The Brain Basis of Wisdom

1
Sapience

• The Brain Basis of Wisdom
• Evolution, Past and Future
• George Mobus
• University of Washington Tacoma

2
The Evolution of Sapience, Past and Future

• Outline
• Wisdom/sapience as a psychological construct
• Functional constructs of sapience
• Brain structures underlying these functions
• Origins and early evolution of sapience
• Genetic considerations
• Is Homo sapiens sapient enough?
• Possible future development/expansion of sapience

3
Psychological Constructs of Mind
Judgment, moral evaluation, systemic integration,
strategic management
Memory, association, decision taking, problem
solving
Novelty detection generation, temporary
associations
Emotions, feelings, limbic primitive functions
4
Psychological Aspects of Wisdom

• Judgment (practical and reflective)
• Capacity to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty
• Problem types
• Complex social (wicked)
• Future-oriented (anticipated scenarios and
  consequences)
• Extended scope in time and space
• Strong moral sentiments
• Rich tacit knowledge (expertise in lifes
  problems)

5
Sapience Resolving the Basis of Widsom To the
Brain and Genetics
Functional Constructs of Sapience
Decision guidance from tacit knowledge
Future and goal oriented
Organizing, classifying, model building
Right, wrong, good, bad, cooperation
6
Brain Regions Contributing to Sapience

• Expansion of the frontal lobes relative to the
  whole brain
• Expansion of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
  (DLPFC)
• Expansion of the frontopolar region of the DLPFC
  Brodmann area 10
• Increase in relative size
• Changes in cytoarchitectonic features
• Increased size and complexity of pyramidal
  neurons
• Rich connections via Von Economo (spindle)
  neurons with fronto-insular and anterior
  cingulate cortices
• Reentrant connections with all other PFC areas

7
Brain Images
Brodmann area 10 frontopolar view
Prefrontal cortex
8
Origin and Early Evolution of Sapience

• Social animals, altruism, cooperation within
  groups
• Early hominin family organization long-term
  mating
• Of grandmothers and grand parenting group
  selection for wisdom
• Long-term tacit knowledge, judgment for strategic
  planning for the tribe
• Transcending strategic planning for the self
  alone consciousness of being conscious
• First-order consciousness aware of self and
  surroundings
• Second-order consciousness aware of being
  conscious

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Current Status

• The relative newness suggests immaturity of
  development
• Low level of impact when compared with other
  psychological constructs We are too clever and
  too passionate for our own good!
• Human behavior suggests greater average focus on
  short-term, logistical and tactical thinking in
  most individuals
• Steep discounting of the future
• Problem-solving and engineering
• Greedy approaches
• Unintended consequences prevail

10
Genetic Considerations

• Sapience is a relatively new faculty integrating
  earlier, established faculties (e.g. systemic
  thinking and social networking)
• Most likely the result of mutations arising
  within the epigenetic control network as opposed
  to protein coding genes
• A very small set of such mutations could lead to
  very large changes in morphology and behavior
  (explain the explosive emergence) EvoDevo model
• Hence there is not likely to be a gene for
  sapience

11
Theoretical Considerations

• Level of sapience a sapience quotient?
• Measure of strategic thinking competence
• Measure of systems integration competence
• Measures of judgment competence in complex issues
• Distribution of sapience strength - hypothetical

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Correlations Between Genetics, Brain Images,
Cytoarchitecutre, and Psychological Testing

• Methods for mapping non-coding control regions of
  genome are being developed
• Brain imaging studies with higher spatial
  resolution may allow more detailed mapping of
  BA10 and other associated regions post-mortem
  examinations
• Psychological testing of components of
  wisdom/sapience may provide capacity probes
  (similar to intelligence testing)
• Hypothesis We will find that there is a wide
  distribution of sapience capacity indicated by
  the correlation of the above factors, but the
  distribution is not normal.

13
What Trait Would You Choose For Your Designer
Baby?

• Perhaps Homo sapiens is sufficiently clever
• What we need isnt more/greater intelligence or
  physical prowess
• What we need is a population of wiser individuals
• Some developmental possibilities nurture might
  help, promoting wisdom as the goal of education
• Otherwise achievement of a more normal
  distribution of adequate sapience (and resulting
  wise behavior) may require genetic intervention

14
Why Cant We Seem To Fix the World?

• The global challenges before us are actually well
  understood in some cases the fixes are known
• Weve had thousands of years of written history
  to use why do we keep making the same mistakes
  of judgment?
• Why are our leaders (both democratically and
  otherwise ensconced) so suspect when it comes to
  wisdom?
• Is it the case that human cleverness has created
  a world too complex and dynamic for human
  judgment to manage?

15
The Future Evolution of Eusapience

• Is it feasible that the brain can continue to
  evolve in the area of sapience?
• Could people in the future act more wisely
  because their sapience capacity is much greater
  than today?
• How could we get there?
• Scale of the problem (population size), vs.
• Rate of climate change and energy and other
  resource depletion, vs.
• Temporal dimensions of natural selection

Conjecture The future survival of the genus Homo
depends on evolving eusapience.