Re: Evolutionary Psychology

From: tim (trl295@soton.ac.uk)
Date: Thu Nov 20 1997 - 15:18:14 GMT


so it seems that we have a whole bunch of circuits in our brains which
have each evolved their particular structures in order to carry out a
particular task which was of some considerable use to our ancestors in
their EEA. some examples of the purposes of such circuits are; to
recognize certain sensory inputs (human face/voice recognition), or to
aquire certain types of information (language learning), or to resolve
certain types of logical problems (cheat detection, simple
arithmetic).

these circuits were evolved in order to deal with relatively simple
problems, however they appear to have evolved 'too well' as they are
able to do things that there was no 'need' for them to have been able
to do: creative things such as painting and inventing the wheel. The
single action of inventing the wheel, which no other species has
managed, has set in motion a whole series of other events to the extent
that almost every machine on the planet contains at least one wheel or
cog. so if we hadnt had this ability to invent the wheel, where would
we be as a race? out in the (still very abundant) fields, hunting and
gathering, or maybe on our own lo-tec farms.

the invention of the wheel has let us travel further, meet more people,
do more stuff, yet still have more free time. this in turn has led to a
population explosion, causing us to 'take over' most of the planet. so
it seems that the ability to invent the wheel (possibly combined with
having opposable thumbs) allows a species to take over its planet.

so in summary then if humans didnt have genes which allowed them to
have creative ideas then at least half of us would never have been
born, and those of us that had would probably be working on farms.

does that make sense?



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