These are both partial cases, unfinished, in a sense, though one should not think of evolution as goal-directed. Evolution is not heading anywhere, not toward us or anyone else. But I can’t resist seeing, in both animals, an unfinished quality. They are both animals with a one-sidedness in their version of the fundamental signaling duality, the interlocking roles of sender and receiver, producer and interpreter. On the baboon side, there’s a soap opera life, frantic and stressful social complexity, and little means to express it. On the cephalopod side, there’s a simpler social life, hence
...more
