Being able to engineer is by itself something that can even exist in genetic memory, instinctual.
I don’t think this is the case. There are creatures that instinctively construct, like ants and beavers, but their constructions are more an emergent behavior from simpler rules or systems. Their behaviors have evolved, the ants that dig slightly more efficient nests were more successful and went on to reproduce more offspring colonies.
At the root of engineering is the sentence “If I do this, then I bet I can get this to happen.” That behavior is unique to humans. It takes a lot of forebrain to do, and to develop that forebrain took a very successful omnivorous, multi-strategy primate.
Speed runs of the video game Super Mario World for the SNES are divided into a lot of categories, some allow glitches, some don’t. Glitchless runs are just about playing the game as intended as efficiently as you can. The absolute fastest run though, Any%, involves a trick where you perform a glitch that allows you to write arbitrary values into RAM, effectively reprogramming the game on the fly to trigger the end cut scene. This is called Arbitrary Code Injection. Now you’re playing a different game by a different, more abstract set of rules called 6502 assembly.
Upright bipedal gait with knees that lock, dexterous hands with opposable thumbs on highly articulated arms not significantly used for locomotion, binocular, tri-color vision granting great depth perception, the ability to sweat to stay cool for long periods of time under moderate exertion? All of that is just gettin’ gud, playing the game of evolution exceedingly well. Sometime between tying a knapped flint to a stick to make an axe and digging the first irrigation trench we arrived at that level of Arbitrary Code Injection. We’re not playing the same game as the other animals anymore.
I don’t think this is the case. There are creatures that instinctively construct, like ants and beavers, but their constructions are more an emergent behavior from simpler rules or systems. Their behaviors have evolved, the ants that dig slightly more efficient nests were more successful and went on to reproduce more offspring colonies.
At the root of engineering is the sentence “If I do this, then I bet I can get this to happen.” That behavior is unique to humans. It takes a lot of forebrain to do, and to develop that forebrain took a very successful omnivorous, multi-strategy primate.
Speed runs of the video game Super Mario World for the SNES are divided into a lot of categories, some allow glitches, some don’t. Glitchless runs are just about playing the game as intended as efficiently as you can. The absolute fastest run though, Any%, involves a trick where you perform a glitch that allows you to write arbitrary values into RAM, effectively reprogramming the game on the fly to trigger the end cut scene. This is called Arbitrary Code Injection. Now you’re playing a different game by a different, more abstract set of rules called 6502 assembly.
Upright bipedal gait with knees that lock, dexterous hands with opposable thumbs on highly articulated arms not significantly used for locomotion, binocular, tri-color vision granting great depth perception, the ability to sweat to stay cool for long periods of time under moderate exertion? All of that is just gettin’ gud, playing the game of evolution exceedingly well. Sometime between tying a knapped flint to a stick to make an axe and digging the first irrigation trench we arrived at that level of Arbitrary Code Injection. We’re not playing the same game as the other animals anymore.