Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!cww From: cww@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Charles William Webster) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Thought/Emotion/Feeling Message-ID: <1853@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> Date: 9 Dec 88 08:20:33 GMT References: <569@epicb.UUCP> <1146@arctic.nprdc.arpa> Reply-To: cww@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu (Charles William Webster) Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA. Lines: 28 In article <1146@arctic.nprdc.arpa> bickel@nprdc.arpa (Steven Bickel) writes: [stuff deleted] > From what I have read concerning evolutionary development of > cognition: intelligence developed because humans discovered that > forms of farming were far more productive and life sustaining > than gathering. Farming required more thought and therefore > increases in thought were supported as an evolutionary trend. > > Steve Bickel One theory (not a main-stream one) put forth by a physical anthropologist in Europe is that the use of our neocortex for higher cognition is a case of pre-adaption. That is, the highly parallel and interconnected cortex evolved for some other purpose than the cognitive abilities we are so proud of. His candidate for this other ability is the resistance to damage that parallelism buys. In physical abilities man does not compare particularly favorably with selected other animals, except the stamina for the long distance running necessary to tire prey out, and then dispatch them. Even small increases in temperature can disable a nervous system. Sustained physical activity creates heat. Greater parallelism provides the redundancy to withstand the misfunctions of individual neurons in the brain due to their hot mileu. Once we had all this extra nervous tissue, it eventually got put to "better" use. There is something almost poetic about this account. It's neat to run and contemplate, and realize that the two may be profoundly connected. --Chuck