Chimpanzees, for instance, have far better short term memory than we do- they can perfectly remember long sequences of shapes flashed briefly before them in a way that would be impossible for most humans.
That's odd. Did we have this ability and lost it, or did chimps evolve it separately? I've watched apes choosing shapes in vids and they're quite good at it and fast. I can understand other animals doing better at tasks that I would deem "physical", but this looks like the kind of thing humans should be good at.
A good blend of science and philosophy, this post.
An entirely speculative theory of mine is that it's correlated with our significantly weaker senses of smell- given that smell is the sense most strongly correlated with memory in hominid populations. People in hunter gatherer tribes tend to have much better senses of smell and better memories. Chimps have much better senses of smell yet. Of course, there's also the whole "writing degrading memory" theory to reckon with as well.
And thanks, glad you enjoyed it!