Initially behind the paywall because I am profoundly dissatisfied with it. Birdbrains & human gains: intelligence, culture, & deep biocultural evolutionary roots of economic history. But I have...
You have the elements of very good and very important teaching here. If you're not satisfied, by all means keep working on it. But I think it's worth a shot to introduce this to your students.
"Dp [Do] birds do it much better? “It” begin [being] intelligence?"
Kinda like it better as: "Did Dodo birds do it much better? "It" being living in harmony with our environment."
The stupidity of humans in over harvesting and bringing in predators to the Dodo bird ended their existence. It ain't how many neurons you have, it's how you use them.
I would love to see you expound on a deep consideration about how economics has mostly been shaped by power relationships.
Access to trading routes, roads, aqueducts, water lines, power lines, canals, telegraph lines, radio frequencies, broadband frequencies, and international trade agreements have all been mostly shaped by power relationships. Imperialism, colonialism, globalization, and financialization have been the primary forces driving economic history. Brawn has dominated over brains. China's cutting off the world in general, and America's military in particular, of heavy earth materials and magnets is an example of how the power of vertically integrated monopolistic control of a critical good can completely change the power dynamics of the world order.
It's great to imagine a world where rational thought guided our economic decisions but as Trump said: ‘Real power is … I even don’t like to use the word … but real power is fear,’”
Thanks for opening an exploration of the relation and effects of humanity's use (and being used by) language.
As a child my Mother sent me to Sunday school. Like Bertrand Russell I didn't like it. Unlike him I didn't get beaten into it.
Little did I realize that 6 years after my last Sunday school class I was to embark on a Philosophy degree. I drank in Plato and all the other footnotes. And I remembered John 1:1 Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος. which, roughly translated, means "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Word as logos as God has rattled around in my mind ever since.
The same sense is in Genesis - darkness, void and then "Let there be light" which separated (language as difference engine) light from dark.
Each human awakens to what William James called a "great blooming, buzzing confusion" as do all creatures. But humans, more than any other creature are surrounded by language, by people using language. And our brains respond. We separate light from dark, Mommy from Daddy, and soon thereafter, milk from peas.
This nexus of a human mind, built on the evolution of our brain, merging with the language of our times and, crucially for geometric human advance, the literature thereof is, to me, THE cause of homo sapiens becoming the dominant animal on the planet.
One key aspect of this advance is the repeated birth of new brains connecting to our language literature like scouts of ants testing the local terrain. Language like a modifiable ant scent trail.
But humans use and are used by language. The great pitfall thereof, as you note, the ability to deceive is the mirror image of the great strength of language - to foster a mental space in which imagination can roam.
To be able to imagine a great new world is to be susceptible to another's corrupt view thereof.
Pinocchio's discovery that planted gold does not grow into more gold, it just ends up in another's pocket. An interesting take on buried talents.
Very good work. I am reading Joseph Henrich now. Pretty dense but very convincing. I think these insights are relevant to politics as well as economics and would be very valuable to teach young minds!
If you look at David Runciman's review of Hayek’s Bastards: The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right by Quinn Slobodian, in the LRB, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n09/david-runciman/hokey-cowboy?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email there is a fair argument to be maid, in light of your points 2, 4 and 5, and the bullet points following them, that the neoliberals, and especially the right neoliberals, are fighting against the very roots of human nature. That may be why they have to engage in so much resentment farming in order to maintain any level of political power. The dislike of their political program is already evident current US political polling.
Most of the above comments are well made, and if I understood your opening statement, this post is a vision and a work in progress, for you or someone else. I have a framework of humanity’s evolution that fits well into your larger, layered view. Mine has similar elements but is like wishful thinking compared to the depth of thought and knowledge you have laid out here. As you note and as some of the other comments have pointed out with strong examples of their own, it is not a given that things will end well, But you have made my day end very well with this brilliant exposition that has introduced me to ideas and writers that are new to me, and they are exciting ideas. Thank you.
Do we have a good sense of what birds can culturally learn and transmit? In England, back when milk was delivered in bottles with foil caps, blue tits learned to peck through the caps and drink the milk. They preferred the gold caps indicating the full cream milk, which in those days, the cream floated to the top of the bottle. This seems to have been learned by subsequent generations.
