Thanks, I'm seel8ng to collect all major books on cultural evolution, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

On Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 1:25 PM James Tyler Carpenter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Jamie D <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2021 4:15:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Neanderthals, and evolution of language
 
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I'd like to share some observations that I think should be more salient to those working to put together the big picture TOK.

Short version:
1. Upright posture
2. tool use
3.... then with language, Interdependence, intersubjectivity, we get the explosion of cumulative culture.
4, Around 100,000 years ago, via mutation of the voice box, modern humans expand speech, thus thought, thus further accelerate cumulative culture, giving us the edge to wipe out Neanderthals and other competition. 
5. The capacity for complex communication allows for enough of a stable equilibrium within our own species that cooperation just barely out competes the incentives of ego domination. 

Long version: 

Standing upright preceded both tool use and language, evident by Australopithecus.

Tool use preceded language, evident in some species today.

The sole feature that makes humans unique, giving us our edge, is not hands, tools, language, nor sheer intelligence,(which I argue isn't even a real thing) but cumulative cultural evolution - the integrated, innovative crowd.

As Joseph Heinrich points out, ants are the only other creature with similar amounts of biomass on the planet, and for similar reasons, but they don't evolve culturally. 

Other species have some culture, but not cultural evolution. Their culture has no capacity to evolve and accumulate complex arrangements of concepts that can integrate and find new uses.

I'm very curious to really understand from a first principles, systemic view, how the 4th joint point emerged, because such a thorough understanding would be applicable to almost anything we appreciate.

Now, about Neanderthals:

I just saw this video at random, 

...which describes how modern humans, unlike any other mammal, have a voice box that lowers into the throat as we grow past infancy.

Neanderthals, modern apes, and human babies all have a flat base of the skull, and can breath and swallow nearly at the same time, but as humans grow past their first year, our airway and foodway get crossed as our larynx lowers into the throat.

It makes sense that it would have taken quite a while for such a dangerous adaptation to secure itself, but once it did, our capacity for cultural evolution exploded.

Neanderthals certainly had some language and cultural evolution, as they were human, and so even did Australopithecus... But full blown linguistic sophistication apparently didn't emerge until modern humans, 100,000 years ago, which allowed us to essentially wipe out all the competition, and then find an evolutionary equilibrium with groups of our own species that could also speak (and thus think and reason) with equal sophistication. 

These observations pave the way for far greater resolution of the big picture:

1. upright apes could face each other, and while managing heat more effectively and long distance cooperative running and hunting, created the space and demand for greater intersubjectivity. We looked each other in the face with our torso and hands exposed. Our eyes grew white sclera to show others where we looked. 
(Genes for cooperation vs sociopathy have been in a race ever since, with modern culture creating space for both.) 
Imagine upright chimpanzees barking at each other, carrying stone blades, working together to bring down a wounded buffalo, mostly reading each other's minds as they grew up together, using vocalization for long-distant and emotional communication. Also the hands being free and arms stretched out before the visual field is a ripe situation to discover the utility of representations.

2. As our discovery of representational utility expands, tool use expands, and demand for culture begins to accumulate, altering the fitness landscape that acts upon our genome. As culture gets a hold of increasing utility, it becomes an invisible, Godlike force that grooms and gardens our genes, selecting for genes favorable to cultural evolution, like Neoteny, communication, and a deeper, more abstract "user interface" (a throwback to Donald Hoffman)...which sort of IS culture - a virtual part of our genetic fitness landscape, beginning a long journey of blurring the lines between subjectivity and objectivity, changing us inside and outside. This generates a number of trends that have remained constant: 
   1. Neoteny
   2. White sclera, empathy, mind reading
   3. Demands of innovation
   4. widening cultural complexity and integration, escalator of reason, expanding circle of compassion, etc...
   5. Sharing, Commodification, 
   6. Interdependence, such that individual fitness depends almost entirely on contributing to the group.
   7. Stratification of Status Hierarchies, such that we become more sensitive to fitting in,  fearful of what others might think, ....not to mention denial and contempt of this very quality. To this day I argue we've not reconciled ourselves to our own nature in this regard.
  
4. Homiids radiate throughout the world, but modern humans spring up with greater capacity for cumulative culture and wipe out all competition, finding stability within our own species. 

Lastly, 
I'm interested in the future of groups, tribalism and such, as these are so strongly built in that we often create distinct groups just for the sport of competition, which does drive evolution via sport.

Future subcultures that expand their capacity to cooperate and innovate together will almost certainly make groups that don't face a threat of becoming obsolete in the future. 
However, the degree we are integrating and connecting should pull everyone together, utilizing our extreme inclination to conform.

It seems ego is the primary impetus to live and grow, so how could a world ever be without ego?

Jamie



--
-Jamie 
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