[MD] Unkludging the MoQ

[David Thomas]

On 8/17/10 7:45 PM, "Krimel" <Krimel at Krimel.com> wrote:

> [Krimel]
> What was the name of that program? There is a very good one available online
> at pbs.org
> It was on Nova and is called Ape Genius. Michael Tomasello is on it.
My web access is real real slow this morning (satellite access get funking
from time to time) so I could search for it.
> 


> [Krimel]
> Right. It is speculative, of course, but I would say the latest possible
> date for language is cave paint at 50,000 years ago or so. But either way or
> any way you look at it, whatever we were before we had language, we were
> fully human after we got it and not fully human until we did.
[Dave]
And we are right back to the line drawing, chicken or egg, problem. If the
hierarchy proposed by RMP is a good one, draw the social line at 50,000 and
intellectual level come later. Which means "intellect" which he uses though
out Lila interchangeably with intellectual did not appear until around Greek
times. Which means language happened without "intellect" which is complete
at odd with how brain scientist current use the word.
> 
> There certainly are other processes that contributed to and were expanded by
> the increased size and complexity of human brains. Upright posture for
> example frees the hands to do other things and they evolved to do things
> better. The human brain is essentially an input output system. We tend to
> focus on input and output of concepts here on this forum but increased brain
> size and complexity also gives us manual dexterity and fine motor control of
> the hands. These are a distinctly human traits. In other words man is the
> only animal that can its shoes.
> 
> Another result of a larger more complex brain is the number of things you
> can think of at once. There is a guy on FORA.TV (available on HULU) who
> claims that what makes humans different from apes is just this, the number
> of things we can consider at one time. He claims that apes can only think of
> three things at once. For example, an ape can use a rock to crack a nut
> against an anvil; three things. Humans can handle the magic number 7 plus or
> minus two things in their heads at once. That's our edge.
> 
> That span is much studied and has various names, short term memory,
> executive memory, or just awareness. That jump from three things to seven
> things seems to provide an exponential increase in the number of things we
> can think to do with our hands besides twiddling our thumbs.
[Dave] 
The guy from Oxford who was studying the social aspects of brain development
noted that chimps on average can keep track of about 50 other individuals
while humans max out at about 150. Also that while chimps can understand to
some degree the intentions of one or maybe two other individuals at the same
time humans can think about the intentions of 6 or 7 other individuals
before they max out. And this seem to be a physical limitation of processing
power.

Dave