• HOW DID HUMANS COME DOWN FROM THE TREES AND WHY DID NO ONE FOLLOW? By Vanessa Woods & Brian Hare

  Edge: OUT OF OUR MINDS:

  tags: primates, human-nature, grue

  • Bonobos share more DNA (98.7 percent) with us than they do with gorillas
  • A theory of mind allows for complex social behaviors, such as military strategies, and the formation of institutions, such as governments.
  • The chimps didn't discriminate; they made the begging gesture at people who obviously couldn't see them just as often as they begged from people who were looking straight at them.
  • when she knows the partition is blocking your view of her, she walks low and fast behind it and swipes the banana off the tray.
  • Low-ranking chimpanzees will always go for the food that's hidden from a dominant chimpanzee's view, because they know the dominant has not seen it. If you suddenly look up, a chimpanzee will follow your gaze, wondering what you've seen. If you delay giving chimpanzees food, either by teasing them or accidentally dropping it, they know when you're being intentionally mean, and they act more frustrated than they do when you're just being clumsy.
  • does this mean that chimpanzees have the same theory of mind that we do?
  • human children under the age of two can use your pointing to find food. Even if you just look at the correct cup, children will follow your gaze and use it to gain information about what you know. They understand that you're trying to help them by communicating the location of the hidden goodie.
  • something that evolved
    • Could be learned early. How young were the chimps? It might be that human children are brought up from the beginning with learning opportunities for communicative gestures, but chimps don't have that advantage. Need to look aqt chimpls brought up as humans and humans brought up as chimps. - post by rgarns
  • If you pointed in the right direction
    • Notice dogs get communicative estures. Perhaps it has to do with being social in a special way. Suggests something genetic. - post by rgarns
  • Instead of getting a jump start with the most intelligent hominids surviving to produce the next generation, as is often suggested, it may have been the more sociable hominids ? because they were better at solving problems together ? who achieved a higher level of fitness and allowed selection to favor more sophisticated problem-solving over time. Humans got their smarts only because we got friendlier first.
  • a dominant female
    • How much does this have to do with one's place in the hierarchy. Dominant chimps don't cooperate well; subordinate chimps cooperate well with other subordinates? - post by rgarns
  • a lack of tolerance is one of the main constraints
    • Could also be that foresight in humans creates possibilities for considering how cooperation now (even with someone you don't lke or know well) will pay off later - post by rgarns
  • we became very tolerant, and this allowed us to cooperate in entirely new ways. Without this heightened tolerance, we would not be the species we are today.

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