Mindscape 225 | Michael Tomasello on The Social Origins of Cognition and Agency

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Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
Human beings have developed wondrous capacities to take in information about the world, mull it over, think about a suite of future implications, and decide on a course of action based on those deliberations. These abilities developed over evolutionary history for a variety of reasons and under a number of different pressures. But one crucially important aspect of their development is their social function. According to Michael Tomasello, we developed agency and cognition and even morality in order to better communicate and cooperate with our fellow humans.
Michael Tomasello received a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Georgia. He is currently the James Bonk Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience and Director of the Developmental Psychology Program at Duke University. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among his awards are the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, the Wiley Prize in Psychology, and the Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science. His newest book is The Evolution of Agency: Behavioral Organization from Lizards to Humans.
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[@michaelberg7201]

What a privilege it is to hear two such amazing intellects discuss such challenging subject matter. I'm so impressed by professor Tomasello, his arguments are clear and his examples are obvious and fun at the same time. Really, when I saw the title of this podcast I was a bit "meh ok let's listen in for a bit" but it turned out to be a super, super interesting episode that I felt could and should have lasted ten times longer 🙂I was impressed by the insight that our ability as humans to conceptualize time may have influenced our evolution in terms of collaborating on common future goals. However it also struck me that the reverse might be equally true. That is, the evolutionary pressure to collaborate in gathering food could have facilitated our ability to visualize events happening in a distant future. Very interesting topic for this podcast, thanks so much to the both of you.

[@joshuabrecka6012]

What an amazing guest! Your discussion is very helpful--Tomasello's work is relevant to my research and I've been meaning to read him for a while now. This is the jumpstart I needed. Thanks for this!

[@trevorcrowley5748]

Agree 100%. Language, Consciousness, Morality, our origins and place in the world, Plato's cave (for worms) , surviving our flawed national and global institutions -- all viewed with the lens of science. Breathtaking in scope and beautifully tied together. He is not leaving much on the table for philosophy -- metaphysics?

[@CurtOntheRadio]

Superb. Most cogent perspective on evolution of 'mind' and 'social stuff' I've ever come across.

[@michaeljfigueroa]

Thanks Sean Carroll. I appreciate your time

[@jamessavery276]

A fantastic interview. I learned a lot and thought about some things in a different way.

[@mitchkahle314]

In my view "free will" does not affect the future one iota, we simply experience what happens and "feel" like we make decisions. I'm more curious about the future of evolution, beyond humans, who seem to be stuck in a quagmire of physical and mental limitations. Given the chance, perhaps a more advanced species will one day emerge to create a better world for all creatures 'great and small'.

[@CurtOntheRadio]

I used to feel like that so much I found it quite disturbing. Moreover, I can't think of any way to check if one even experiences the decisions in realtime. Could be we experience things weeks or years after real events. No way to find out, SFAICT. Incidentally, I regained a sense of freewill in a profound moment: absence of 'freewill' was so seriously troubling me that I came to a crunchpoint and felt I had to decide if I was going to trouble about it anymore. I decided not to. Voila!!!! Freewill back! No more debate about it! Fixed.

[@michaeljfigueroa]

@@CurtOntheRadio yea. I just call it "will " nowadays. Whatever it is it's pretty cool we have it.

[@michaeljfigueroa]

That depends on weather acting based on unconscious processes alone could work for complex organisms. Free will from yesterday may be necessary for unconscious action today.

[@canibaloxide]

1:13:01 kinda has the same vibe as when JP peterson denies the existence of atheist saying they actually do believe in god. And anyone who has experienced depersonalization knows at least temporarily that subjective experience does not always support the "idea" of free will. Totally agree about not being angry with people if you don't believe in free will but the nervous system is as nervous system does, and with work letting go of free will has helped me be more forgiving of others as well as myself.

[@AntifaJesus315]

It's fire! the defining characteristic of our thinking.

[@lucianmihail584]

Excellent episode! Thank you 🤝

[@Life_42]

Great episode!

[@AntifaJesus315]

I know this is the wrong place but I want to ask, if the recent Chinese balloon could have been Tethered to one spot in the ground or would the weather rip it out?

[@michaelellis6437]

The "peering" of orangutans is worth study re sharing attention and sociality.

[@mitchkahle314]

Agreed. Pointing a finger might be uniquely human, but deliberate or sudden directional "looking", appears to be almost universal in primates. I have also seen many videos of primates finger pointing at images of food they prefer or even counting.

[@cesarailson]

Great apes do follow gaze

[@JustOneAsbesto]

In civilized countries, they do have smart stop lights.

[@steve112285]

What is free about "free will" when every fundamental particle in our bodies follows the laws of nature, whether they're deterministic or involve randomness? I'd say we have will, not free will.

