Daniel Dennett was interested in the Flynn Effect, the long-range increase in IQ scores. An average score was and is 100, but the 100 on the test that grandfather took would be a lower score today.
Dennett, like many others, thought the improvement probably was due to our tools for thinking. The use of new and better tools — such as numbers, maps and diagrams — is filtering out through society, at least in the developed countries. The average person can solve problems that our ancestors couldn’t.
These tools are powerful because they are shared.
If the brains of animals were smart phones, we could marvel at the capacity each gadget had, but the wonders would begin when the tools were joined in a network and someone thought of sharing apps. The ability of humans to trust each other, form networks, cooperate and share information has changed the world and changed us.
Ironically, those changes are so profound they’re difficult to imagine. A Martian anthropologist visiting the planet 10,000 years ago would have had to search for human beings. From her spaceship, she would have had to search for evidence of our isolated camps and dwellings. Today we humans are hard to miss.
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