The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention

part of what is needed is a theory not only of how we invent, but why we invent. Recall that Edison was inventing for the pure pleasure of inventing. He worked on many of his inventions, not to meet an unmet need, but just to see what happens and what’s possible. The Systemizing Mechanism is what drives curiosity.

Other reasons have been postulated for why Neanderthals died out, but my contention is that the combination of the new Systemizing Mechanism, enabling complex tool-making, and the Empathy Circuit, enabling complex social interaction and deception, led Homo sapiens to become unrivaled.