Note that we don’t always need to be conscious of the signals we’re sending and receiving. We may have evolved an instinct to make art, for example, as a means of advertising our artistic skills and free time (survival surplus)—but that’s not necessarily what we’re thinking about as we whittle a sculpture from a piece of driftwood. We may simply be thinking about the beauty of the sculpture (for more on art, see Chapter 11). Nevertheless, the deeper logic of many of our strangest and most unique behaviors may lie in their value as signals.30