It was some sort of a competition inside our species, probably sexual.
A currently popular theory (at least, at the pop sci level, I don’t know how it is regarded by actual scientists) is that intelligence snowballed due to social competition of all against all—an arms race. The smarter people are, the better they can detect lies, but also the smarter they are, the better they can get away with lying. Everyone needs to be as smart as possible just to keep up, until the process runs into a limit, such as the size of the birth canal. Expanding that by widening the pelvis adversely affects mobility.
But that looks like a just-so story. Why did that process happen to humans and not chimpanzees? To which one answer might be: It could have happened to a different branch of the primates, it just chanced to happen to our ancestors first. Someone had to be first, and they’re the only ones smart enough to be having this conversation. Once started, the process was so fast that every other creature that didn’t reach take-off has effectively stood still, and in the modern world they stand no chance except by our permission.
I think it is not a just-so story, it largely predicts everything it should and fails to predict everything it shouldn’t. Runaway processes require feedback, I think this is the key. Look for the thing that intelligence made harder. That thing is birth and babycare. Intelligence makes it hard, this causes X to be stronger, and X causes more intelligence, that is the feedback process. What could X be? Sexual competition. More: http://lesswrong.com/lw/mcj/open_thread_jun_15_jun_21_2015/chju
A currently popular theory (at least, at the pop sci level, I don’t know how it is regarded by actual scientists) is that intelligence snowballed due to social competition of all against all—an arms race. The smarter people are, the better they can detect lies, but also the smarter they are, the better they can get away with lying. Everyone needs to be as smart as possible just to keep up, until the process runs into a limit, such as the size of the birth canal. Expanding that by widening the pelvis adversely affects mobility.
But that looks like a just-so story. Why did that process happen to humans and not chimpanzees? To which one answer might be: It could have happened to a different branch of the primates, it just chanced to happen to our ancestors first. Someone had to be first, and they’re the only ones smart enough to be having this conversation. Once started, the process was so fast that every other creature that didn’t reach take-off has effectively stood still, and in the modern world they stand no chance except by our permission.
I think it is not a just-so story, it largely predicts everything it should and fails to predict everything it shouldn’t. Runaway processes require feedback, I think this is the key. Look for the thing that intelligence made harder. That thing is birth and babycare. Intelligence makes it hard, this causes X to be stronger, and X causes more intelligence, that is the feedback process. What could X be? Sexual competition. More: http://lesswrong.com/lw/mcj/open_thread_jun_15_jun_21_2015/chju