NPR recently hosted an interview with Dean Buonomano, neuroscientist and author of the book Brain Bugs: How The Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives.
I usually like evolutionary perspectives, and enjoy thoughts on how our experience, however abstract and complex it may seem, is somehow built on the biological stuff of our world. But the best of this kind of thinking will break down limitations that we may have imagined about ourselves, rather than establish them.
In the interview, Buonomano took note of the limitations of the brain’s memory systems and the problems that could arise from the associative nature of cognitive systems. He attributed the character of these systems to primitive survival needs that could not anticipate our modern lives, yet now shape them to a large extent. I find this approach to cognitive science to be hampered by judgment – the kind of judgment that could obscure possible insights. Of course, I want to bring attention to a particular conclusion which I think is misguided – the one about mathematics! It was summarized by Davies in this way:
We’re not naturally good at quantitative thinking, for example. Buonomano says many of these weaknesses are a product of our evolution. Our ancestors needed to recognize a dangerous animal quickly but didn’t need to know whether there were 12 or 13 of them.
There are many problems with this judgment, not the least of which is that it encourages a stubborn and growing malaise about mathematics. The emergence and development of mathematics is one of the more intriguing things about us and exploring the manner in which it is natural is a very worthwhile enterprise. Some of the fruits of these efforts can be seen in the work of the neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene and cognitive scientist Raphael Nunez.
Buonomano takes note of our talent for pattern recognition, our ability to use context, to grasp the whole, and the partnership of visual and linguistic systems. All of these observations are interesting. He referenced a study I once blogged about. The study found that I am more likely to be favorably impressed with a new acquaintance if I’m holding a warm cup of coffee when I meet them than if I’m holding an iced tea. A study like this certainly suggests that there is something unreliable about my evaluation, but it also highlights the correspondence between physical and thoughtful things. The impulse to think in terms of ‘bugs’ can be short-sited and shallow. In the book’s introduction Buonomano gives into the danger of this kind of judgment when he says:
The fact of the matter is your brain was simply not built to store unrelated bits of information such as lists of names and numbers.
Taking note of the patterns in mental processes can provide insights into how the brain (or the body) accomplishes some of what it does, but this is far from making any claim about what the brain was built to do.
totally agree!! if it wasn’t for these ‘unreliabilities’ or ‘bugs’ in perception, cognition would be a closed system without any chance to learn new things. there is also some assumption in the ‘bug’ point of view that takes it for granted that thought processes must occur isolated from one another, not something that current neuroscience supports physically.
all learning creates problems for the position you criticize. the evolutionary argument against lists presumes that humans were better equipped to deal with their biological past than their biological present. the only species who becomes less suited to their own environment as they evolve? i know it’s absolute certainty in sunday newspaper pieces that really we are all fred flintstone, but where is the logic in it? we can’t just assume that we’ve stoppd evolving at every point we can’t yet explain to our satisfaction.