I suspect humans have an arbitrary preference for mutual information. This pattern is well-matched by preference for kin, and also any other in-group; for shared language; for shared experiences.
Actions as mutual information generators
It occurs to me that doing things together generates a tremendous amount of mutual information. Same place, same time, same event, same sensory stimuli, same social context. In the case of things like rituals, we can sacrifice being in the same place and keeping all the other information the same; in the case of traditions like a rite of passage we can sacrifice being in the same time and keeping all the other information the same, which allows for mutual information with people who are dead and people who are yet to be at a high level of resolution.
I further suspect that the intensity of an experience weighs more; how exactly isn’t clear, because an intense event itself doesn’t necessarily contain more information than boring one. I wonder if it is because intense experiences leave more vivid memories, and so after a period of time they will have more information relative to other experiences from that time or before.
This might be more fundamental than I initially thought. If people have a preference for shared information, this provides an upward pressure on communication in general—there is now a reward for telling people things just because, and also a reward for listening to people tell you things. This is entirely separate from any instrumental value the shared information may have.
I suspect that a lot of traditional things do double-duty, being instrumentally valuable and encouraging mutual information. Material example: the decorations on otherwise mundane items, like weapons or cauldrons.
It occurs to me that any given practice will probably be selected for resilience more than it will be for efficiency—efficiency is a threshold that must be met, but beyond that maximizing the likelihood that the minimum will be met seems more likely to propagate.
If people have an intrinsic desire to share information, then it seems likely that a practice for which sharing information is more common is more likely to persist. Hence the prevalence of so many multi-step processes; every additional step is another opportunity to share information (teach, tell where resources are, etc).
“The consequences of common descent, though natural, still are something imaginary. The real thing to bring about the feeling of close contact is social intercourse, friendly association, long familiarity, and the companionship that results from growing up together having the same wet nurse, and sharing the other circumstances of life and death. If close contact is established in such a manner, the result will be affection and cooperation.”
And later:
In Ibn Khaldun’s thought, conquest itself seems to be the driving force behind the consolidation of two asabiyah into one. Once a weaker tribal group is defeated, its leaders removed and men of valor killed, pacified, or subsumed under a new organization so utterly that the ‘tit for tat’ vengeance schemes so common to nomadic society (which Ibn Khaldun sees as the root cause of war) are no longer possible, then their asabiyah can be swallowed up in the larger group’s. What is key here is that the other groups – after their initial defeat – are not coerced into having the same feeling of asabiyah as the main group. Asabiyah that must be coerced is not asabiyah at all (this is a theme Ibn Khaldun touches on often and we will return to it in more detail when we talk about why asabiyah declines in civilized states). Instead, those who have been allowed to join the conquering host slowly start to feel its asabiyah be subsumed as the two groups “enter into close contact,” sharing the same trials, foods, circumstances, and becoming acquainted with the others’ customs, but just as importantly, sharing the same set of incentives. Once the losers are are forced together with the winners, defeat for the main clan is defeat for all; glory for the main clan is glory for all; booty gained by the main clan’s conquests becomes booty to be shared with all. Once people from a subordinate group begin to feel like the rise and fall of their own fortunes is inextricably linked to the fate of the group that overpowered them then they become willing to sacrifice and die for the sake of this group, for it has become their group.
Shared experiences create a lot of mutual information, and enough of it builds the fearsome bonds which populate our legends and histories.
Miller, however, criticizes the idea that “art conveys cultural values and socializes the young,” writing that,
“The view that art conveys cultural values and socializes the young seems plausible at first glance. It could be called the propaganda theory of art. The trouble with propaganda is that it is usually produced only by large institutions that can pay propagandists. In small prehistoric bands, who would have any incentive to spend the time and energy producing group propaganda? It would be an altruistic act in the technical biological sense: a behavior with high costs to the individual and diffuse benefits to the group. Such altruism is not usually favored by evolution.”
The answer to Miller’s question—who produces the propaganda?—is quite clear in the ethnographic data: the old men do.
Altruism is not usually favored by evolution, but if the same mechanism by which we prefer to spread our genetic information recognizes other kinds of information, then it would not feel altruistic from the inside. Rather, making songs and having other people sing them would be its own reward in precisely the same way having children does.
More on semi-altruism: Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony argues that what sets humans apart is our ability to reliably teach (review here).
If we consistently teach well, it seems to me it must consistently yield rewards for the teachers. As with the argument for storytellers in the example above, this may be in the form of benefits from social connections. But, because we know time discounting is a thing and it takes time to teach people something, it seems likely to me that there is an intrinsinc reward for teaching. A reasonable way to describe teaching would be mutualizing information.
Mutual Information
I suspect humans have an arbitrary preference for mutual information. This pattern is well-matched by preference for kin, and also any other in-group; for shared language; for shared experiences.
Actions as mutual information generators
It occurs to me that doing things together generates a tremendous amount of mutual information. Same place, same time, same event, same sensory stimuli, same social context. In the case of things like rituals, we can sacrifice being in the same place and keeping all the other information the same; in the case of traditions like a rite of passage we can sacrifice being in the same time and keeping all the other information the same, which allows for mutual information with people who are dead and people who are yet to be at a high level of resolution.
I further suspect that the intensity of an experience weighs more; how exactly isn’t clear, because an intense event itself doesn’t necessarily contain more information than boring one. I wonder if it is because intense experiences leave more vivid memories, and so after a period of time they will have more information relative to other experiences from that time or before.
This might be more fundamental than I initially thought. If people have a preference for shared information, this provides an upward pressure on communication in general—there is now a reward for telling people things just because, and also a reward for listening to people tell you things. This is entirely separate from any instrumental value the shared information may have.
I suspect that a lot of traditional things do double-duty, being instrumentally valuable and encouraging mutual information. Material example: the decorations on otherwise mundane items, like weapons or cauldrons.
It occurs to me that any given practice will probably be selected for resilience more than it will be for efficiency—efficiency is a threshold that must be met, but beyond that maximizing the likelihood that the minimum will be met seems more likely to propagate.
If people have an intrinsic desire to share information, then it seems likely that a practice for which sharing information is more common is more likely to persist. Hence the prevalence of so many multi-step processes; every additional step is another opportunity to share information (teach, tell where resources are, etc).
From Introducing: Asabiyah, which itself summarizes one concept from Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah:
And later:
Shared experiences create a lot of mutual information, and enough of it builds the fearsome bonds which populate our legends and histories.
Seemingly altruistic actions such as creating art and music may qualify. From Sexual Selection Through Mate Choice Does Not Explain the Evolution of Art and Music:
Altruism is not usually favored by evolution, but if the same mechanism by which we prefer to spread our genetic information recognizes other kinds of information, then it would not feel altruistic from the inside. Rather, making songs and having other people sing them would be its own reward in precisely the same way having children does.
More on semi-altruism: Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony argues that what sets humans apart is our ability to reliably teach (review here).
If we consistently teach well, it seems to me it must consistently yield rewards for the teachers. As with the argument for storytellers in the example above, this may be in the form of benefits from social connections. But, because we know time discounting is a thing and it takes time to teach people something, it seems likely to me that there is an intrinsinc reward for teaching. A reasonable way to describe teaching would be mutualizing information.