humans can acquire vast amounts of information by direct experience.
But the fact is, even that could not be acquired without massive trans-
fers of information from other conspecifics, to a degree that is
unequaled in any other species.
Humans depend upon information and upon cooperation, and
because of that they depend on information about other people's mental
states—that is, what information they have and what their intentions
are. No joint hunting expedition, war raid or marriage negotiation can
be organized without precise monitoring of what other people want
and believe.
[122] Once you are told that whales live in seawater you may not be sur-
prised to find out that their capacities and dispositions were tailored
by natural selection to provide a reasonable fit to these conditions.
The same is true of human capacities and dispositions, once you
understand that the proper milieu of human existence is that of other
people's information. This means that we must explore yet another
batch of inference systems in the mental basement.
Inference systems in the social mindThat humans live in the cognitive niche, and that most elements of
that informational milieu are provided by other humans, results in
specific behaviors and capacities. Most of these are very familiar—so
familiar indeed that it is sometimes difficult to realize that they
require specific cognitive equipment. A few of these behaviors and
capacities are discussed below.A hypertrophied social intelligence. What we call social intelli-
gence in many species are special capacities for social interac-
tion. We have hugely complex social interaction, compared to
other species, partly because we have hugely complex systems
that represent what others are up to and why. For instance,
here are two aspects of social intelligence that are hugely
developed in humans: (1) figuring out complex embedded
states—for instance understanding that "Mary knew that
Peter resented the fact that she had agreed with Paul when he
said Jenny was too clever for Mark"; (2) keeping "files" on
various individuals without ever mixing them up. This is so
natural that it may be difficult to realize that huge memory
stores are required. In the above situation, Mary knows some-RELIGION EXPLAINED