[ExI] ai is the easy road

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
…

I have seen a compelling theory on that.  Bipedal walking enables humans to have a great deal of distance endurance even if at the expense of speed. 

 

>…Yes but I don't see why Bipedal walking would be better at endurance than quadratic walking, if anything the reverse would seem more likely to me….

 

Bipedal motion in general isn’t more energy efficient than quad motion, but it is more efficient than how apes do quad motion.  I don’t think apes can chase game all day. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If the hands had evolved to be able to knap flint, they could create the tools necessary to butcher the beest,

 

>…Yes if you have a big brain and hands you could do that, but you can't do that with just hands and hands evolved before big brains….

 

The notion is that hands improved the ability of early humans to hurl stones.  In that scenario, the bipedal motion came first, which freed up the hands to hurl stones and to grasp and manipulate the stones to break femurs and other big bones, giving the bipeds access to bone marrow, which enabled (and gave advantages to) big brains.  So the sequence is feet then hands then brains, which explains with Australopithecus afarensis anatomy.  Lucy was bipedal but didn’t have the huge scull.

 

>…What are the huge disadvantages of evolution is that it has no foresight, even if a mutation would give a great advantage two or three steps down the line it's not going to get passed to the next generation unless it conveys an advantage right now RIGHT NOW….

 

Understanding that concept is a critical piece to the puzzle.  Stephen Jay Gould writes about it, giving examples of pre-adaptation: structures which adapted because of evolutionary pressure which were later pre-adapted for an entirely different use.

 

>…It just doesn't understand that one step back and two steps forward is an advance because evolution is dumb but until it got around to impending a brain that was the only way that complex objects could get built. 

 

Note that after humans developed huge brains, everything gets confusing.  Groups have the option of selecting for traits that become difficult to explain.

 

The interesting point is that bipedalism is almost where chimps are today.  It doesn’t take much of a mutation for a modern ape to stand and walk on two feet.

 

>…True, but what immediate advantage would that mutation confer?

 

My best guess on that is that bipedal motion in a group of apes allows the tall guy to intimidate the other males and impress the females.  

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

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