If I do write my "Enlarging the Bounds of the Human Empire..." history-of-economic-growth, I think it will have to have somewhat more human biology than I had thought, or that I am comfortable with...
At some point I recommend reading "Baboon Metaphysics." I may have mentioned it before. It's well outside the range of what you need for your present purposes, or anything you would want to teach, but it is enlightening. Worth making it out of the "read some day" pile and into the "read in finite time" pile. I also enjoyed "Masters of the Planet," particularly the last chapter, but I suspect you've pretty much covered that in other reading, maybe in multiple iterations. The title is rather more triumphalist than the book.
One other thought about gift exchange. Money makes gift exchange possible on a much wider scope, and also violates the limit (about 150) of relationships that any individual can track. Which contributes, it seems to me, to atomization and alienation. The internet has depersonalized this even more. When a retailer doesn't look the customer in the eyes at the checkout, they seem to be a lot more willing to pull shenanigans.
Fred Baumeister's book "Man the Cultural Animal" highlights the group memory thing you are discussing here. Perhaps you know it. Though I seem to recall he points to the transition between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon as a big deal in this regard.
I think the reason for our limitations is somewhat off the mark here, you've omitted the "we're lawyers not truthists" concept. Of course we get stuff wrong, because truth isn't what (biologically) we're aiming for, we want power, so we can have lots of offspring.
It's also true that narratives are very easily absorbed. I am not sure how to integrate the 'we're lawyers' thing with the 'we're narrativists' thing.
Because "best" doesn't really apply to everything, and it is also very inefficient as a story has lots of padding. Think of explaining algorithms to manipulate equations, solve problems, etc. in STEM subjects as stories. Stories are good for keeping a thread stored in memory - they are effectively memory palaces. Very usefukl in an age before writing and books were available. Where stories are particularly useful is connecting events. For example, my British history education was mostly events and dates. Hard to recall, although Wikipedia provides the timeline of English and then British monarchs. But as my historian wife tells me, that is a poor way to learn history as it mostly excludes the context of history and what was happening. Just look at contemporary events an imagine how they should be conveyed in 50 years when historians write the textbooks of our times. Stories about our times will be far more meaningful that just facts.
But given we have had writing for thousands of years and books for hundreds. In contrast, our brains have had hundreds of thousands of years to maintain useful information about things that cannot be copied by "seeing and doing"and where story telling maintains the importance of events and tasks as a list of causes and effects. Drop one link and the story breaks down. So this is a mechanism for error checking when learning a story and repeating it across many generations.
Prompt: "Using the Krebs Cycle, create a story that sequentially links each step in the cycle."
ChatGPT:
Once upon a time, in a bustling cellular city, there was a grand event called the Krebs Cycle Gala. It was a magnificent affair, and all the citizens of the city, from the energetic glucose molecules to the mighty enzymes, eagerly anticipated this annual extravaganza.
The gala began with a grand entrance by Acetyl CoA, dressed in its finest attire, carrying a bouquet of two carbon atoms. Acetyl CoA was the guest of honor, and everyone gathered around in anticipation of the night's festivities.
As Acetyl CoA made its way into the gala, it met Citrate, a gracious hostess who welcomed it with open arms. Together, they danced in the first elegant step of the cycle. They swirled and twirled, gracefully exchanging the two-carbon bouquet, symbolizing the transfer of acetyl groups.
Soon, Citrate was ready to pass on the dance floor, and it converted itself into Isocitrate, the next charming partner in the cycle. Isocitrate was full of energy and enthusiasm, ready to take on the next step.
With a flourish, Isocitrate stepped into the spotlight and danced with Alpha-Ketoglutarate. They moved in perfect harmony, their steps synchronized in the rhythmic beat of the cycle. Alpha-Ketoglutarate, in a graceful transition, handed over its four-carbon bouquet to Isocitrate, marking the next stage of the gala.
As the night went on, Isocitrate metamorphosed into Succinyl CoA, a dashing partner known for its vigor and power. It swept FAD in its arms, and they danced the night away, generating energy and excitement.
Succinyl CoA, having performed its role, gracefully passed the baton to Succinate. Succinate, a steady and reliable partner, took the stage with Fumarate, their steps echoing the continuity of the cycle. Fumarate, in its turn, handed off to Malate, as the gala continued its elegant progression.
Finally, Malate took center stage, dancing with Oxaloacetate, completing the cycle with a flourish. Their dance symbolized the return to the beginning, a seamless transition, ready to start the next round of the Krebs Cycle Gala.
As the night came to an end, the participants of the Krebs Cycle Gala exchanged their final bows and curtsies, acknowledging the beauty and elegance of their synchronized dance. They knew that the cycle would continue, providing the energy and building blocks needed for the cellular city to thrive.
