[jeff-davis]

I happen to be reading Sapiens right now. The author seems convinced that we genetically developed the ability for abstract thought (which he calls imaginary or fiction), and that allowed us to cooperate much more easily in large numbers. For instance, believing in a particular flag allows you to identify your allies on the battlefield without having ever met them before. The theory goes that other animals, including other hominins, genetically lack the hardware to rally around a flag.

This also led to the notion of a shared culture across many individuals that can adapt much more quickly than genetic evolution.

(Unless I misunderstand, of course.)

The author squarely blames Homo Sapiens for wiping out the other hominins, pointing out how many other large species seemed to go extinct as soon as we arrived someplace new, even long before the Agricultural revolution.

[rhelz]

Certainly our capacity for abstract thought is our superpower, but recall, we tried to spread to Europe for 200,000 years, and the Neanderthals always were able to push us back out again.

50,000 years ago, something changed . Maybe it was an increased capacity for abstract thought, but if so, that was a software and not a hardware development, because we had the same anatomy for 300,000 years. If we could implement the software, I don’t see why the Neanderthals couldn’t have done so, as they had even bigger brains than we do.

[jeff-davis]

Part of the theory is that abstract thought enables culture, and culture enables much faster adaptation than genetic evolution. But still far from instant.

So maybe the abstract thought hardware was there for a long time before we got culturally coordinated enough to use it with full effectiveness to organize large groups capable of outcompeting Neanderthals.