Do we need language to transmit culture? Learning by watching is still important, as YouTube videos demonstrate, even with the sound on mute.
It seems that language is important to transmit culture, especially as this reduces the need to observe and imitate. Language is the way to transport ideas and memes, and especially efficiently with writing to reduce vocalizations to symbols.
However, birds, avian dinosaurs, and especially octopi, have been evolving a lot longer than primates and humans. We still do not know how dangerous our runaway intelligence is to our species, as well as all other species on Earth. It is possible that intelligence is self-limiting, and that the Great Filter is ahead of us and other technologically intelligent species on other worlds. The 20th century made that all too plain. And yet, our much vaunted anthology intelligence just doesn't seem to be able to solve existential threats.
I suspect the birds would be happier without our presence, even when milk is provided. The dolphins may leave, thanking us for all the fish. Perhaps a few millennia from now, they will have the last laugh, seeing us long gone, or at least vastly reduced in numbers and impact.
There is that famous experiment at the University of Washington where masked researchers annoyed crows. The crows appear to have taught their peers and children to mob humans with those masks.
Birds also have better lungs than we do; theirs are flow-through in one direction, as opposed to our reciprocating bags. Maybe we're lucky that wings aren't prehensile.
Brad may not be satisfied, but this is very good already. And a source for a lot more thought and discussion. I'd love to be able to share it beyond the paywall.. Thought-provoking in lots of ways.
> GaryF: Brad may not be satisfied, but this is very good already. And a source for a lot more thought and discussion. I'd love to be able to share it beyond the paywall. Thought-provoking in lots of ways...
A useful approach, the main contribution being your arithmetical assessment of neuronal complexity. And as usual your narrative of anthology progress is compelling. The concept in Grundrisse is presented as "general intelligence", generally speaking, what we keep to ourselves if it is worth anything. There isn't enough _oscillation_ in your model, so we ought to add to the infrastructure the dark tetrad: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and sadism (though these terms antedate the psychoneuroendocrinological revolution).
To my mind these are all expressions of the same processes, whereby humanity seeks advantage over its fellows (or should I say 'fellahs') by methods the same as domestication (20ka) humans have literally 'made' their subordinates by one means or other. Brad, we stand at one extreme, or near it because of footnotes, and have passed on instructions to formally our equals who know naught else than what's been passed on. At our best we stand at the middle, as in "I am frustrated," by my incoherent writing, or, by my job, relationships and health. We have endogenated too much to descend much further.
As usual, Adam Smith said it best, "All the members of human society stand in need of each others’ assistance, and are likewise exposed to mutual injuries." and "Most people know no other language nor country, are poor, and obliged to stay not far from the place where they were born, to labor for a subsistence. They cannot therefore, be said to give any consent to a [constitutional] contract, though they may have the strongest sense of obedience." and "In sum, superior age, abilities of body and mind, ancient family, and wealth – give authority."
My favorite quote though, I'm reluctant to give it up: "Our sympathetic passions [toward others] are always less irresistible than our original [personal] ones. There is, besides, a malice in mankind, which not only prevents all sympathy with little uneasinesses but renders them in some measure diverting. Hence the delight which we all take in raillery, and in the small vexation which we observe in our companion, when he is pushed, and urged, and teased upon all sides." That's from the Moral Sentiments. I like the word raillery, since that's what kids in my generation usually got up to, when recess came around.
Ending is too abrupt, needs fleshing out. What about tech outpacing sociological/biological self-knowledge? Enlightenment 1.x over-impressed most of its scions. As Duncan Watts says, sociology is way harder than rocket science.
You have the elements of very good and very important teaching here. If you're not satisfied, by all means keep working on it. But I think it's worth a shot to introduce this to your students.
Dear Brad Delong,
You wrote:
"Dp [Do] birds do it much better? “It” begin [being] intelligence?"
Kinda like it better as: "Did Dodo birds do it much better? "It" being living in harmony with our environment."
The stupidity of humans in over harvesting and bringing in predators to the Dodo bird ended their existence. It ain't how many neurons you have, it's how you use them.
