Do you believe in behavioural modernity?

[Angrboda]

It really does take time, even if we reference ritualization - the ritual has to be memorized..and specifically if it's a ritual involving workmanship whatever part of the ritual is not directly related to production simply becomes and added obstacle (additional to the production of the object-that's laying aside that just because something becomes ritualized that doesn't mean the ritual makes it any easier, one is left to wonder whether or not any ritual involved might have entailed infusing the item with the right kind of spirits..and whether or not the items that got the wrong kind of spirits were discrded...and whether or not this has any connection to the reality of the items operability as a tool - or if it was just some asshole hopped up on mushrooms sprinkling dust and shitcanning industry at random). Really, really put yourself in these peoples place. You know that douche boss you had that never seemed to do anything but hinder your ability to get anything done? Any reason to assume that this guy didn't exist then?

For a substantial part of history, the apprentice system was how complex skills were passed on. (Ignoring intra-familial education for the moment.) This emphasizes experience based knowledge (intuition) and tacit knowledge (knowing-how rather than knowing-that). It's only been in recent ages that explicit knowledge, "knowing-that", has superceded tacit knowledge and experience, and then only among the very elite (e.g. the monastic system and the church). Moreover, differential reproduction which correlates with differential fitness is a part of the model, so there is no need to explain the convergence on positive mutations to the neglect of negative mutations or even spandrels. Evolution works in the biological realm, I don't see why it is such a hard sell in the realm of culture, memes, and technology. I'm told that we couldn't build a World War II era battleship today if we wanted to do so, because the technology was only partially explicit; much of it was implicit, and that knowledge was lost; implicit knowledge doesn't provide the instrumental basis for self-conscious refinement of a technology. It may not be true of battleships, but there are countless historical examples of where it is relevant. Thomas Edison tried 10,000 different filament compositions and designs before finding the right one. He didn't design his light bulb from explicit knowledge of the properties of things. All that's necessary is change, provided by an inbuilt desire to explore and experiment, along with cultural transmission via strong intra-familial and intra-species social behaviors, and selective pressures. Incremental change with selective pressures works. I think you're underestimating its power.

(An interesting example in reverse is that the gothic churches of the high middle ages often incorporated ratios that corresponded to ratios represented in the bible in its stories. Some church architects copied the same layouts in order to replicate the symbolic significance associated with those ratios. However, there's a danger in that the physical properties of structures and structural components do not always scale linearly, so some churches that attempted to recreate the same ratios on a larger scale ended up causing the structures to be flawed in terms of the mechanical engineering. There are churches in Europe still standing with enormous cracks in major structures and that are only able to continue existing by being buttressed by modern technology such as steel bands and girders. Explicit design of artifactual innovation is very recent.)