for. Whales have huge brains, but I would guess that has more to do with their size. I don't understand what you mean by "generalist" vs "specialist". I think intelligence is related to why, for example, human beings lack armor, fur, and all sorts of specialized features, functions, and excellences that other species ha…
AFAIK human natural niche was persistence hunting. Due to our body shape and ability to sweat, we can outrun prey species in the long run. That's how we're engineered, by natural selection in Ice Age Africa. Persistent trekkers that can throw sticks and stones.
Later, we domesticated dogs and other species, then made more and more advanced technologies. But at it's core? Our niche was that.
Re: Why are our brains shrinking?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
And most of it has been offloaded to computers (big data, deep learning, etc). I don't think we're going to have "mentats" any time soon.
You have this backwards. We are dealing with orders of magnitude more information than we did in ancient times, and we are required to remember a good chunk of it and to be able to recall and use it at a moments notice. Computers are a big factor in generating all of that information, even if they help process some of it the net effect is a huge surplus.
Yes but let's say, pre-writing people needed to remember 100% of all information they needed to use - which writing people can offload to tablets and parchments.
Pre-agriculture people had it worse, they needed to remember 100% of all pertinent informations by the hunting band, which had a max amount of 50-100 people. All the predictive abilities for preys in their lands, natural disasters, medicines, rituals, etc.
It's logical that adoption of technology and farming led to lesser pressure for memory recall, at least for the median human.
Re: Why are our brains shrinking?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
>they'd simplify their brain This is not how evolution works! They are not in control of their breeding. Evolution is not some intelligent agent with goals. It is like a river, responding to to the path of least resistance in reproduction. Intelligence and/or brain size not a dominant evolutionary factor unless they are specifically bread for intelligence and/or brain size. Domesticated animal's dominant evolutionary…
This is a good point but it does seem like people consistently select for less intelligence because less intelligent animals are more tame and easier to control.
You don't have evidence for that. You presume that less intelligent animals are easier to control, but that's not at all necessarily true. The smaller brain -> less intelligence isn't even something we know.