I would love to see you expound on a deep consideration about how economics has mostly been shaped by power relationships.
Access to trading routes, roads, aqueducts, water lines, power lines, canals, telegraph lines, radio frequencies, broadband frequencies, and international trade agreements have all been mostly shaped by power relationships. Imperialism, colonialism, globalization, and financialization have been the primary forces driving economic history. Brawn has dominated over brains. China's cutting off the world in general, and America's military in particular, of heavy earth materials and magnets is an example of how the power of vertically integrated monopolistic control of a critical good can completely change the power dynamics of the world order.
It's great to imagine a world where rational thought guided our economic decisions but as Trump said: ‘Real power is … I even don’t like to use the word … but real power is fear,’”
Thanks for opening an exploration of the relation and effects of humanity's use (and being used by) language.
As a child my Mother sent me to Sunday school. Like Bertrand Russell I didn't like it. Unlike him I didn't get beaten into it.
Little did I realize that 6 years after my last Sunday school class I was to embark on a Philosophy degree. I drank in Plato and all the other footnotes. And I remembered John 1:1 Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος. which, roughly translated, means "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Word as logos as God has rattled around in my mind ever since.
The same sense is in Genesis - darkness, void and then "Let there be light" which separated (language as difference engine) light from dark.
Each human awakens to what William James called a "great blooming, buzzing confusion" as do all creatures. But humans, more than any other creature are surrounded by language, by people using language. And our brains respond. We separate light from dark, Mommy from Daddy, and soon thereafter, milk from peas.
This nexus of a human mind, built on the evolution of our brain, merging with the language of our times and, crucially for geometric human advance, the literature thereof is, to me, THE cause of homo sapiens becoming the dominant animal on the planet.
One key aspect of this advance is the repeated birth of new brains connecting to our language literature like scouts of ants testing the local terrain. Language like a modifiable ant scent trail.
But humans use and are used by language. The great pitfall thereof, as you note, the ability to deceive is the mirror image of the great strength of language - to foster a mental space in which imagination can roam.
To be able to imagine a great new world is to be susceptible to another's corrupt view thereof.
Pinocchio's discovery that planted gold does not grow into more gold, it just ends up in another's pocket. An interesting take on buried talents.
Very good work. I am reading Joseph Henrich now. Pretty dense but very convincing. I think these insights are relevant to politics as well as economics and would be very valuable to teach young minds!
Love The WEIRDest People On Earth. I liked the way he built up his case from the brain up.
And the feedback back and forth between genes and culture is insightful and well supported.
If you look at David Runciman's review of Hayek’s Bastards: The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right by Quinn Slobodian, in the LRB, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n09/david-runciman/hokey-cowboy?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email there is a fair argument to be maid, in light of your points 2, 4 and 5, and the bullet points following them, that the neoliberals, and especially the right neoliberals, are fighting against the very roots of human nature. That may be why they have to engage in so much resentment farming in order to maintain any level of political power. The dislike of their political program is already evident current US political polling.
Most of the above comments are well made, and if I understood your opening statement, this post is a vision and a work in progress, for you or someone else. I have a framework of humanity’s evolution that fits well into your larger, layered view. Mine has similar elements but is like wishful thinking compared to the depth of thought and knowledge you have laid out here. As you note and as some of the other comments have pointed out with strong examples of their own, it is not a given that things will end well, But you have made my day end very well with this brilliant exposition that has introduced me to ideas and writers that are new to me, and they are exciting ideas. Thank you.
Do we have a good sense of what birds can culturally learn and transmit? In England, back when milk was delivered in bottles with foil caps, blue tits learned to peck through the caps and drink the milk. They preferred the gold caps indicating the full cream milk, which in those days, the cream floated to the top of the bottle. This seems to have been learned by subsequent generations.
Do we need language to transmit culture? Learning by watching is still important, as YouTube videos demonstrate, even with the sound on mute.
It seems that language is important to transmit culture, especially as this reduces the need to observe and imitate. Language is the way to transport ideas and memes, and especially efficiently with writing to reduce vocalizations to symbols.