And so, the Krebs Cycle Gala became a legendary event in the cellular city, a celebration of coordination and efficiency, reminding all its citizens of the essential dance that fuels life itself.
All of this is great. Perhaps there may be a place to weave in "We are not special because our brains are not special" podcast you cited on Grasping sometime ago. It made a big impression on me, I confess. We learn or we are taught how to exercise low discount rates in various ways. That helps extend our lives as well as our usefulness to others. This learning/teaching has to be done every generation and not taken for granted. Otherwise, we're just another primate, for our brain is not that different from other primates. That was a memorable podcast.
I find it hard to believe that our brains are "not that different from other primates". Conceptually yes, but that is like saying a 8088 CPU with 1 MB of memory is not that different that a comtemporary Intel CPU with 8 GB of memory. Quantity has a quality of it own. We can clearly do more with what we have than say the great apes can do even when painstakingly trained.
Listened to that podcast. Hercules-Houzel is just updated the brain:body mass ratio to neuron number in te cortex. [Note that reducing the brain structure to the cortext (the thin layer of neurons in the mamalian cerebrum, she is eliminating the rest of the brain, much of which, like teh cerebellum that controls movement, and hence is important to ratio against body mass.] She talks about the cortex, but that is not applicable to non-mammals i.e. all the other vertebrate species. [In this regards she is simplifying the "number of neurons in the cortex" to beyond its applicability in birds.] So firstly she acknowledges that the cortex is special, which separates mammals from other classes, even relatively intelligent ones like the corvids (e.g. crows). She replaces the clearly exceptionally large brain:body mass ratio in humans which was used to normalize brains between different species (and that raio increases as later classes evolve - fish->amphibia->reptiles then birds and mamals) to explain our abilities, with the total number of neurons in the cortex (but again, is not really applicable to non-mammals). If you just carefully stripped off the cortex and used the srface area that it would probably provide a similar answer. She provides no hard evidence for the neuron # as being better than the brain:body mass or even cortex:body mass ratios? An obvious counterfactual is that fish grow very large and their brains tend to increase in mass with teh body. If her engineering argument was correct, there would be no reason for that, as brains cost energy. OK, their brains might rattle around in a larger skull, or the neurons could be less dense in some way as the brain expands, or alternatively the skull could thicken and protect the brain. AFAIK we do not see that.
As for the neuron # and intelligence, there is no way she could extrapolate to T-rex. That is nonsense as there is no data to validate this.
Her argument that some animal outliers with the cerebellum, cerebellum neurons: brain neurons - e.g. elephant with a high ratio, undermines her engineering argument of neurons to control their bodies. Note that there is no testable/tested hypothesis - just her explanation. Very Kiplinesque "just so" explanation.
Her argument about neuron # and longevity might be testable. Genetic modification of a mouse brain to increase the number of cortical neurons should extend its lifespan. That would be a testable hypothesis, rather than speculation.
To be fair, I have never read any of her papers, so she might well have good data to support her hypothesis, although from her talk, it is all just data with no underlying explanatory evidence.
Sadly, the host did not do more than accept her explanations. No questioning of her hypotheses that should have been easy if he had read her peer-reviewed papers.
My guess is that there would be a lot more pushback if she presented at a conference of her peers.
I would add that the cultural accumulation also scleroses us too. We become bound by traditions (political, legal, religious) and with large populations, like Fisherian genetic allele distributions and evolution, we tend to be more stable towards the norm.
However, human wetware has a very finite lifespan, unlike the potential for machine "brains". As Ai becomes truly AGI, and will almost inevitably co-evolve with us and, I believe, eventually dominate, how will that change the capabilties of our anthology intelligence? Will AGIs, narrow AIs, and simpler algorithms be morse adept and increasing capabilities than humans alone, or will terrestrial intelligence become even more static, as is often depicted in sci-fi?
In terms of evolutionary time, this transition will become an eyeblink. Even the 10,000 years of back history of the Dune books is less time than human emergence from the last ice age and tiny fraction of our human ancestry. For any adanced, long-lived, extraterrestrial civilization observing us, it will appear as almost a sudden phase change. [Perhaps that is what such civilizations are waiting for before making contact?]
In summary, you might just want to have a final class or reading speculating what such a transition to machine intelligence might mean to the economics, policies and governance of humanity a century from now.
At some point I recommend reading "Baboon Metaphysics." I may have mentioned it before. It's well outside the range of what you need for your present purposes, or anything you would want to teach, but it is enlightening. Worth making it out of the "read some day" pile and into the "read in finite time" pile. I also enjoyed "Masters of the Planet," particularly the last chapter, but I suspect you've pretty much covered that in other reading, maybe in multiple iterations. The title is rather more triumphalist than the book.
