On the role of play in cultural evolution, a conversation with Claude 3.7

I’ve got two posts on the subject where I use passages from David Hays’s book on the history of technology: The Evolution of Technology Through Four Cognitive Ranks. Both posts date from 2019, though I’ve since bumped them up in the queue so they now display a more recent date. Here’s one of those posts: Personality, understanding, and anxiety as the driver of cultural evolution [Tech Evol]. “Anxiety” is the operative word here, for anxiety is something intrinsic to the operations of the brain, something I discuss in Beethoven’s Anvil (2001, pp. 85-90). Here’s the other post: Cultural Evolution: Expressive culture before practical culture [Progress]. Expressive culture, in turn, can been seen as an aspect of Homo Ludens, which brings up my recent conversation with Claude: Homo economicus sucks! Homo Ludens rocks!

This post follows up those previous posts with another conversation with Claude 3.7. This starts with a passage from Chapter 5, “Politics, Cognition, and Personality” in Hays’s book on the evolution of technology. As always in these conversations, my remarks are in bold face while Claude’s responses are in plain face.

Progress is driven by the need to control anxiety

I’m appending a passage from a book by David Hays. Does it make sense to you? Can you come up with other examples of the phenomenon?

In reading to prepare to write this book, I have learned that the wheel was used for ritual over many years before it was put to use in war and, still later, work. The motivation for improvement of astronomical instruments in the late Middle Ages was to obtain measurements accurate enough for astrology. Critics wrote that even if the dubious doctrines of astrology were valid, the measurements were not close enough for their predictions to be meaningful. So they set out to make their instruments better, and all kinds of instrumentation followed from this beginning. (That from White, Medieval Religion and Technology). Metals were used for ornaments very early – before any practical use?

In its original manifestation the compass was a divination, or future-predicting, instrument made of lodestone, which is naturally magnetic." (George Basalla, p. 172; in The Evolution of Technology)

I suspect that we could get many further examples, up into the growth curve from rank 2 to rank 3.

In fact, someone in the future may look back on psychoanalysis and remark that its origin was in parapsychology–dreams were interpreted first for divination, second for diagnosis of pathology.

Here is my first point: The driving force behind progress in social organization, government, technology, science, and art is the need to control anxiety, to satisfy the brain's striving for understanding.

The passage from David Hays makes perfect sense, and I find it fascinating. He's highlighting a counterintuitive pattern in technology development: many innovations that we now consider practical tools were first developed for ritual, religious, or mystical purposes.

This phenomenon demonstrates how human curiosity and spiritual needs often drive innovation before practical applications are discovered. It suggests that addressing existential concerns and "controlling anxiety" (as Hays puts it) can be more powerful motivators for technological development than immediate practical utility. Here are some additional examples of this phenomenon:

1. Dario Amodei mentions in his essay that "mathematicians, computer scientists, and physicists who have applied their skills to biology over the last 30 years have been quite successful." This relates to Hays' point about how tools developed in one field (often for theoretical rather than practical reasons) end up having practical applications elsewhere.
2. Chemistry originated from alchemy, which was primarily concerned with transmutation of elements and the search for the philosopher's stone - mystical pursuits that eventually led to practical scientific understanding.
3. Early computing machines were often developed to calculate astronomical positions for navigation, which had both religious calendrical significance and practical applications.
4. Cave paintings and early art appear to have had ritual/spiritual significance before developing into practical communication tools.
5. Mathematics was often developed for religious astronomical calculations (predicting eclipses, solstices, etc.) before its widespread practical applications.
6. Early glass making was largely for decorative and ritual objects before becoming practical for windows and vessels.
7. The first organs and mechanical musical instruments were developed for churches and religious ceremonies before secular use.
8. Early writing systems were primarily used for religious texts and royal/divine record-keeping before becoming tools for everyday communication.
9. Many early drugs and medicines were first used in shamanic rituals before their medicinal properties were understood in a practical context.

This pattern seems to reflect something fundamental about human nature - we're motivated not just by practical needs but by deeper questions about meaning, the future, and our place in the universe. The anxiety about the unknown that Hays mentions may indeed be a powerful driver of innovation, as humans develop tools to help make sense of the world, first through ritual and religion, and later through practical applications.

As far as I can tell, the governing ideologies in the West are strongly influenced by the idea of Homo economicus, which has it that human motivation is economic in origin, that reason is rational (in the special game-theory sense of the word), and that growth is the primary aim of society. That would seem to be at odds with the phenomena we’ve just looked at.

You're making an astute connection. The "Homo economicus" model does indeed contrast sharply with the pattern we observed, where innovations often emerge from spiritual, ritual, or existential concerns rather than rational economic calculation.

The economic view of human motivation assumes that people primarily:

• Act as rational utility maximizers
• Make decisions based on self-interest
• Respond primarily to material incentives
• Value efficiency and practical outcomes above all

Yet the historical pattern Hays identified suggests that humans are often driven by:

1. The desire to understand and control our anxiety about the unknown
2. Spiritual and existential concerns
3. Ritual and social/cultural meaning
4. Curiosity that isn't immediately practical

This disconnect is important because our economic and social policies are frequently built on the "Homo economicus" model. If we misunderstand human motivation at a fundamental level, we may create systems that don't actually align with how humans naturally innovate and find meaning.