However, birds, avian dinosaurs, and especially octopi, have been evolving a lot longer than primates and humans. We still do not know how dangerous our runaway intelligence is to our species, as well as all other species on Earth. It is possible that intelligence is self-limiting, and that the Great Filter is ahead of us and other technologically intelligent species on other worlds. The 20th century made that all too plain. And yet, our much vaunted anthology intelligence just doesn't seem to be able to solve existential threats.
I suspect the birds would be happier without our presence, even when milk is provided. The dolphins may leave, thanking us for all the fish. Perhaps a few millennia from now, they will have the last laugh, seeing us long gone, or at least vastly reduced in numbers and impact.
There is that famous experiment at the University of Washington where masked researchers annoyed crows. The crows appear to have taught their peers and children to mob humans with those masks.
Great fun. I'm wishing for a footnote.
Birds also have better lungs than we do; theirs are flow-through in one direction, as opposed to our reciprocating bags. Maybe we're lucky that wings aren't prehensile.
Brad may not be satisfied, but this is very good already. And a source for a lot more thought and discussion. I'd love to be able to share it beyond the paywall.. Thought-provoking in lots of ways.
OK: Beyond the paywall it goes... <https://braddelong.substack.com/publish/post/165705658>
> GaryF: Brad may not be satisfied, but this is very good already. And a source for a lot more thought and discussion. I'd love to be able to share it beyond the paywall. Thought-provoking in lots of ways...
Seems like this is getting close to religion!
The only sci-fi I would ever read is one in which birds survived a human mass extinction and got the world running in the right direction.
Ah, but which birds?
All kinds and new species because birds seem to speciate quickly. But I clearly don't have the imagination for it.
A useful approach, the main contribution being your arithmetical assessment of neuronal complexity. And as usual your narrative of anthology progress is compelling. The concept in Grundrisse is presented as "general intelligence", generally speaking, what we keep to ourselves if it is worth anything. There isn't enough _oscillation_ in your model, so we ought to add to the infrastructure the dark tetrad: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and sadism (though these terms antedate the psychoneuroendocrinological revolution).
To my mind these are all expressions of the same processes, whereby humanity seeks advantage over its fellows (or should I say 'fellahs') by methods the same as domestication (20ka) humans have literally 'made' their subordinates by one means or other. Brad, we stand at one extreme, or near it because of footnotes, and have passed on instructions to formally our equals who know naught else than what's been passed on. At our best we stand at the middle, as in "I am frustrated," by my incoherent writing, or, by my job, relationships and health. We have endogenated too much to descend much further.
As usual, Adam Smith said it best, "All the members of human society stand in need of each others’ assistance, and are likewise exposed to mutual injuries." and "Most people know no other language nor country, are poor, and obliged to stay not far from the place where they were born, to labor for a subsistence. They cannot therefore, be said to give any consent to a [constitutional] contract, though they may have the strongest sense of obedience." and "In sum, superior age, abilities of body and mind, ancient family, and wealth – give authority."
My favorite quote though, I'm reluctant to give it up: "Our sympathetic passions [toward others] are always less irresistible than our original [personal] ones. There is, besides, a malice in mankind, which not only prevents all sympathy with little uneasinesses but renders them in some measure diverting. Hence the delight which we all take in raillery, and in the small vexation which we observe in our companion, when he is pushed, and urged, and teased upon all sides." That's from the Moral Sentiments. I like the word raillery, since that's what kids in my generation usually got up to, when recess came around.
All of this leads to a somewhat more nuanced and
It could be a feature of British society rather than all mankind.
If it bleeds, it leads!
Also recommended:
Baboon Metaphysics, The Evolution of a Social Mind
Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth
and
Reading in the Brain
Stanislas Dehaene
Are dogs an example of a hyper-social non-tool-using intelligence?
I am trying to unsubscribe, not sure how to do it. Please unsubscribe me. - Barbara Epstein
Ending is too abrupt, needs fleshing out. What about tech outpacing sociological/biological self-knowledge? Enlightenment 1.x over-impressed most of its scions. As Duncan Watts says, sociology is way harder than rocket science.
Well, it IS a draft...