Considering the evolved mind:Constraints on transhumanism

Pascal Boyer, Washington University, March 2007

The plot

A few silly pictures, to suggest that…

Transhumanism needs:A proper, scientific view of human nature

A primer on culture and the evolved mindMany complicated, specialised, evolved systems…

They explain recurrent human cultureThey constrain envelope of possible trends

A few silly illustrations

Past view of future fashion

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…and the reality

What people really look like

What people really look like

What people really look like

What food should have been like

Actual food

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What houses should have been like

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Actual houses

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What cars should have been like

… and the sad reality.

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Why are past futures always wrong?

Beyond the silliness…

TrendismE.g. exponential curves infinity or 'singularity'⇒

Technology in a cultural void

A better way:Understand technology as cultural productionUnderstand culture as an evolutionary phenomenon

Culture and the evolved mind

Culture & MindThe questions

What is culture?

In what sense are there different cultures?

Is culture in the mind?

Is culture accessible to inspection?

Is it true that anything goes in culture?

How do we measure similarity/difference?

Examples of cultural stuff

"So great to eat grubs and sit in one’s mother’s brother’s lap…"

"In order to make a good soldier of you, we will first break your toe…"

"We [men] make love to women and they never retaliate…"

Why it’s disgusting to sleep with a potter’s daughter

The individual pursuit of happiness

The place should be run democratically

Poverty of culturalism

A not too refined model: absorptionCulture is “out there”There is an osmosis or percolation

process

Problems“out there” is question-beggingNo description of the osmosis

process

We need psychology of cultural acquisition

How do people acquire culture?Examples

Syntax

Nose maintenance

A fondness for raw grubs

When (whether) to murder your spouse

Differential equations

The gods are watching us

Judging that Germans are simpatico

How do people acquire culture?

Pathways as diverse as domains of representationsDifferent predispositions

Different reliance on external storage

Different domains activate different mental systems

No unified “cultural acquisition”

Is culture contagious?

You “catch” culture from other people

Several possible pathwaysCoercion

Voluntary adherence

Contagion of ideas and preferences

Contagion as the main driving forceHow does it create vast cultural trends?

What is the underlying psychology

The “meme” model:Dawkins, Durham

Cultural units: memes as replicatorsExamples: tunes, associations

Differential fitness of memesYankee-doodle / SchoenbergFitness as reproductive potential

Central mechanism: imitationPeople acquire culture by imitationSome memes better for imitationCultural selection driven by meme-

fitness

The epidemiology model:Sperber and others…

Population of minds and representationsTwo varieties of representations

Mental representationsPublic representationsCausal chains between the two

No replication of mental representationsNo replication of culture, similarityImitation only explains littleCue + inferences as main model of transmission

Are there cultural universals?

Why the question seems silly:Apparently great variation

What we find everywhere is not ‘cultural’

But we find patterned variation:E.g. SOV vs SVO

E.g. cow dung vs. cheese

Culture as parameters on choices that are universal

Why those choices, why this list of parameters?

Intuitive ontologies& cultural input

Is learning the oppositeof instinct?

A very wrong and very widespread syllogismDevelopment is zero-sum

Lots of stuff is learned

Therefore very few prior dispositions

What is wrong here?The major premise is false

See comparison: snail, turtle, finch, human

See comparison of PCs in 1980 and 2000

Human learning as non-zero sum

More information picked upHumans pick up more than any other species

Also pick up info from other humans

Richer dispositions:Domain-specific principles

Attention to particular stimuli

Early dependence on conpsecifics

Evolution and normal environments

Q: What is a normal environment?

A1: Generic environment?

A2: Normatively OK environment?

A3: Environment of genetic evolution

Summary: prior principles:[a] evolved

[b] expect normal environment

[c] build structures that go beyond input

The relevance of development

Culture is acquired by children…Placing constraints on what can be transmitted

Children as “cultural sponges”All language, norms, are acquired effortlessly

All seem natural and normal

But is this a circular reasoning?We only consider actual cultural differences

What if these are constrained by acquisition?

Two ways of looking atmental architecture

General capacities:

Memory, attention, reasoning…

Each applies to many domains: foraging, mating, coalitions

Domain-specificy:

Capacities for mating, forming

coalitions, foraging, etc.

