Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA08646 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 15 May 2000 02:08:11 +0100 Message-ID: <391F0857.208F3DC9@mediaone.net> Date: Sun, 14 May 2000 21:11:03 +0100 From: Chuck Palson <cpalson@mediaone.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Why are human brains bigger? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Blackmore in Meme Machine claims that the only reason she can think of
why human brains are so big is because they accomodate so many memes.
That may very well be true and not at all in contradiction to what other
sciences have been thinking about for quite a while. After all, it is
known that we have a huge lexicon - 80,000 words by the time the average
"illiterate" kid graduates from an American high school! And then that
same kid has to keep learning all kinds of things constantly through his
life that are, believe it or not, _useful_ for making a living. The
point is there is no reason to suppose that memes are like genes that
have an independent life of their own as Blackmore claims.
But the number of memes that have to be crammed into our heads goes
beyond just simple knowledge of those sorts of objective things we need
to know to make a living. There is a lot of stuff we have to know also
just to live with other peoplel. The problem is that people tend to
cheat - they want something for nothing. But in order to cheat and lie,
they have to remember who they lied to, what lie works with each person
they have to deal with, and what they have to cover up from other people
to make sure they are credible to everyone. It's an enormous amount of
social information and computational power just to keep it all straight.
There is some interesting cross species information that tends to
confirm this explanation for why the human brain is so large: In many
kinds of animals, the largest brain and smartest behaving species are
social -- like bees, parents, Dolphins, etc. social animals send and
receive signals to coordinate attacks, and defense, gathering, in
collective sexual access. They exchange favors, repay and enforce
debts, punish cheers, enjoying coalitions. In other words, the social
animals have societies just like we do also have larger brains.
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