Within Reason

#102 David Deutsch - You're Not Smarter Than a Caveman

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Apr 7, 2025
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INSIGHT

Culture, Not Intelligence, Evolves

  • Human mental capacity today is equal to that of our ancestors 100,000 years ago.
  • Differences today arise mainly from culture and technology, not intelligence improvements.
INSIGHT

Creative Explanation's Evolutionary Role

  • Our faculty for creative explanation evolved to learn and transmit culture, not to create new knowledge.
  • Inventions were rare historically, so creative explanation did not act as evolutionary pressure.
INSIGHT

Creativity Evolved for Cultural Learning

  • Creative explanation evolved primarily to absorb cultural knowledge for survival.
  • Knowledge creation was rare, but knowledge transmission was crucial and dependent on language and culture.
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