Cooperation + brain capacity = you can have complex memes.
Memes coevolve with biology. If stone axe is useful, then being too stupid to use a stone axe becomes evolutionary disadvantage. Memes bring technology; technology selects for the ability to use it… though not for the ability to invent it… but also for the ability to teach it. Compared to other species, humans are excellent teachers and learners.
An animal can invent a smart method to get food, but without the ability to teach it to kids, the invention is lost in long-term perspective. Probably happened to humans at the beginning, too; you need thousands of years to invent a stone axe not because it is such difficult invention, but because you have a long cycle of inventing, forgetting, inventing again, the know-how spreads to another tribe, the tribe loses the know-how, etc.
I imagine that humans were already on a better trajectory than other species before the invention of language. (You don’t need language to observe how other person makes a stone axe and learn by copying them.) Language probably became possible only after the coevolution with memes created sufficient general-purpose brain capacity. Then, of course, language accelerated the spread of memes to unprecedented levels.
Don’t discount our hands tho. It is what allowed the tool use and (perhaps more importantly) the initial use of fire to be in our control. A big brain means nothing if you can’t use it to manipulate the world around you and opposable thumbs gave humans the finesse to actualize their clever fantasies.
Cooperation + brain capacity = you can have complex memes.
Memes coevolve with biology. If stone axe is useful, then being too stupid to use a stone axe becomes evolutionary disadvantage. Memes bring technology; technology selects for the ability to use it… though not for the ability to invent it… but also for the ability to teach it. Compared to other species, humans are excellent teachers and learners.
An animal can invent a smart method to get food, but without the ability to teach it to kids, the invention is lost in long-term perspective. Probably happened to humans at the beginning, too; you need thousands of years to invent a stone axe not because it is such difficult invention, but because you have a long cycle of inventing, forgetting, inventing again, the know-how spreads to another tribe, the tribe loses the know-how, etc.
I imagine that humans were already on a better trajectory than other species before the invention of language. (You don’t need language to observe how other person makes a stone axe and learn by copying them.) Language probably became possible only after the coevolution with memes created sufficient general-purpose brain capacity. Then, of course, language accelerated the spread of memes to unprecedented levels.
Don’t discount our hands tho. It is what allowed the tool use and (perhaps more importantly) the initial use of fire to be in our control. A big brain means nothing if you can’t use it to manipulate the world around you and opposable thumbs gave humans the finesse to actualize their clever fantasies.