Naked Apes and The Red Queen
We Never Ran Out of Stones
Ever wondered how we got here? I don’t mean the “ultimate question of life the universe and everything” - although if you are like me then you have probably pondered on this too.
I mean, how has the human race made it this far? We have a propensity to cause problems for ourselves. People have been prophesising apocalypse and doomsday events since the dawn of time. About once a week I see or hear something that makes me nod my head in agreement. How are we all still here?!?
Yet here we still are, naked story telling apes on a spinning rock hurtling through the cosmos. We are born in a universe that is fundamentally hostile to our existence, the final frontier is not a safe space. Without a space suit an astronaut would die within a few minutes (not within seconds). An extremely painful death. Frozen on the outside whilst your bodily fluids boil, like an inside out Baked Alaska.
We are incredibly fragile. On our beautiful blue planet, the only place we can call home, there are animals, insects, even plants that can kill us. The very givers of life, the sun and water, can be the death of us.
Our giant brains mean that we are, by necessity, born prematurely. Otherwise we would be the death of our mothers during birth. From our first moments we are entirely dependent on grown ups to keep us alive. Even as adults our capacity to survive alone is close to zero.
So it’s no wonder we have evolved a pattern recognition system which is fine-tuned to spotting danger just to survive; an evolutionary gift and curse. Anything we perceive as a threat is given salience and holds our attention. We’ve gone from spotting snakes in the grass to spotting alarming rises in interest rates, or that our clothes are alarmingly out of fashion! Same system, different problems.
If you pay any attention to the news I imagine you see a world full of problems. It looks pretty scary out there. I say imagine as I stopped watching the news and reading newspapers a decade ago (which has significantly improved my mental health and my relationship to the world). We have an attention economy and fear pays the most.
That’s a lot of scary. Just to add to the fun, our self-reflective consciousness means our inner world is as important to us as our outer one. Compared to most other species we have double the landscape to navigate. That landscape is constantly shifting, often in unpredictable ways. If feels like if we don’t keep up we are doomed.
It can feel like it takes all our effort just to stay afloat, let alone progress in life. Yet, we have gone from stone age to digital age in the cosmological blink of an eye.
“A slow sort of country” said the Red Queen. “Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” - Lewis Carroll, Alice through the Looking Glass
How on Earth?
So how have we lasted so long and come so far? Well as luck or providence would have it we are exceptional “general problem solvers”. We can solve problems in a highly diverse domains, from simple to complex. This is where that giant brain comes in handy. We have a whole bunch of cognitive abilities that allow us to solve problems.
Cognitive Super Powers:
Abstraction: Representing a problem in a way that is separate from its concrete details. Allowing us to identify common patterns across different problems.
Inductive reasoning: Drawing general conclusions from specific observations. Allowing us to learn from our experiences and to apply what we have learned to new problems.
Deduction: Reasoning from general principles to specific conclusions. Allowing us to use our knowledge to solve problems that we have never encountered before.
Creativity: Coming up with new and original solutions to problems. Essential for solving problems that do not have a single, obvious solution.
Transfer learning: Using knowledge and skills that we have learned in one domain to solve problems in another. Allowing us to be more efficient and effective problem solvers.
In addition to our cognitive super powers, we also have a number of other tricks up our sleeves:
Language: Communicating to get help from others, and to learn from others.
Tools: To help us to solve problems that would be difficult or impossible to solve without them.
Collaboration: Working together with others to solve problems that are too big or too complex for any one person to solve alone.
Our ability to come up with novel and original solutions to never encountered problems is how we keep “running twice as fast”.
Innovation is the process by which we move forward, rather than just tread water. Although we tend to frame innovation in the context of technology, it is also true that innovation occurs in language, behaviour, social norms, spiritual practices, and every other aspect of life.
“The Stone Age didn’t end because the world ran out of stones.” - possibly Don Huberts
The history of humanity is the history of innovation. This is the story of evolution as a whole, evolution is innovative adaptation, you could call it innovation by natural selection.
Many problems we face today are too big or too complex for any individual to solve alone. But that has always been true. Try hunting a Mammoth, sailing across an ocean, or building a house alone. Our collective problem solving is the real magic that allows us to thrive in Wonderland.
Wise Man, Networked Genius
The key to solving the big problems is collaboration. Collaboration is the process of group work. People coming together and contributing their expertise for the benefit of a shared objective, project, or mission. It’s also an excellent way to encourage innovation and creativity.
In 4 heads are better than 1 I show that our powers of deduction are pretty crappy when we work alone, but when we collaborate they are significantly and consistently better. This is likely true for our other cognitive super powers too. In virtually every field of human endeavour, when we work together the results far exceed what we achieve alone.
By leveraging collective knowledge, experience, and expertise, new and exciting ideas can be generated that an individual could not have thought of. Emphasizing collaboration can lead to a culture of innovation where everyone is encouraged to think outside the box and share their ideas and perspectives.
novel and original solutions to never encountered problems
Collaboration and innovation are how this band of fragile naked story telling apes on a spinning rock in space have not only survived but thrived.
We are born dependent on each other, and we remain so. But the benefits are tremendous, an intrinsically networked social species with genius level collective problem solving.
Mirror Mirror … Who’s The Smartest of Them All?
Coordinating collective problem solving requires us to be able to communicate goals, intentions, thoughts, and feelings. That’s a lot of talking, and would take an enormous amount of time - not ideal if danger is imminent.
Biology to the rescue. Thankfully we do not need to rely upon verbal expression for everything that we need to communicate. Our brains contain mirror neurons which allow us to understand each others’ thoughts, feelings, behaviours and even intentions.
This supports rapid non-verbal communication, learning by imitation, empathy, and action and behaviour prediction.
The reason we left the Stone Age without running out of stones? The reason we can outrun the Red Queen?
We were born to. Too fragile to survive alone we depend upon each other from birth. Our brains are networked via mirror neurons that allow us to “see” each others’ thoughts, feelings, and intentions.
We are innovative and collaborative by nature. Collective we are genius, individually … not so much.