Thanks much!
Comparing baboons & chimps' life histories and patterns of aggression, at the end of https://www.edge.org/conversation/robert_sapolsky-a-bozo-of-a-baboon
...
One other thought about gift exchange. Money makes gift exchange possible on a much wider scope, and also violates the limit (about 150) of relationships that any individual can track. Which contributes, it seems to me, to atomization and alienation. The internet has depersonalized this even more. When a retailer doesn't look the customer in the eyes at the checkout, they seem to be a lot more willing to pull shenanigans.
Yes... It depersonalizes, massively...
Fred Baumeister's book "Man the Cultural Animal" highlights the group memory thing you are discussing here. Perhaps you know it. Though I seem to recall he points to the transition between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon as a big deal in this regard.
The generalization seems to be that people are now much more domesticated, yet there are subcultures today that are anything but. Consequences?
I think the reason for our limitations is somewhat off the mark here, you've omitted the "we're lawyers not truthists" concept. Of course we get stuff wrong, because truth isn't what (biologically) we're aiming for, we want power, so we can have lots of offspring.
It's also true that narratives are very easily absorbed. I am not sure how to integrate the 'we're lawyers' thing with the 'we're narrativists' thing.
But if narratives are 'best', why isn't classroom instruction all storytelling all the time?
Because "best" doesn't really apply to everything, and it is also very inefficient as a story has lots of padding. Think of explaining algorithms to manipulate equations, solve problems, etc. in STEM subjects as stories. Stories are good for keeping a thread stored in memory - they are effectively memory palaces. Very usefukl in an age before writing and books were available. Where stories are particularly useful is connecting events. For example, my British history education was mostly events and dates. Hard to recall, although Wikipedia provides the timeline of English and then British monarchs. But as my historian wife tells me, that is a poor way to learn history as it mostly excludes the context of history and what was happening. Just look at contemporary events an imagine how they should be conveyed in 50 years when historians write the textbooks of our times. Stories about our times will be far more meaningful that just facts.
But given we have had writing for thousands of years and books for hundreds. In contrast, our brains have had hundreds of thousands of years to maintain useful information about things that cannot be copied by "seeing and doing"and where story telling maintains the importance of events and tasks as a list of causes and effects. Drop one link and the story breaks down. So this is a mechanism for error checking when learning a story and repeating it across many generations.
Prompt: "Using the Krebs Cycle, create a story that sequentially links each step in the cycle."
ChatGPT:
Once upon a time, in a bustling cellular city, there was a grand event called the Krebs Cycle Gala. It was a magnificent affair, and all the citizens of the city, from the energetic glucose molecules to the mighty enzymes, eagerly anticipated this annual extravaganza.
The gala began with a grand entrance by Acetyl CoA, dressed in its finest attire, carrying a bouquet of two carbon atoms. Acetyl CoA was the guest of honor, and everyone gathered around in anticipation of the night's festivities.
As Acetyl CoA made its way into the gala, it met Citrate, a gracious hostess who welcomed it with open arms. Together, they danced in the first elegant step of the cycle. They swirled and twirled, gracefully exchanging the two-carbon bouquet, symbolizing the transfer of acetyl groups.
Soon, Citrate was ready to pass on the dance floor, and it converted itself into Isocitrate, the next charming partner in the cycle. Isocitrate was full of energy and enthusiasm, ready to take on the next step.
With a flourish, Isocitrate stepped into the spotlight and danced with Alpha-Ketoglutarate. They moved in perfect harmony, their steps synchronized in the rhythmic beat of the cycle. Alpha-Ketoglutarate, in a graceful transition, handed over its four-carbon bouquet to Isocitrate, marking the next stage of the gala.
As the night went on, Isocitrate metamorphosed into Succinyl CoA, a dashing partner known for its vigor and power. It swept FAD in its arms, and they danced the night away, generating energy and excitement.
Succinyl CoA, having performed its role, gracefully passed the baton to Succinate. Succinate, a steady and reliable partner, took the stage with Fumarate, their steps echoing the continuity of the cycle. Fumarate, in its turn, handed off to Malate, as the gala continued its elegant progression.
Finally, Malate took center stage, dancing with Oxaloacetate, completing the cycle with a flourish. Their dance symbolized the return to the beginning, a seamless transition, ready to start the next round of the Krebs Cycle Gala.
As the night came to an end, the participants of the Krebs Cycle Gala exchanged their final bows and curtsies, acknowledging the beauty and elegance of their synchronized dance. They knew that the cycle would continue, providing the energy and building blocks needed for the cellular city to thrive.
