Interviews about human nature
Thank you, Professor Tartabini.
Let's start with a brief introduction for the ones who aren't familiar with you, then we'll move to our questions.
Angelo Tartabini is Professor of General Psychology at the University of Parma's Department of Neuroscience, where we find ourselves right now.
He has carried out research in Japan, at the Kyoto University, in the Netherlands, at the Institute of the Organization for Health Research,
in the United States, at the California University, Davis, in South Africa, Canada, and for a total of 10 years in England, at the University of Cambridge's Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour.
He's the author of about a hundred publications, including a dozen books, such as Biologia ed evoluzione del comportamento animale e umano,
L'uomo allo specchio, Fondamenti di psicologia evoluzionistica, Crimini contro l'ambiente
and L'origine e l'evoluzione del linguaggio, written together with Francesca Giusti.
Let's start with the first question:
What is the theme, the main question, that has been fascinating you through the years, leading you to develop your research line within the field of evolutionary psychology?
My discovery of David Buss, an American evolutionary psychologist who worked mainly in the 1980s and 1990s and wrote some very interesting books.
In my humble opinion, one of its most relevant volumes is The Evolution of Desire.
There's many others, of course… for example, Evolutionary Psychology, which has recently been translated and published in Italy by Pearson with the title Psicologia evoluzionistica.
Above all, I'm fascinated with the topics he touches upon, which are often neglected by general psychology.
However, they are of the greatest importance, because when he talks about the selection criteria for choosing a sexual partner,
he introduces a new argument about the way we've always interpreted the fact of falling in love, or a short-term or long-term sexual relationship.
Buss keeps his feet on the ground, and in his hypotheses there's nothing transcendental.
He has verified the importance of these criteria, whose existence we ignore, but which nonetheless work toward our falling in love.
They are masculine and feminine, that is specific to the male partner and the female partner respectively, and they are mutually different
Of course, Buss's idea has created much perplexity, but it's revolutionary, because it tries to quantify and erase the concept that falling in love is a rational, existential fact.
There's some elements which drive our choices…
Biological elements…
These features, or criteria, are both behavioral and aesthetical.
Their matching can determine an ideal choice of a sexual partner –
ideal, because one would like his or her partner to be young, beautiful, smart, and so on, but human conditions can't be avoided, so the partner must be considered as an idealized one.
However, these criteria are functional, in the sense that they drive us towards certain choices and away from other ones.
Of course, the expectations may not be met, but that's not the point.
Then Buss traces a distinction between the selection criteria for choosing either a short-term partner or a long-term partner.
Clearly, the two instances imply different sets of criteria.
We evaluate all these things quite spontaneously, without being aware of it,
believing instead that when we're looking for the most suitable partner everything depends on our literary, cultural interests.
Not at all, because there's some ground-to-ground elements, so to speak, but not in a pejorative sense,
because the world has always been this way, since we came into existence.
Of course, the selection criteria of our ancestors were slightly different from ours, they have undergone several modifications through evolution
The mental criteria as well as the behavioral and aesthetical ones.
But this is the way it works, this is the way things work in the animal world.
So, if I'm correct, the passion that has been guiding you was discovering that a huge part of our behavior, of our functioning, of our choices and priorities,
which we spontaneously have and then socially and culturally share, taking them for granted, are actually the result of an evolutionary process…
Exactly. They're very schematic, but through our evolution these schematic elements have undergone a selective pressure,
and not just since the appearance of the homo sapiens or the erectus or the habilis – earlier still.
And these comparisons, to a certain branch of evolutionary psychology at least, become particularly relevant when applied to animals very close to us
such as the non-human primates, and chimpanzees in particular.
Why not gorillas? Yes, gorillas are fine too, because gorillas are themselves great apes, but we human beings have much more in common with chimpanzees…
Including our aggressiveness, right?
Yes, but first and foremost our sexual behavior, and here we go back to our previous point.
