Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

188 J HOW THE MIND WORKSit is not enough to explain the evolution of a brain in a vat. A good theoryhas to connect all the parts of the human lifestyle—all ages, both sexes,anatomy, diet, habitat, and social life. That is, it has to characterize theecological niche that humans entered.The only theory that has risen to this challenge comes from JohnTooby and the anthropologist Irven DeVore. Tooby and DeVore begin bynoting that species evolve at one another's expense. We fantasi'Jfe aboutthe land of milk and honey, the big rock candy mountaifffand tangerinetrees with marmalade skies, but real ecosystems^reaifferent. Except forfruits (which trick hungry animals intodj«p*ersing seeds), virtually everyfood is the body part of some other^rganism, which would just as soonkeep that part for itselfQfganisms evolve defenses against being eaten,and would-be dipei*5evolve weapons to overcome these defenses, proddingthe woHra-be meals to evolve better defenses, and so on, in an evolutionajjf*armsrace. These weapons and defenses are genetically basedan£r*relatively fixed within the lifetime of the individual; therefore theyxhange slowly. The balance between eater and eaten develops only overevolutionary time.Humans, Tooby and DeVore suggest, entered the "cognitive niche."Remember the definition of intelligence from Chapter 2: using knowledgeof how things work to attain goals in the face of obstacles. Bylearning which manipulations achieve which goals, humans have masteredthe art of the surprise attack. They use novel, goal-orientedcourses of action to overcome the Maginot Line defenses of otherorganisms, which can respond only over evolutionary time. The manipulationscan be novel because human knowledge is not just couched inconcrete instructions like "how to catch a rabbit." Humans analyze theworld using intuitive theories of objects, forces, paths, places, manners,states, substances, hidden biochemical essences, and, for other animalsand people, beliefs and desires. (These intuitive theories are the topic ofChapter 5.) People compose new knowledge and plans by mentallyplaying out combinatorial interactions among these laws in their mind'seye.Many theorists have wondered what illiterate foragers do with theircapacity for abstract intelligence. The foragers would have! bettergrounds for asking the question about modern couch potatoes. Life forforagers (including our ancestors) is a camping trip that never ends, butwithout the space blankets, Swiss Army knives, and freeze-dried pasta alpesto. Living by their wits, human groups develop sophisticated tech-