BIO 358 Lecture 16: BIO 358 Topic 16
14 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Topic 16: The Human Mind/Brain: Cultural information in a purposeful, moral world – 2
Key Terms:
1. Proximate and ultimate causation: See Chapter 13 Key Terms.
2. Culturally transmitted information: See Chapter 13 Key Terms.
3. Guilt: Guilt is the emotional reaction associated with the functioning of a proximate psychological device
that helps us anticipate and avoid becoming a target for coercive actions by others (Chapters 5 and 10). We
generally experience this feeling when we believe we may have done something that others around us will
perceive as inappropriate or socially parasitic. This behavior is sometimes provoked or exacerbated in us in
response to expressions of moral outrage by others directed at us.
4. Moral outrage: This emotion is a product of proximate psychological devices. This emotion is produced in
response to information about our own behaviors and the behaviors of those around us. We constantly
monitor the social behaviors of others, collecting this information, mostly unconsciously. This imposes a strong
time, effort, and information storage burden on us. The magnitude of this burden increases as roughly the
square of the number of people in our social groups. [The actual formula is (n)(n-1 )/2 where n is the number
of people in our social group.] This means that the size of any intimately cooperative social group in which we
participate is ultimately limited by this burden. However, by structuring our economic cooperation as public
market exchange, we can overcome this monitoring burden and extend kinship-independent social
cooperation to apparently unlimited scales. Also see guilt.
Key Concept Question: A striking feature of humans is the vast superiority of our understanding of the world
compared to non-human animals. The theory we are exploring makes very specific predictions about the most
important factor ULTIMATELY producing this superior human comprehension of the universe. Which of the
following is the most accurate and complete description of this ultimate cause of human cognitive virtuosity?
a. The vastly larger size of our brains is the cause of our superior individual intelligence.
b. The vastly larger stream of culturally transmitted information humans have access to is the cause of our
superior individual intelligence.
c. The extensive rewiring of our neural machinery for faster calculation speeds is the cause of superior human
intelligence.
d. The extensive rewiring of our neural machinery for elite language is the cause of superior human
intelligence.
Notes:
1) The Human Mind/Brain: Cultural information in a purposeful, moral world – 2
a) Our unique capacity to control COI problem makes us uniquely human
b) We defined what minds are like, and now we are going to look at how that leads us to understand the
uniquely human mind
c) First crucial thing—our access to vast amounts of cultural information
i) We know what we learned from an entire culture
d) Second crucial thing—proximate ethical psychology
i) Evolved proximate adaptations to managing the social adaptation
1) Minds are proximate devices
a) Proximate:
i) Mind is a tool (catalyst)
(1) Design information builds the tool of the mind
ii) Mind is a proximate device
(1) Conscious AND unconscious are both proximate
iii) Mind is an information processing tool built by design information in order to aid in executing the
behavior and ultimate cause
iv) ANYTHING that goes through the mind is proximate
b) Ultimate causation
i) The most fundamental causal origin of a behavior
ii) Why do we eat?
(1) Feel hungry?
(a) Physiological info that flows into the brain and results in behavior in order to eat—
proximate
(2) Actually
(a) Second law requires us to eat since we ae a non-equilibrium chemical system in need of
energy or we go to equilibrium and die
(b) Not going to equilibrium is the ultimate cause
c) Proximate causation
i) Neurological/physiological response
ii) Thoughts interpreting that response
iii) Immediate subjective cause of the behavior
iv) Often quirky, idiosyncratic and not very useful in order to determine ultimate cause
v) Execution of the behavior
vi) ALL PROXIMATE TOOLS!^
d) Mind is built to behave “as if” it understands ultimate cause without ever having to understand
ultimate cause
e) Ethics, religion, political, guilt, joy, love, disgust, anger sympathy—all proximate
i) These answers are based on subjective interpretations
(1) Endless
(2) Circular
(3) Subject to individual interpretation
ii) Answer does not show an understanding of ultimate causation
2) The uniquely human “cultural” mind
a) Mind/Brain as a “black box”
i) Human vs. chimp brain
(1) Species typical behavior
Document Summary
Topic 16: the human mind/brain: cultural information in a purposeful, moral world 2. We generally experience this feeling when we believe we may have done something that others around us will perceive as inappropriate or socially parasitic. This behavior is sometimes provoked or exacerbated in us in response to expressions of moral outrage by others directed at us: moral outrage: this emotion is a product of proximate psychological devices. This emotion is produced in response to information about our own behaviors and the behaviors of those around us. We constantly monitor the social behaviors of others, collecting this information, mostly unconsciously. This imposes a strong time, effort, and information storage burden on us. The magnitude of this burden increases as roughly the square of the number of people in our social groups. [the actual formula is (n)(n-1 )/2 where n is the number of people in our social group. ]