In this regard, gorillas are less aggressive and meeker towards their feminine partners,
and that's interesting, because this kind of meekness can't be found in common chimpanzees, and is due to selective pressure.
Gorillas live a monogamous life, more or less, and dominant males lead rather small, family-like groups, where females are easily available, so there's no competition.
But for common chimpanzees, things are different, because in this regard they have a much more chaotic life, there's a lot of confusion.
The choice of their partners isn't regulated solely by hierarchy, because there are other variables.
Things are much more complicated, yet unsurprisingly closer to our situation.
I'd like to add something that I find quite interesting…
When we take into account the aggressiveness, physical power, and body size of the animal competing for a partner, we are much more similar to common chimpanzees than to gorillas,
and the same goes for the build, weight and volume of the genital apparatus, especially if we consider males.
Gorillas can reach a weight of 200 kg, but their genital apparatus is tiny.
Chimpanzees, which are much smaller than gorillas, by a third or more…
adult chimpanzees can weigh 40-50 kg, gorillas about 200 kg, the difference is striking… have a genital apparatus that is much more visible, consistent, and so on.
Men, even if they are not so big, and certainly much smaller than gorillas, have a genital apparatus that is very similar to that of chimpanzees.
Considering body proportions, the volumetry of the male genital apparatus is quite high. Why?
Selection…
Ok, but evolutionary psychology shouldn't absorb much from these notions and comparisons,
because the society of chimpanzees is much more competitive than the society of gorillas, and our own society was originally very similar to that of present-day chimpanzees.
It was quite competitive, so it was very important to have a big, visible, evident genital apparatus in order to spread one's genetic patrimony.
But this is not a phenomenon that can be reduced to a commonplace discourse about evolution.
It has affected the way those animals think, and the way our ancestors used to think, and the way men think today.
So, this is what has encouraged me to study these topics developed by Buss and several other American evolutionary psychologists.
Speaking of which, here's the second question. We've just named an important author in the field of evolutionary psychology.
I'm a psychologist myself, and I can tell that some colleagues don't know anything about evolutionary psychology.
So, my question is: Which are the methodologies, the approaches and the knowledge through which evolutionary psychology might solve the hard challenge of producing hypotheses
and theories about the phylogenetic development of the mind of our species?
The object of research of evolutionary psychology is different from studying the foot of a bat, or of another mammal.
It's something much more complex. Nonetheless, the methodology of evolutionary psychology has to be scientific, and it is scientific.
In other words, the steps for formulating hypotheses are just like the steps followed in the study of another object or function, so there's no real difference.
Now, talking about phylogeny, things get rather complicated, and one has to be careful, because there's this issue going on about phylogeny and ontogeny…
I mean, there once used to be a distinction, and ontogeny was considered a recapitulation of phylogeny, but now there's scholars who see things differently…
I don't agree with their view. I still can't see the reason why these people criticize the old idea of the German scholar Haeckel.
But nothing can be said about the scientific approach of evolutionary psychology, because it certainly is a scientific discipline.
But what does it stand on? Comparisons with the animal behavior or neuroscience? On which foundations does it try to build its hypotheses?
I think this is a rather interesting point.
Evolutionary psychology was born in the United States.
You see, it seems like we're speaking of a psychological school: behaviorism was born in the United States, the introspection method was born in Germany, Gestalt was born in Germany, and so on.
In a sense, evolutionary psychology is a typically American discipline, because it was born in the United States, thanks to some renown authors, the most important of which is David Buss, in my opinion.
However, this American school is constituted by scholars whose scientific and cultural background is typically psychological.
Without any intention of being a megalomaniac, I think that this background has limited the comparative aspect, that in the American evolutionary psychology is lacking.
In Italy, I'd like to introduce this important comparative perspective.
That's why the reference point are non-human animals in general, and above all great apes,
because they're the most interesting subjects for any comparison about the evolution of our mental functions.
There's really no other reference point.
So, thinking of an ideal evolutionary psychologist, he'd be part ethologist…
Part ethologist, part primatologist, wholly psychologist.
