If the human brain was evolved long before a written language, what's the point of having such a large capacity of semantic memory (for those ancient Homo sapiens) ?
I must say I don't know - at least it appears quite useless to me.
The remotely possible reason is that the memory capacity was not meant for semantic information; modern men merely squeeze some of our hard disk for episodic memory and use it for a different purpose. One supporting evidence is that the two memory systems share the same site in the brain. It also explains why we remember stories better than textbooks.
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I'm not the only one to note all these. As pointed out by Jared Diamond (in Collapse), human beings living in an entirely primitive environment and have no opportunity of education are as smart as modernized men like us (if not more smart; otherwise they should have succumbed to the adverse condition).
But, they do not use their intelligence to read textbook or memorize Powerpoint slides; the hard disk is used for observing, reflecting, reasoning, and trying.
Skills that we have long forgotten.
Or, as pointed out by Bertrand Russell, men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
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