[@richardbrucebaxter]

43:40 - "there is a famous quip that in evolutionary biology the definition of altruism is that which cannot evolve; because if I want to be a really nice guy and give away all the food then I am not going to be leaving any children so I am not going to be contributing to the future gene pool; so Darwin got it right, all the individuals have to be looking after themselves." - genetic variants will tend to survive if they confer a fitness advantage to the population, such as willingness to self-sacrifice in population extinction/bottleneck contexts, because selection can occur at a population rather than individual level (outcompeted by populations comprised of individuals exhibiting trait willingness to defend their territory/people). 48:30 - "I think Hamilton had a quip one time that I would fall on a hand grenade for 2 brothers, 4 cousins.." - this simplistic kin selection formulation (r=0.5^d) is theoretically misleading; it assumes a single population. Interpopulation genetic differences are equivalent to kin differences. From Yu 2002 and subsequent nucleotide diversity (pi) measurement studies it can be derived that intracontinental population non-relation (European; 0.064% pi) is approximately equivalent to intercontinental population 1st degree relation (European-SSA; 0.064% pi). 50:09 - "I started this whole thing by saying you can't be altruistic to the extent you sacrifice your own existence, but there is a mathematics of how much I should help people I am dependent on" - the inclusive/indirect fitness mathematics contradict the assertion regarding self-sacrifice. 54:00 - "they already have the mechanism for sacrificing for their offspring and that's probably evolved with genetic.. out of kin selection but then they just have to generalise the mechanism to non kin" - these are not easily disentangled (reciprocal altruism is biased by genetic distance).

[@robotaholic]

You can put a treat under 1 of 3 cups and shuffle them and the cat will pick the correct cup every single time. Even I was fooled repeatedly but not the cat lol

[@TheMemesofDestruction]

0:16 - Humans are pretty cool! 😎 ^.^

[@AntifaJesus315]

Since life main goal is to survive and use all available resources it's a shame that we're going to reach the barrier before we attain Interstellar travel

[@JianYZhong]

Morality has also been used as a weapon to put others down … it’s double edged.

[@capoeirastronaut]

Woo 1st!

[@AntifaJesus315]

The silly experiment would be to see if simian's want to control fire.

[@AntifaJesus315]

That's the other defining characteristic of being human is writing

[@chriscurry2496]

Not really. Many civilizations never learned to write. It is a rather recent invention.

[@mitchkahle314]

Both Sean and his guest fail to recognize that "free will" is an experience-not an action. Because literally everything we experience happens in the past and the fact that it is impossible, due to uncertainty, for any human to predict the future with confidence any higher than chance. Shit happens, gentlemen, and we have to deal with it. "free will" is like "prayer" - a mental exercise that has no affect on future outcomes in the world.

[@michaeljfigueroa]

Any higher than chance? Anyone Who knows me would predict with %100 certainly That I would call ☝️ comment stupid. Your welcome

[@dizzytitan8481]

Please please please have Sam harris on already!!! Talk about free will! Where is free will when your wants and goals are evolutionary pressures that you didn't choose. The abiratous you make choices with is not in your controll

[@michaeljfigueroa]

Eh. "Free will" can be deterministic. You kinda have to define it first.

[@chriscurry2496]

Eh. I’m so sick of hearing Sam Harris’s pseudo-intellectual quips. He doesn’t seem to ever address any deep issues. That “no free will” argument is like asking how chess players can make their own decisions on a chess board of all the moves have rules. It’s extremely unconvincing.

[@Duffmk]

6:38 No, we cannot wipe them out, that is idealism, not reality.

[@agimasoschandir]

What would stop say Blue whales from going extinct if we did not have non-hunting treaties in place?

[@enisten]

7 mins into the interview, and I feel like the guy is scared of going deeper into certain topics and bounces back and stays superficial. Why?🤔

[@MrFaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

What topics do you mean

[@CurtOntheRadio]

Hmm. Maybe you think that because it's the first few minutes and he doesn't want to get too particular? I didn't see any "scared" lol

[@enisten]

@@CurtOntheRadio Or maybe it's because you are not as good at assessing such things as I am. Or maybe it's because you like covering up such things rather than exposing them...

[@CurtOntheRadio]

@@enisten Yes, it must be because you're so much better at assessing people's state of mind than myself. Plus, yes, I am part of the conspiracy of silence, watching the web for the least revelation of ...... "it". Tomasello came very close to revealing secret somethings..... but fear brought him back. We're safe!

[@enisten]

@@CurtOntheRadio Everyone's good at something. You're for example much better than me at hitting at straw men.

[@chriscurry2496]

I really am suspicious of this guy. He dismisses Chomsky’s theory of infinite recursive grammar, which for Chomsky represents a large part of human thinking through this ability to recursively generate syntax. Then he says “I don’t see how the mind developed all these sub tasks within a million years…”-that was the point of an infinite grammar! He just doesn’t strike me as terribly informed about the language aspect.

[@chriscurry2496]

@Eerik Soares Mantere I am absolutely certain you haven’t the first clue as to what Chomsky actually said or currently says about the matter. Instead of citing names, perhaps you’d care to cite the actual evidence that you allege contradicts the Chomsky paradigm?