Each domain has its way of

using memory, attention, reasoning

Domain-specificity:computational claims

Different domains different requirementsAcquire syntax vs. acquire motor control

Eg interact with animals species-level, people individuals

Mate-selection vs. friend-selection

General-purpose architecture problemsComputational overload: biases necessary

Problems of vanishing intersections

Talking to tigers, or Finding Mr Right in ripe old age: evolutionary constraints

Domain-specificity incognitive development

Different domains, different principlesSyntaxLiving thingsIntuitive PhysicsTheory of MindMany other domains…

Different developmental schedulesAgainst Piaget, not just structural changeSpecific development in each domain

Predispositions driveinferences from cultural input

Dramatic examplesRe-inventing syntax: NSL, creoles

Ignoring propaganda: PC versions of stories

More general pointCultural input is always fragmentary

Needs framing, inferences

These are provided by prior structures

Against naïve realismGood tricks of the mind

Several “illusions” (aka Good Tricks) of high-level mentation

Narrative coherence and explanatory valueThe past really is the same country

Personhood in other peopleThey do have causal stability

Physics is all about invisible processesCentres of mass and forces and momenta

Essences in things and beingsWater is watery and giraffes have girafeness

Illusion / Good Trick 1:Make physics a theoretical affair

Intuitive physics and hidden stuff

Theory of Body (ToBy)

Causal innards

Inner sources of energy

Own body as a physical affair

Specific systems for bio-motionReactions to perceived bio-motion:

Creating motor planInhibition of motor plan

Impossible bio-motionEven more inhibition

Represent inner energy source

Illusion / Good Trick 2:Treat other people like animals

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We are all sinners …in living-kind essentialism

From 3 years of ageStable species

Exclusive categories

From 5 or earlierSpecies-specific essence

Causal role of “essence”

Stability of essence

What are other people like?

They have causal essenceInternal features called dispositions

Causally efficient

Stable

Causal essence matters more than situationspecially so for other people

Good Trick 3:Solid dualism a la Eccles

Are we all dualists?

It would seem soCommitment to non-physical causation

Folk-psychology with vague implementation

But we are much worse than thatNot even consistent dualists

We are multiplists

Faced with dead people

Animacy systems: shutoff (Clark Barrett syndrome)

Social intelligence: preserved inferences

Result: A tangible counter-intuitive object

Dead bodies as agents

PEOPLE BURIED WITH CELL PHONES IN SLOVAKIA [Pravda]

“A priest had to stop the funeral ceremony because a dead body’s cell phone rang. A call from the coffin had an indescribable impression on the people present at the ceremony.”

Good Trick 4:Keep the past relevant

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Two ways to createnarrative coherence

Method 1Register/post states in robust format

Demand path dependence

Use past to explain present states

Method 2 Register/post states in not so robust format

Modify past states to fit explanations of present

Autobiography is strangely biased

Autobio memory favours second methodAnchoring effects

Theory-driven inferences

Is that for functional reasons?Easy access to present information

Mmmh… seems to presume self-narrative

Is that for adaptive reasons?Here and now does have fitness consequences

Good Trick 5:Turn groups into persons

What makes humans special:Symptoms of social intelligence

Hypertrophy of social inferencing:Bob realised that Lou could not believe that Pat did

not know that Cindy had forgotten to tell Jack that…

Capacities for trust-evaluation

Coalitional reasoning

Complex standards of fairness

Emotional interest in gossip

Coalitional Psychology

Coalitions are ubiquitousWarfare

Political struggle

Office politics

Coalitional action seems easyNo-one bothers to think

Strategic moves are intuitively obvious

Psychologists can create coalitions!!!!

Coalitional Computations

Computation is automatic, unconsciousPeople have coalitional intuitions

These are based on principled computation

Principles are complicatedBenefit of other member = own benefit

Expectation of non-direct reciprocity

Signals of [1]

Treat non-members as equivalent

Make defection less likely (more costly)

So what about the future?

This was only a sampler

Some other domains of complex inferenceEstimate value of potential matesCompute foraging resources and decisionsCompute potential danger in one's environmentEstimate possible niches in social hierarchiesEtc etc etc

Principles are complicated, specific

Naïve realism gets us nowhere…

Take home message

Technology not such an obvious guidePath dependence of cultural representations

Depends on assumed state of motivations/capacities

Consider cultural evolutionDepends on transmission mechanisms

Depends on evolved motivations/capacities

All this can be studied and is being studied…