Chapter 4 - The Invisible Brain

All thought draws life from contacts and exchanges -- Fernand Braudel

At first glance, it's easy to say that the societies of the Northwest Coast Indians were more advanced simply becuase of the natural bounty of their environment. They were more prosperous becuase nature gave them more prosperity. Even the indirect wealth, woven robes and copper ornaments, could be an indirect benefit of a lush environment. If the population could get enough to eat in a few hours, it would be easy for them to spend the extra time weaving robes, or coming up with the idea of woven robes. There are a few flaws with this argument, though. One is that it assumes the environment will not quickly reach its carrying capacity. Once this has occurred, the land is supporting all the people it can, and the surplus is no longer available (note: this argument still seems a little flawed to me). Of course, one could argue that war or other factors could keep the population below the carying capacity, but these factors would seem to occupy a population's time as well. Also, 1960s study of the Kuikuru of Amazonia suggested that leisure time of a hunter-gatherer society is not necessarily used to improve their conditions or develop new technology. Indeed, they prefer leisure. Were the Northwest Coast Indians weirdly ambitious? If natural wealth doesn't necessarily lead to cultural advancements, what does?

Working Overtime

The idea to note is that people do not 'work overtime' weaving rugs or producing surplus food unless there is some benefit from it. In order to gain from surplus, trade must occur. Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, noted that two factors must be available for trade to occur. First, transportation must be cheap enough to make the transaction worthwile, and second (or perhaps first chronologically) communication must be cheap and easy enough for the potential buyer to find out about the availability of a product and negotiate a price. Before complex communication and transportation technology developed, living in an area of highly dense population was one of the only ways for these prerequisites to be met. The Kuikuru lived in small, dispersed villiages, while the northwest coast indians lived in an area of high population density near other populous societies. In such a situation, trade between groups for products produced by each would propel the production of surplus to trade with. Even in the case of the Kuikuru, it was noted (as proof that they could have produced surplus) that when Europeans showed up with items to trade, Manioc (their main crop) production skyrocketed.

Adam Smith Ammended

Adam Smith introduced the idea of an 'invisible hand' guiding commerce, showing that people whose goals were self-interested automatically seemed to come together to produce greater wealth for an entire population. Introduced in this book is the metaphor of an 'invisible brain', which could be seen as driving the invisible hand. The neurons of the brain are composed of humans, and the more dense the neurons in this brain, the better it functions. The view of high population density driving innovation is not new, but it is usually seen in the light of the negative consequences of high population density. This view would point out that a new technology leads to higher population density, but that population density generally exceeds the carying capacity of a region, so it is literally 'innovate or die'. This is probably true, but the role of population density in driving innovation without the catastrophic consequences has been mostly overlooked. Simple forces such as status seeking can drive commerce if the prerequisites of population density are met, even if no famine is present. In early history, these 'invisible brains' were tribal in nature, as ideas were shared among members of a tribe. Later they became regional and then national, and at the present we are seeing the 'invisible brain' become truly global in scope.

Continental Divides

The melting polar ice caps following the last ice age provided at least four distinct 'petri dishes' of humanity: the 'Old World', the Americas, Australia, and Tasmania. It can be seen that population size in each of these cases can be seen as a rough estimate of social complexity. The large and densely populated old world became the most advanced, followed by the less populace though still large new world, followed by sparsely populated Australia, followed by tiny Tasmania, where the native people lacked even the basics of fire-making. The differences are not with the individual peoples, but with the differences in population size. In a more dense population, people can specialize their knowledge in a specific area and the invisible brain grows. In low population density, each person has roughly the same knowledge, making the invisible brain less efficient.

-- SamPreston - 24 Mar 2007