I Think I Think, Therefore I Think I Am

Asperger's frequently comes up in conversation between Chrisafer and me. I think we're fascinated because both of us are touchy-feely thenthitive types -- sort of the polar opposite of your typical aspie. Anyways, perhaps that's why I found this neuroscience piece in today's LATimes to be of interest. Exploring the question "why are humans able to think about thinking," a U-Dub psych professor postulates a "Burnsian evolutionary gift":

[M]aybe it evolved in the service of our highly developed social intelligence, insofar as it helped free us from many a blunder and foolish notion by enabling our consciously endowed ancestors to realize (in proportion to their consciousness) that, for example, seeming too selfish, too cowardly, too uninformed, too ambitious, too sexually voracious and so forth would ill serve their ends.

Hah, I just knew the emo people were more highly evolved.