considering the evolved mind: constraints on transhumanism pascal boyer, washington university,...
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Considering the evolved mind:Constraints on transhumanism
Pascal Boyer, Washington University, March 2007
The plot
A few silly pictures, to suggest that…
Transhumanism needs:A proper, scientific view of human nature
A primer on culture and the evolved mindMany complicated, specialised, evolved systems…
They explain recurrent human cultureThey constrain envelope of possible trends
Past view of future fashion
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What houses should have been like
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… and the sad reality.
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Why are past futures always wrong?
Beyond the silliness…
TrendismE.g. exponential curves infinity or 'singularity'⇒
Technology in a cultural void
A better way:Understand technology as cultural productionUnderstand culture as an evolutionary phenomenon
Culture & MindThe questions
What is culture?
In what sense are there different cultures?
Is culture in the mind?
Is culture accessible to inspection?
Is it true that anything goes in culture?
How do we measure similarity/difference?
Examples of cultural stuff
"So great to eat grubs and sit in one’s mother’s brother’s lap…"
"In order to make a good soldier of you, we will first break your toe…"
"We [men] make love to women and they never retaliate…"
Why it’s disgusting to sleep with a potter’s daughter
The individual pursuit of happiness
The place should be run democratically
Poverty of culturalism
A not too refined model: absorptionCulture is “out there”There is an osmosis or percolation
process
Problems“out there” is question-beggingNo description of the osmosis
process
We need psychology of cultural acquisition
How do people acquire culture?Examples
Syntax
Nose maintenance
A fondness for raw grubs
When (whether) to murder your spouse
Differential equations
The gods are watching us
Judging that Germans are simpatico
How do people acquire culture?
Pathways as diverse as domains of representationsDifferent predispositions
Different reliance on external storage
Different domains activate different mental systems
No unified “cultural acquisition”
Is culture contagious?
You “catch” culture from other people
Several possible pathwaysCoercion
Voluntary adherence
Contagion of ideas and preferences
Contagion as the main driving forceHow does it create vast cultural trends?
What is the underlying psychology
The “meme” model:Dawkins, Durham
Cultural units: memes as replicatorsExamples: tunes, associations
Differential fitness of memesYankee-doodle / SchoenbergFitness as reproductive potential
Central mechanism: imitationPeople acquire culture by imitationSome memes better for imitationCultural selection driven by meme-
fitness
The epidemiology model:Sperber and others…
Population of minds and representationsTwo varieties of representations
Mental representationsPublic representationsCausal chains between the two
No replication of mental representationsNo replication of culture, similarityImitation only explains littleCue + inferences as main model of transmission
Are there cultural universals?
Why the question seems silly:Apparently great variation
What we find everywhere is not ‘cultural’
But we find patterned variation:E.g. SOV vs SVO
E.g. cow dung vs. cheese
Culture as parameters on choices that are universal
Why those choices, why this list of parameters?
Is learning the oppositeof instinct?
A very wrong and very widespread syllogismDevelopment is zero-sum
Lots of stuff is learned
Therefore very few prior dispositions
What is wrong here?The major premise is false
See comparison: snail, turtle, finch, human
See comparison of PCs in 1980 and 2000
Human learning as non-zero sum
More information picked upHumans pick up more than any other species
Also pick up info from other humans
Richer dispositions:Domain-specific principles
Attention to particular stimuli
Early dependence on conpsecifics
Evolution and normal environments
Q: What is a normal environment?
A1: Generic environment?
A2: Normatively OK environment?
A3: Environment of genetic evolution
Summary: prior principles:[a] evolved
[b] expect normal environment
[c] build structures that go beyond input
The relevance of development
Culture is acquired by children…Placing constraints on what can be transmitted
Children as “cultural sponges”All language, norms, are acquired effortlessly
All seem natural and normal
But is this a circular reasoning?We only consider actual cultural differences
What if these are constrained by acquisition?