Psychology is essential, of course, but it shouldn't be limited to those functions that have always been traditionally explored by psychology, such as memory, motivation, and so on.
It's really fascinating that in many border fields exploring the evolution of human knowledge,
the most significant points are often to be found in research teams that present hybrid skills and manage to connect disciplines that were traditionally separated, thus filling a missing gap…
Yes, that's true, that's true.
Here's my third question… from homo sapiens to homo sapiens, I'd say.
What are the specific features of the mind of the homo sapiens that set us apart from all the other animals?
Well, from a qualitative point of view, there's no real difference. We're talking about the same psychological function.
Or, to make it clearer, we can speak of conscience.
The brain of chimpanzees is evolved, and although it's smaller than ours, its cortical functions are complex.
From a qualitative point of view, their conscience is like ours.
Of course, we can discuss whether it's nuclear or extended. Most likely, it's extended. But what makes the difference is quantity.
Our cortical functions are much more complex, and they are intertwined, so to speak: language could not exist without memory, we couldn't have feelings without motivation.
Or the other way around, we couldn't have perception without sensations.
These psychological functions are very complex, but it doesn't mean that animals with a rather evolved brain have no conscience…
So, what you want to remark is that there's a continuity of the intra-species psychic phenomenon.
If in an evolutionary science-fiction there were no meteorite, and dinosaurs were allowed to evolve, would there be something like "sauro sapiens" today?
Who knows?
Nobody. Whatever hypothesis we may form, unless it's verifiable it doesn't take us anywhere…
But I think it's interesting, this way of remarking the presence of a continuity rather than a difference between man and the other animals.
Sure, that's why comparing is important and exciting.
I know that talking in these terms is a bit hazardous, especially in certain contexts, but if we imagine a scale, we're at the "top" of the pyramid…
As far as we know…
And then there's other species, which unsurprisingly belong to our family, that is non-human primates, and from there one can go further down.
This is important, otherwise how are comparisons to be made? You can't compare the cognitive level of a fly with that of a chimpanzee. The difference is too vast.
The neurons of a fly are but a few, those of a chimpanzee are billions.
Now, another question: To what extent is our species characterized by the production of artifacts that are not just physical, but also cognitive?
And what's your opinion on the concept of extended mind? Let's start with the first one…
Let's see if I've got it right. All physical artifacts, therefore technology, and cognitive artifacts belong to the human species,
but it's not that animals are precluded the possibility of making discoveries – because that's what they essentially are – or using a certain technology, however rudimentary.
These interesting and important discoveries can be modified in the course of time with the specific cultural development of the animal that makes them.
After a time, they become cultural traditions.
Since these animals possess high intellectual skills – here I'm talking about apes, and chimpanzees in particular – they're capable of spreading their knowledge.
They don't use the same instruments we use, but have other means of communication of their own, through which they can take hold of that knowledge they find useful and advantageous.
In this way it undergoes a selective pressure too, because if it were useless, it would soon be forgotten and discarded…
but the most functional ones become essentially cultural traditions, which are useful for our survival as well as for the survival of an animal.
Animals use these technologies first and foremost for feeding and reproducing.
Reproduction requires food. By feeding, an animal gets stronger, more competitive, and increases its possibilities of spreading its genetic patrimony.
To a certain extent, this was also true for our remote ancestors, and it still is for the man of the 3rd millennium, although we often do these operations without being aware of it.
I know that some primates and also other animals such as ravens, I think, can conceive the notion of "physical artifact".
For example, reaching a certain spot with a twig it's like a prolongation of an animal's own extension.
However, a cognitive artifact is cognitive because it's like an auxiliary memory: pen and paper or cave paintings are things that survive the death of an entire community.
Of course, the ability to make sense out of a cognitive artifact that is painted is highly inferior compared to a book written in a known language, so there has been an evolution.
As far as I now, human beings are the only animals to have developed such cognitive artifacts.
Ok, so when you speak of cognitive artifacts…
well, animals have cognition, too.