Dario Amodei touches on related themes in his essay when discussing work and meaning in a world with advanced AI. He notes that "I think meaning comes mostly from human relationships and connection, not from economic labor," and suggests that "It is easy to argue that children shouldn't die of disease if we can prevent it" - pointing to moral and compassionate motives rather than purely economic ones.

The examples we discussed (ritual wheels preceding practical ones, astrological instruments leading to scientific ones, etc.) suggest that humans often create their most important innovations when addressing deeper needs than economic efficiency. This has significant implications for how we might want to structure society, education, and research funding if we want to encourage genuine innovation.

What do you think are the implications of this mismatch between our governing ideology and the historical pattern of how innovation actually occurs?

From innovation to Huizinga

I think it means that we don’t have a deep understanding of innovation, and our policies are likely to miss the mark. But getting back to Amodei, his observations about work and meaning in a world of advanced AI seem almost like after thoughts. He’s mostly interested in convincing us that all sorts of marvelous things are just around the corner. That may be so, but, if our thinking and institutions are dominated by the idea of Homo economicus, then we’re not ready. If we don’t think explicitly and differently about human motivation, we’re going to keep getting blindsided by unfolding events.

You've hit upon something crucial. The relegation of "work and meaning" to almost an afterthought in Amodei's essay reflects a broader pattern in how we approach technological development.

Amodei's essay focuses extensively on the technological marvels AI might bring - curing diseases, extending lifespans, solving complex problems - but spends comparatively little time on how humans will find meaning in this new world. This imbalance mirrors our societal approach: we excel at advancing technology but often treat human psychological and spiritual needs as secondary considerations to be figured out later.

If Hays is correct that "the driving force behind progress... is the need to control anxiety, to satisfy the brain's striving for understanding," then our failure to deeply engage with meaning and motivation represents a significant blind spot. We're creating technologies without fully understanding why we create in the first place.

This creates several problems:

1. We may build technological capabilities that don't actually address our deeper needs for meaning and connection
2. We risk designing economic systems that fail to account for what truly motivates human innovation
3. We may be blindsided by how people actually respond to and use these technologies

The Homo economicus model assumes rational economic calculation will guide adoption and implementation of new technologies. But if people are driven by anxiety management, meaning-making, and spiritual concerns, their responses may be unpredictable through a purely economic lens.

As you suggest, if we continue with our current understanding of human motivation, we'll likely continue to be surprised by how technological developments actually unfold. The institutional frameworks we've built around the Homo economicus model may be ill-equipped to handle the social, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of rapid AI advancement.

Perhaps what's needed is a more holistic approach to technological development that explicitly considers these deeper human needs from the outset, rather than treating them as an afterthought.

I’ve been thinking about Johan Huizinga’s idea of Homo Ludens as an alternative.

Johan Huizinga's concept of Homo Ludens ("Playing Man") offers a fascinating alternative to the Homo economicus model. Let me search for more information about this concept to provide you with a thoughtful response.

Huizinga's Homo Ludens ("Man the Player") offers a profound alternative to the Homo economicus model, presenting play as a fundamental and defining aspect of humanity rather than a peripheral activity.

According to Huizinga, play is not merely an activity but a primary force in human culture and civilization. As he writes, "culture arises in the form of play, that it is played from the very beginning" and "civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come from play like a baby detaching itself from the womb: it arises in and as play, and never leaves it."

Unlike the rational, utility-maximizing Homo economicus, Huizinga's Homo Ludens is characterized by:

1. Voluntary engagement - Play is free and done for its own sake, not primarily for material gain or practical utility. This contrasts sharply with economic models that assume actions are driven by self-interest or material benefit.
2. Meaning beyond utility - Play creates meaning through its own internal logic and rules, not through external economic value. Huizinga defines play as "a free activity standing quite consciously outside 'ordinary' life as being 'not serious,' but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly."
3. Cultural foundation - Play isn't just something humans do; it's fundamental to how we create culture, law, art, science, and even war. Huizinga traces "the contribution of Homo Ludens, or 'man the player' through Medieval Times, the Renaissance, and into our modern" world.
4. Social connection - Play forms and strengthens social bonds through shared experiences within a "magic circle" of agreed-upon rules and boundaries.

This perspective aligns beautifully with the examples we discussed earlier about innovations emerging from ritual, play, and non-practical activities. The wheel being used for ritual before practical applications, astronomical instruments developed for astrology, metals used for ornaments before tools - all these support Huizinga's view that play often precedes practical application.

Critically, Huizinga warns of "puerilism" in modern society - when elements like business and politics adopt competitive aspects of play but strip away its intrinsic meaning and joy, resulting in a blend of "adolescence and barbarity" where winning becomes more important than purpose. This warning seems particularly relevant to our discussion of AI's future impact.

If we applied the Homo Ludens perspective to AI development and policy, we might focus less on AI's economic utility and efficiency, and more on how it could enhance:

1. Creative expression and meaningful play
2. Cultural exploration and development
3. Social connection and communal experiences
4. Human autonomy and self-determination through play

This would be a radical departure from the current economic-focused approach to AI, emphasizing what makes us uniquely human - our capacity for meaningful play - rather than treating humans primarily as economic agents whose labor might be replaced.