mental mutts and contagious memes

Steven Jay Gould argues for punctuated equilibrium. This is against the common view of evolution as a steady upward climb to humans. Instead, Gould argues that mass extinctions open new niches that are quickly exploited by the survivors.

After a mass extinction, there are fewer predators and fewer competitors. Survivors can be isolated from each other for a long time. A greater variety in each species can survive resulting in a greater diversity of each individuals. More species, greater variety, experimentation, an explosion of activity -- this is the "punctuated" part.

But eventually the environment is crowded, there are more predators, and the variety is paired down to the most viable. This is the "equilibrium" part -- and it could last for millions of years, as it did several times for the dinosaurs. But there is always the next mass extinction event.

Where are we? I think that we are in the "equilibrium" part. No one knows how long this one will last. And we seem to be engineering our own mass extinction event. But there is plenty already written about that.

Instead, consider the "punctuated" part of our past. The earliest big brained humanoids found a hitherto unexploited niche -- the mental world. No other animal can come close to the mental world created by humans -- and the first big brained humanoids were the prehistoric pioneers in this world.

There is every reason to think that there was an explosion of experimentation in early big brained humanoids (just as Gould's theory would suggest). We know the Neanderthal were a different kind of big brained humanoid. Perhaps there were a dozen different kinds of big brained humanoids who first pioneered the mental world. Humans are probably mental mutts.

Early big brained humanoids bred memes and passed them like contagion. Some memes kept the humanoids alive better (creating fire, making a flint spear head, where to find good red berries, etc.). But no meme survives without being contagious. If I have an idea, and I never tell anyone about my idea, that idea dies with me. My idea will only survive if I can show others how to create fire, how to make a flint spear head, and where to find those good red berries.

But the contagiousness of a meme is not necessarily connected to its ability to keep the host brain alive. The contagiousness of a meme requires the host to be alive long enough to pass it on, and for that the more excited the host wishes to pass on the meme the more likely the meme will survive. Thus the evangelical meme.