Of course, a chimpanzee's cognitive level is inferior to ours, but superior to the cognitive level of all other living or extinguished animal species,
so their ability of processing these activities, which are quite schematic at first, can be acquired and divulgated, and they can become a specific feature of a mind or another…
But they can't be transmitted to an autonomous artifact.
Such as?
Such as the invention of written language, or painting…
I think we should look to earlier examples and go way back before the emergence of language or even proto-language.
If a chimpanzee picks up a twig and inserts it in termitarium,
maybe doing it just for fun,
well, at some point that chimpanzee realizes that the termites cling to this extraneous body, the twig, and then it extracts the twig. "Oh, look here!", the chimpanzee thinks
But from a cognitive point of view it hasn't realized yet how important this operation is, nor that it's essential for its survival.
That chimpanzee doesn't know anything at all, especially when this operation is done for the first time by a single individual. Indeed, this operation isn't done by all chimpanzees.
Realizing the importance of such an operation comes at a later moment.
Now, the chimpanzee isn't philosophizing on the fact that the operation is very important for feeding and therefore for its own survival. For now, it's secondary.
What's important is to keep on doing it in order to spread the knowledge, so that other individuals may acquire the same technique.
Therefore, at some level of information processing, that is from a cognitive point of view, there's the realization of the importance of such a behavior. At a more complex level, this goes also for man.
I hope I've got your question right.
In my opinion, the rising of language has been a casual circumstance.
Maybe things could have gone differently and we could have been intelligent but mute animals, but things just went this way.
Yet, from a cognitive point of view, when we began communicating in our rudimentary way, we didn't realize the importance this operation had.
This is something we grasped later on, when we realized that communicating with such an instrument was much faster than with the instruments commonly used by animals.
Similarly, knowledge was once preserved only in the minds of old people and handed down verbally, but with the invention of written language the first civilizations
created a sort of auxiliary memory that is independent from the physical presence of the old people who know, say, how fields must be sown or a wound be healed.
Then of course we have the importance of writing, an essential element for the rise of modern civilization,
otherwise sooner or later our culture could have vanished, just like it is disappearing in many cultures where there has never been a tradition of transmitting knowledge through writing.
Some say that we should consider written language and calculus as the very first human artifacts. Today we have math, science, and such artifacts as computers or Internet…
My other question is: Which are the main biases and motivational rigidities
– the fact of being overwhelmed by a motivation that maybe isn't proper for a certain context, but keeps on driving us no matter what – that are characteristic to our species, or a group of species we belong to?
That's a tough question.
I'd rather not guess at random, but thinking of this one person comes up in my mind. Who, other than Lorenz, has provided a better answer to such a complex question?
In my opinion, he has given the clearest explanations as to how our beliefs and myths take shape, in other words our ability of building and elaborating quite sophisticated things.
However, it's for another reason that I think of Lorenz with regard to this question.
Basically, Lorenz says that human beings aren't those meek, carefree, highly intellectual animals we all think they are.
Man has a genetic predisposition to being extremely aggressive.
When free from cultural reins, this aggressiveness becomes awfully great.
Lorenz talks about containers.
In other words, man's aggressive behavior has to be searched in order to find some elements capable of diverting his aggressiveness.
Lorenz also talks about the so-called evils of humanity that may result from these predispositions, such as war, sophisticated technological weapons, prostitution, and so on.
Now, going back to your question, if we don't find these channels, wrong beliefs and prejudices can take force,
especially when there are no cultural elements to soften and redirect our predisposition to be egoistic, racist, and use weapons to kill an enemy that maybe is just a product of our minds.
In my humble opinion, this frame Lorenz set forth is very interesting and helps us understand these forms that in their self-destructive power are essentially masochistic, and can sometime expand and take force…
I'll try to put it in my own terms. Our species, in all its intelligence combined with an aggressive and predatory behavior, which could have been more similar to bonobos than to chimpanzees,
has been rewarded for a million years, way before the arrival of the homo sapiens, from a selective point of view, otherwise there would be something else in our place,
but now, with the technological power and the complex society of today, that started developing with the first great cities of more than 3,000 years ago, things are changing…
Ok, this is the point:
in my opinion, the evolution of our mind is much slower than the evolution of some instruments we build, modify and improve. Yet, these instruments are the fruits of our own mind.