Two ways of looking atmental architecture
General capacities:
Memory, attention, reasoning…
Each applies to many domains: foraging, mating, coalitions
Domain-specificy:
Capacities for mating, forming
coalitions, foraging, etc.
Each domain has its way of
using memory, attention, reasoning
Domain-specificity:computational claims
Different domains different requirementsAcquire syntax vs. acquire motor control
Eg interact with animals species-level, people individuals
Mate-selection vs. friend-selection
General-purpose architecture problemsComputational overload: biases necessary
Problems of vanishing intersections
Talking to tigers, or Finding Mr Right in ripe old age: evolutionary constraints
Domain-specificity incognitive development
Different domains, different principlesSyntaxLiving thingsIntuitive PhysicsTheory of MindMany other domains…
Different developmental schedulesAgainst Piaget, not just structural changeSpecific development in each domain
Predispositions driveinferences from cultural input
Dramatic examplesRe-inventing syntax: NSL, creoles
Ignoring propaganda: PC versions of stories
More general pointCultural input is always fragmentary
Needs framing, inferences
These are provided by prior structures
Several “illusions” (aka Good Tricks) of high-level mentation
Narrative coherence and explanatory valueThe past really is the same country
Personhood in other peopleThey do have causal stability
Physics is all about invisible processesCentres of mass and forces and momenta
Essences in things and beingsWater is watery and giraffes have girafeness
Own body as a physical affair
Specific systems for bio-motionReactions to perceived bio-motion:
Creating motor planInhibition of motor plan
Impossible bio-motionEven more inhibition
Represent inner energy source
Illusion / Good Trick 2:Treat other people like animals
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We are all sinners …in living-kind essentialism
From 3 years of ageStable species
Exclusive categories
From 5 or earlierSpecies-specific essence
Causal role of “essence”
Stability of essence
What are other people like?
They have causal essenceInternal features called dispositions
Causally efficient
Stable
Causal essence matters more than situationspecially so for other people
Are we all dualists?
It would seem soCommitment to non-physical causation
Folk-psychology with vague implementation
But we are much worse than thatNot even consistent dualists
We are multiplists
Faced with dead people
Animacy systems: shutoff (Clark Barrett syndrome)
Social intelligence: preserved inferences
Result: A tangible counter-intuitive object
Dead bodies as agents
PEOPLE BURIED WITH CELL PHONES IN SLOVAKIA [Pravda]
“A priest had to stop the funeral ceremony because a dead body’s cell phone rang. A call from the coffin had an indescribable impression on the people present at the ceremony.”
Good Trick 4:Keep the past relevant
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Two ways to createnarrative coherence
Method 1Register/post states in robust format
Demand path dependence
Use past to explain present states
Method 2 Register/post states in not so robust format
Modify past states to fit explanations of present
Autobiography is strangely biased
Autobio memory favours second methodAnchoring effects
Theory-driven inferences
Is that for functional reasons?Easy access to present information
Mmmh… seems to presume self-narrative
Is that for adaptive reasons?Here and now does have fitness consequences
What makes humans special:Symptoms of social intelligence
Hypertrophy of social inferencing:Bob realised that Lou could not believe that Pat did
not know that Cindy had forgotten to tell Jack that…
Capacities for trust-evaluation
Coalitional reasoning
Complex standards of fairness
Emotional interest in gossip
Coalitional Psychology
Coalitions are ubiquitousWarfare
Political struggle
Office politics
Coalitional action seems easyNo-one bothers to think
Strategic moves are intuitively obvious
Psychologists can create coalitions!!!!
Coalitional Computations
Computation is automatic, unconsciousPeople have coalitional intuitions
These are based on principled computation
Principles are complicatedBenefit of other member = own benefit
Expectation of non-direct reciprocity
Signals of [1]
Treat non-members as equivalent
Make defection less likely (more costly)
This was only a sampler
Some other domains of complex inferenceEstimate value of potential matesCompute foraging resources and decisionsCompute potential danger in one's environmentEstimate possible niches in social hierarchiesEtc etc etc
Principles are complicated, specific
Naïve realism gets us nowhere…