That thought occurred to me too. Evolutionarily, if our sexual instincts are very strong and well aimed, the cuteness instinct arguably doesn’t need to be so precise.
Yes, but evolution is stupid, so our sexual instincts are not very well-aimed. Rather, like much else of cognition, they are a bunch of hacks thrown together, which then require arbitrary patches like a cuteness response to solve problems like parental care. (Compare: if our decisionmaking were perfect, we should have accurate agency detection rather than hyperactive agency detection; if we could control our nonverbals well enough, we should have accurate rather than inflated estimates of our own attractiveness.)
Another consideration is parent-offspring conflict, which predicts that babies try to extract more care out of their parents than is optimal for the parents, perhaps enough of a difference to account for your surprise.
Yes, but evolution is stupid, so our sexual instincts are not very well-aimed. Rather, like much else of cognition, they are a bunch of hacks thrown together, which then require arbitrary patches like a cuteness response to solve problems like parental care. (Compare: if our decisionmaking were perfect, we should have accurate agency detection rather than hyperactive agency detection; if we could control our nonverbals well enough, we should have accurate rather than inflated estimates of our own attractiveness.)
But that wouldn’t work as well. I, as a human, would like to be that way; it would still reduce my genetic fitness.
Another consideration is parent-offspring conflict, which predicts that babies try to extract more care out of their parents than is optimal for the parents, perhaps enough of a difference to account for your surprise.
In terms of genetic interests this should reduce to male-female conflict, like birth weight, yes?
Not sure. They seem very much related, but the rationale for parent-offspring conflict applies equally well to parents of either sex (any unit of parental investment gives the child twice the benefit that it gives the parent because the child has only 50% of the parent’s genes). See the original POC paper here, and a paper on genomic imprinting (also by Trivers) here.
Yes, but evolution is stupid, so our sexual instincts are not very well-aimed. Rather, like much else of cognition, they are a bunch of hacks thrown together, which then require arbitrary patches like a cuteness response to solve problems like parental care
There is not necessarily a contradiction between asserting that an instinct is “well aimed” and observing that it is a “bunch of hacks thrown together.” Because phrases like “well aimed” are really a kind of shorthand for talking about effects not intent. Thus, nobody would claim that a “selfish gene” really has feelings of selfishness.
which then require arbitrary patches like a cuteness response to solve problems like parental care.
Sure, and if the combination of instincts work reasonably well together, it’s not necessarily a problem that the cuteness reaction reacts stronger to bunny rabbits.
That thought occurred to me too. Evolutionarily, if our sexual instincts are very strong and well aimed, the cuteness instinct arguably doesn’t need to be so precise.
Yes, but evolution is stupid, so our sexual instincts are not very well-aimed. Rather, like much else of cognition, they are a bunch of hacks thrown together, which then require arbitrary patches like a cuteness response to solve problems like parental care. (Compare: if our decisionmaking were perfect, we should have accurate agency detection rather than hyperactive agency detection; if we could control our nonverbals well enough, we should have accurate rather than inflated estimates of our own attractiveness.)
Another consideration is parent-offspring conflict, which predicts that babies try to extract more care out of their parents than is optimal for the parents, perhaps enough of a difference to account for your surprise.
But that wouldn’t work as well. I, as a human, would like to be that way; it would still reduce my genetic fitness.
In terms of genetic interests this should reduce to male-female conflict, like birth weight, yes?
Not sure. They seem very much related, but the rationale for parent-offspring conflict applies equally well to parents of either sex (any unit of parental investment gives the child twice the benefit that it gives the parent because the child has only 50% of the parent’s genes). See the original POC paper here, and a paper on genomic imprinting (also by Trivers) here.
There is not necessarily a contradiction between asserting that an instinct is “well aimed” and observing that it is a “bunch of hacks thrown together.” Because phrases like “well aimed” are really a kind of shorthand for talking about effects not intent. Thus, nobody would claim that a “selfish gene” really has feelings of selfishness.
Sure, and if the combination of instincts work reasonably well together, it’s not necessarily a problem that the cuteness reaction reacts stronger to bunny rabbits.