This is the absurdity
In all its speed, the technological model overtakes the evolution of a model that, in the end, is our mind's, a skill that comes from our own cortical activities.
The issue concerns the acquisition of a danger that we don't perceive very clearly because our mind, however complex. is slow.
But there's a contradiction here, which partially comes from the studies on the so-called AI that were carried out in the 1970s, when it was thought possible to create a model capable of reproducing the functioning of our brain.
What is strange and seemingly in contradiction with what I was saying earlier, in my humble opinion at least, is that our mind is such a complex and sophisticated biological system that no other physical entity will ever surpass it,
even if this entity is created by our own mind.
It just can't exist, contrary to what they claimed in the 70s and 80s…
Minsky…
Minsky and his fellows, I think they've led us down a bad road.
A calculator will be able to do anything you want – send you to the Moon, to Mars, solve a series of complicated calculations in a jiffy. But that calculator won't have any level of consciousness at all.
It will never be conscious. You can ask it whatever you want, but if you ask, for example, "Are you in love with Maria or Luisa?" it won't be able to provide an answer.
Now, talking about this, do you think that evolutionary psychology – which isn't a crystal ball, of course –
can help us identify some possible tendencies in the evolution of our species under the technological pressure, which of course is the big pressure of our time?
Look, as I often say, the answer is no.
Not in the least.
I don't want to pick up Darwin's leitmotiv that everything is chance and things could have gone differently, but there is no real need to bring Darwin into it.
In my opinion, evolutionary psychology has already made great advancements, because 20 years ago most people didn't even know what it was about.
Indeed, when I came to this university and they asked me what I wanted to teach, besides General Psychology, I said: "Evolutionary Psychology".
They said, "You certainly mean Developmental Psychology?", "No, Evolutionary Psychology", "But what is it?"
So, the start of my journey was not an easy one.
What I would like to ask from these discipline, with regard to the past at least, is to focus more and more on the biological-behavioral and therefore mental comparisons with the rest of the living world.
That's really important.
Sure, it really is. Of course, Darwin comes very helpful here.
He may have given us an evolutionary perspective that is hard to accept, but this should be the way, and some authors are already following it.
Now is the time for our last question, that is rather open, and maybe more personal.
Given that in order to have better answers to the problems of both individual and collective life
we first have to make better questions
and that in order to have better questions we have to face our prejudices, what are the questions that you think we should ask ourselves?
Good question. I mean…
The main point that we should grasp, I think, to produce some "intelligent" questions
is to think what our culture has been so far and how it has transformed in the course time, and how we have used it and taken advantage of it.
Culture doesn't grow on trees.
Culture rises essentially from extemporaneous behaviors that are subsequently acquired by other individuals, thus becoming an extended knowledge of a fact, a phenomenon, and so on.
If we come to a deeper understanding of how we've transformed in the course of our evolution, we could ask ourselves questions that are more intelligent.
The fact is, in my opinion, that we have some very confused ideas as to what culture actually is.
When speaking of culture, we conceive it in its idealized aspects: literature, painting, and all the liberal, refined arts.
But culture is much more than that. We should also get to know the roots of our highly sophisticated contemporary culture.
If we come to picture ourselves this overarching view, we could reach a better understanding of our position within the animal world, and within our world.
And don't take it for granted…
No, nothing has to be taken for granted.
Ok. Thank you for this interview.
Thank you, my pleasure
This historical moment requires a breakthrough understanding of ourselves and the world.
We embrace our being transdisciplinar, hybrid, polymath because new visions will emerge at the intersections of different knowledges.
A project by Gianandrea Giacoma
Video by Tommaso Correale Santacroce
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