And so, the Krebs Cycle Gala became a legendary event in the cellular city, a celebration of coordination and efficiency, reminding all its citizens of the essential dance that fuels life itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Not a great story, but does it help keep the Krebs Cycle in memory better than just an image of the cycle?
All of this is great. Perhaps there may be a place to weave in "We are not special because our brains are not special" podcast you cited on Grasping sometime ago. It made a big impression on me, I confess. We learn or we are taught how to exercise low discount rates in various ways. That helps extend our lives as well as our usefulness to others. This learning/teaching has to be done every generation and not taken for granted. Otherwise, we're just another primate, for our brain is not that different from other primates. That was a memorable podcast.
I find it hard to believe that our brains are "not that different from other primates". Conceptually yes, but that is like saying a 8088 CPU with 1 MB of memory is not that different that a comtemporary Intel CPU with 8 GB of memory. Quantity has a quality of it own. We can clearly do more with what we have than say the great apes can do even when painstakingly trained.
On Grasping, that fascinating podcast is here: ONE AUDIO: Suzana Herculano-Houzel: Is the Human Brain Special?:
Listened to that podcast. Hercules-Houzel is just updated the brain:body mass ratio to neuron number in te cortex. [Note that reducing the brain structure to the cortext (the thin layer of neurons in the mamalian cerebrum, she is eliminating the rest of the brain, much of which, like teh cerebellum that controls movement, and hence is important to ratio against body mass.] She talks about the cortex, but that is not applicable to non-mammals i.e. all the other vertebrate species. [In this regards she is simplifying the "number of neurons in the cortex" to beyond its applicability in birds.] So firstly she acknowledges that the cortex is special, which separates mammals from other classes, even relatively intelligent ones like the corvids (e.g. crows). She replaces the clearly exceptionally large brain:body mass ratio in humans which was used to normalize brains between different species (and that raio increases as later classes evolve - fish->amphibia->reptiles then birds and mamals) to explain our abilities, with the total number of neurons in the cortex (but again, is not really applicable to non-mammals). If you just carefully stripped off the cortex and used the srface area that it would probably provide a similar answer. She provides no hard evidence for the neuron # as being better than the brain:body mass or even cortex:body mass ratios? An obvious counterfactual is that fish grow very large and their brains tend to increase in mass with teh body. If her engineering argument was correct, there would be no reason for that, as brains cost energy. OK, their brains might rattle around in a larger skull, or the neurons could be less dense in some way as the brain expands, or alternatively the skull could thicken and protect the brain. AFAIK we do not see that.
As for the neuron # and intelligence, there is no way she could extrapolate to T-rex. That is nonsense as there is no data to validate this.
Her argument that some animal outliers with the cerebellum, cerebellum neurons: brain neurons - e.g. elephant with a high ratio, undermines her engineering argument of neurons to control their bodies. Note that there is no testable/tested hypothesis - just her explanation. Very Kiplinesque "just so" explanation.
Her argument about neuron # and longevity might be testable. Genetic modification of a mouse brain to increase the number of cortical neurons should extend its lifespan. That would be a testable hypothesis, rather than speculation.
To be fair, I have never read any of her papers, so she might well have good data to support her hypothesis, although from her talk, it is all just data with no underlying explanatory evidence.
Sadly, the host did not do more than accept her explanations. No questioning of her hypotheses that should have been easy if he had read her peer-reviewed papers.
My guess is that there would be a lot more pushback if she presented at a conference of her peers.
I would add that the cultural accumulation also scleroses us too. We become bound by traditions (political, legal, religious) and with large populations, like Fisherian genetic allele distributions and evolution, we tend to be more stable towards the norm.
However, human wetware has a very finite lifespan, unlike the potential for machine "brains". As Ai becomes truly AGI, and will almost inevitably co-evolve with us and, I believe, eventually dominate, how will that change the capabilties of our anthology intelligence? Will AGIs, narrow AIs, and simpler algorithms be morse adept and increasing capabilities than humans alone, or will terrestrial intelligence become even more static, as is often depicted in sci-fi?
In terms of evolutionary time, this transition will become an eyeblink. Even the 10,000 years of back history of the Dune books is less time than human emergence from the last ice age and tiny fraction of our human ancestry. For any adanced, long-lived, extraterrestrial civilization observing us, it will appear as almost a sudden phase change. [Perhaps that is what such civilizations are waiting for before making contact?]
In summary, you might just want to have a final class or reading speculating what such a transition to machine intelligence might mean to the economics, policies and governance of humanity a century from now.