Douglas, I'm glad of the report because I'm an admirer of Dunbar. I'd think
of him as a primatologist rather than an evolutionary psychologist (those
griots of the genome), but in this general area disciplinary boundaries are
pretty vague.
I think, though, that Theory of Mind is an artefact of the classical
Artificial Intelligence account of consciousness, and feel that Dennett's
Intentional Stance is a better account -- this relates to Bergson's account
of negation in Creative Evolution, where negation costs more than that which
is negated.
It is my personal theory that language was probably invented by mothers in
close collaboration with their children. I'm inclined to doubt, though, that
language-by-itself is quite as significant as it seems to be, since no
previously-undiscovered tribe of humans, however remote, has been discovered
to be innocent of language; at the same time, individuals denied the social
context in which language is normally learnt during childhood are known to
be at a serious disadvantage if their first encounter with language is
post-puberty (as, for instance, in the fabled case of Kaspar Hauser but also
in better-substantiated 20th century examples).
Contrary to the argument of social decline in modern lifestyle, however, I'd
point out that the retinues of prominent politicians, such as Tony Blair and
Gordon Brown, number in the hundred-ands. It's something people overlook
when they talk about leadership contests: it isn't about the media-projected
progagonists so much as the tribes that they lead. For the rest of us, it is
not so much about _whether_ our circles are numbered in the hundred-ands,
but rather _how_ they are numbered, i.e., whether primarily kin-related, as
in primitive society, or the kind of context-dependent orientations that is
a concomitant of urban society.
I don't think that Dunbar has the ammunition to substantiate this claim
about religion being hardwired, the whole notion of hard wiring being--I
feel--problematic. This too is a legacy of the computational/algorithmic
account of consciousness that Dennett and Andy Clark have better accounts
of. Clark's Associative Engine is a good account, I think, of that classic
philosophers' problem--intuition--that in turn goes a long way to a soft or
semi-soft account of religion.
What I really like about Dunbar & the social brain hypothesis, though, is
that it valorizes what we've always assumed to be uniquely human as distinct
from this crezzy notion that machines might one day take over...
P
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to
> poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Douglas Clark
> Sent: 14 February 2005 23:22
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: poets and shamans
>
> Now that I have a happy cat I will continue the argument.
> Last week I read Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone which
> demonstrates the decline in social capital in the US. I see
> much of it as being due to the decline of the small
> communities where everybody knew each other (the 200 people
> that we are programmed to cope with and can recognise) as
> society changes. There is also a generational effect as the
> very community minded generation born before the Second World
> War dies off. But much is due to the modern lifestyle. This
> doesnt tie in with the supposed American religious
> fundamentalism which must have a mythic element. Anyway
> Putnam's analysis from surveys doesnt support it.
>
> So if the West as it globalises is finding a significant
> reduction in social capital in its communities bringing with
> it all the relevant problems and religion is fast vanishing
> what is going to bind people together. The only answer given
> tonight was football. The only other thing I can think of is
> dialect..texting for example. Each generation replaces the
> exiosting dialect by a fresh argot. But the basic problem is
> that our mnds are programmed to live in communities of less
> than 200 people and the last 3-4,000 years of urbanisation
> have not been good for us.
>
> And oh there was another point re Theory of Mind. Women are
> better than men at it hence their superior verbal skills.
> Which are hardwired into the brain, as we know..left and
> right hemispheres, as are men's spatial skills.
> TOM is too complicated for me to explain in an email.
> Shakespeare was good at it.
>
>
> Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
> http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Douglas Clark" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, February 14, 2005 10:51 PM
> Subject: poets and shamans
>
>
> >I went to a lecture on region tonight by the evolutionary
> psychologist
> >Robin Dunbar. There wasnt much new in it but it did draw
> the threads
> >together.
> >
> > Our brains are programmed for us to live in communities of
> less than
> > 200 and it appears that each community has its own shaman. (He
> > exampled army companies being the largest viable military unit) As
> > approximately 1% of the population is psychotic the inference is
> > obvious. My calculations years ago re poets calculated that
> 1 in 5,000
> > is a poet so shamans are not shamans because of their linguistic
> > abilities but because in their trance states they can contact other
> > worlds. So that is 25 shamans to a poet, near enough.
> >
> > Robin Dunbar conceded that we were hardwired for religion. (I have
> > spent the day reading Michael Ruse's Darwin and Design which
> > demolishes the Intelligent Design people but he will not commit
> > himself to a Dawkins approach preferring some sort of Gaia
> approach).
> > What Robin Dunbar was stressing was that in large groups of
> people the
> > problem was with freeloaders who took all the advantages without
> > giving anything back.
> > These
> > were the people who manipulated such structures as religion
> for their
> > own ends. One of the reasons we have developed dialect is
> to minimise
> > their influence. (This was new to me).
> >
> > There are several books which point out that the human brain is
> > fundamentally flawed which is why we have such a thing as religion
> > which Theory of Mind makes us capable of. But the chimps of Gombe
> > demonstrate that we are not alone in being nasty bits of work.
> >
> > Now I must go feed the cat. I thought Liz would appreciate
> this report.
> >
> >
> > Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
> > http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
> >
> > --
> > This email has been verified as Virus free Virus Protection
> and more
> > available at http://www.plus.net
> >
>
>
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