Re: Online Paper: "Ideas are Not Replicators but Minds Are" by Liane Gabora

From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Sat 25 Oct 2003 - 13:16:05 GMT

  • Next message: derek gatherer: "Re: Online Paper: "Ideas are Not Replicators but Minds Are" by Liane Gabora"

    At 11:39 AM 25/10/03 +0200, Danny Iny wrote:
    > > At 09:05 AM 10/24/2003 +0100, Derek wrote:

    snip

    > > I've read over and over that brains are very energy expensive to operate.
    >I
    > > think it is something like a ration of the brain being only 2% body weight
    > > but consuming 20% of the calories. I can recall (but not find) an article
    > > that hypothesized the calorie demands of a larger brain could not be met
    > > until we became more carnivorous.
    > >
    > > I think that the presumption has always been that tool use and greater
    > > socialization required larger brains and that the fitness reward
    > > compensated for the increased cost in calorie consumption.
    > >
    > > Ray Recchia
    > >
    >Guys, I'm pretty sure these references are made in 'How the Mind Works', by
    >Steven Pinker.

    Calvin argues that the final 2 fold expansion of the brain was largely driven by the human line moving into areas where accurate projectile hunting was the only way to get through the winter. Lots about "glacial pumping" in _Ascent of Mind._

    Others (http://www.ecotao.com/holism/url-links/bipedalism.html) have stated that bipedal walking is significantly more efficient than the chimp's way of getting around. (This would be adaption to patcher food since there was little or no brain expansion over chimps in the earliest on the human line.) It does seem that primitive humans harvested substantial areas for high calorie food.

    The article Ray mentions might have been in a fairly recent Scientific American. It mentioned cooking (for sure a meme directed activity) as a big factor in increasing available calories.

    Keith Henson

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