Westwood: The Human Intellect is our "Peacock Feathers"

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ex-l

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Westwood: The Human Intellect is our "Peacock Feathers"

Post24 Nov 2016

A quote from Robert Ford in an attractive TV series questioning the nature of consciousness called Westworld ...
I read a theory once that the human intellect was like peacock feathers. Just an extravagant display intended to attract a mate. All of art, literature, a bit of Mozart, William Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and the Empire State Building. Just an elaborate mating ritual. Maybe it doesn’t matter that we have accomplished so much for the basest of reasons.

But, of course, the peacock can barely fly. It lives in the dirt, pecking insects out of the muck, consoling itself with its great beauty.

Seemingly the theory comes from the book, 'The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature' by Geoffrey Miller and the idea recently featured in an exhibition curated by Petter Bøckman at the Norwegian Natural History Museum.
The human brain is our equivalent of the peacock’s tail, according to experts who claim our superior intelligence evolved to help us attract mates, rather than survive. A mystery of our evolution is why our brains continued to grow despite the fact that our early ancestors functioned perfectly well with half as much between their ears.

Having a larger brain boosted our intelligence but also placed a greater burden on our bodies, sapping 20 per cent of our energy metabolism despite accounting for just 1.5 per cent of our body weight.

The answer could be that the growth of our early ancestors’ brains was linked not to survival but to sexual selection, performing a similar role to a peacock’s tail or a stag’s antlers, claim experts in a new exhibition at the Norwegian Natural History Museum.

Petter Bøckman, a zoologist who helped curate the exhibition, said this could explain why our courtship takes the form of chatting over a coffee rather than the physical or vocal displays performed by most animals.

Just as the elk measures the size of the antlers, we humans measure each other’s brains before we mate.

Let me propose a potential further development of the theory ...
Human religiousity is like peacock feathers. Just an extravagant display intended to attract all the benefits acquired by having multiple mates ... with less of the overheads of having to support them all.

Of course, in the case of the Brahma Kumaris, what matter more than the size of Lekhraj Kirpalani's brain was the size of his already acquired bank balance ... having spent their way through that, the Brahma Kumaris then turned their attention to other suitors to support them "according to the standard that they had become acquainted" ... and then instituted the activity, offering it on a franchise basis to other women for they to find their own circle of financial supporters, ie center-in-charges surrounded by 'financier-adherents'.

The most audacious element of BKism is that their "financier-adherents" drones are not only demanded to forgo any conjugal rights ... but forgo any legal rights whatsoever in the relationship. BK followers have no human, legal, economic or democratic rights within the religion at all.

All the BK "goddesses" offer is ... "you give everything and more, and you get nothing in return except promise of a re-birth in their heaven".

Even then generally as a servant.

(* See also 'Scientific discoveries as cultural displays: a further test of Miller's courtship model' by Satoshi Kanazawa).
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ex-l

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Re: Westwood: The Human Intellect is our "Peacock Feathers"

Post24 Nov 2016

Westwood is an adult drama about an artificial world, a pleasure park, where androids and robots mimic humans as "hosts" for the entertainment and indulgence of real humans of which Ford, above, was one of the creators.

Speaking of his creation, the puppet hosts, he says ...
"I have come to think of so much of consciousness as a burden, a weight, and we have spared them that.

Anxiety, self-loathing, guilt. The hosts [androids] are the ones who are free.

Free here, under my control."

Spoken like a true father-creator of his playthings ... a Prajapita Brahma.
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Re: Westwood: The Human Intellect is our "Peacock Feathers"

Post25 Nov 2016

Petter Bøckman, a zoologist who helped curate the exhibition, said this could explain why our courtship takes the form of chatting over a coffee rather than the physical or vocal displays performed by most animals.
Dancing is a lost art.

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