Evolution of Human Consciousness -III: Role of Culture (original) (raw)
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A natural history of the human mind: tracing evolutionary changes in brain and cognition
Journal of Anatomy, 2008
Since the last common ancestor shared by modern humans, chimpanzees and bonobos, the lineage leading to Homo sapiens has undergone a substantial change in brain size and organization. As a result, modern humans display striking differences from the living apes in the realm of cognition and linguistic expression. In this article, we review the evolutionary changes that occurred in the descent of Homo sapiens by reconstructing the neural and cognitive traits that would have characterized the last common ancestor and comparing these with the modern human condition. The last common ancestor can be reconstructed to have had a brain of approximately 300-400 g that displayed several unique phylogenetic specializations of development, anatomical organization, and biochemical function. These neuroanatomical substrates contributed to the enhancement of behavioral flexibility and social cognition. With this evolutionary history as precursor, the modern human mind may be conceived as a mosaic of traits inherited from a common ancestry with our close relatives, along with the addition of evolutionary specializations within particular domains. These modern human-specific cognitive and linguistic adaptations appear to be correlated with enlargement of the neocortex and related structures. Accompanying this general neocortical expansion, certain higher-order unimodal and multimodal cortical areas have grown disproportionately relative to primary cortical areas. Anatomical and molecular changes have also been identified that might relate to the greater metabolic demand and enhanced synaptic plasticity of modern human brain's. Finally, the unique brain growth trajectory of modern humans has made a significant contribution to our species' cognitive and linguistic abilities.
Evolution of human brain functions: the functional structure of human consciousness
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 2009
The functional structure of self-aware consciousness in human beings is described based on the evolution of human brain functions. Prior work on heritable temperament and character traits is extended to account for the quantum-like and holographic properties (i.e. parts elicit wholes) of self-aware consciousness. Cladistic analysis is used to identify the succession of ancestors leading to human beings. The functional capacities that emerge along this lineage of ancestors are described. The ecological context in which each cladogenesis occurred is described to illustrate the shifting balance of evolution as a complex adaptive system. Comparative neuroanatomy is reviewed to identify the brain structures and networks that emerged coincident with the emergent brain functions. Individual differences in human temperament traits were well developed in the common ancestor shared by reptiles and humans. Neocortical development in mammals proceeded in fi ve major transitions: from early reptiles to early mammals, early primates, simians, early Homo, and modern Homo sapiens. These transitions provide the foundation for human self-awareness related to sexuality, materiality, emotionality, intellectuality, and spirituality, respectively. The functional structure of human self-aware consciousness is concerned with the regulation of fi ve planes of being: sexuality, materiality, emotionality, intellectuality, and spirituality. Each plane elaborates neocortical functions organized around one of the fi ve special senses. The interactions among these fi ve planes gives rise to a 5 × 5 matrix of subplanes, which are functions that coarsely describe the focus of neocortical regulation. Each of these 25 neocortical functions regulates each of fi ve basic motives or drives that can be measured as temperaments or basic emotions related to fear, anger, disgust, surprise, and happiness/sadness. The resulting 5 × 5 × 5 matrix of human characteristics provides a general and testable model of the functional structure of human consciousness that includes personality, physicality, emotionality, cognition, and spirituality in a unifi ed developmental framework.
Mirror neurons: Enigma of the metaphysical modular brain
Journal of Natural Science, Biology and Medicine, 2012
Mirror neurons are one of the most important discoveries in the last decade of neuroscience. These are a variety of visuospatial neurons which indicate fundamentally about human social interaction. Essentially, mirror neurons respond to actions that we observe in others. The interesting part is that mirror neurons fire in the same way when we actually recreate that action ourselves. Apart from imitation, they are responsible for myriad of other sophisticated human behavior and thought processes. Defects in the mirror neuron system are being linked to disorders like autism. This review is a brief introduction to the neurons that shaped our civilization.
This article argues that mirror neurons originate in sensorimotor associative learning and therefore a new approach is needed to investigate their functions. Mirror neurons were discovered about 20 years ago in the monkey brain, and there is now evidence that they are also present in the human brain. The intriguing feature of many mirror neurons is that they fire not only when the animal is performing an action, such as grasping an object using a power grip, but also when the animal passively observes a similar action performed by another agent. It is widely believed that mirror neurons are a genetic adaptation for action understanding; that they were designed by evolution to fulfill a specific sociocognitive function. In contrast, we argue that mirror neurons are forged by domain-general processes of associative learning in the course of individual development, and, although they may have psychological functions, they do not necessarily have a specific evolutionary purpose or adaptive function. The evidence supporting this view shows that 1) mirror neurons do not consistently encode action 'goals'; 2) the contingency-and context-sensitive nature of associative learning explains the full range of mirror neuron properties; 3) human infants receive enough sensorimotor experience to support associative learning of mirror neurons ('wealth of the stimulus'); and 4) mirror neurons can be changed in radical ways by sensorimotor training. The associative account implies that reliable information about the function of mirror neurons can be obtained only by research based on developmental history, system-level theory, and careful experimentation.
An Evolutionary Perspective of Mirror Neurons
AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE OF MIRROR NEURONS 2 Preface As opposing to using a more traditional "Abstract," I felt it necessary to provide more applicable information, valuable to interpreting the content discussed. The goal of this essay was to create an evolutionary marriage between psychology and biology. With theories of biological evolution being well ahead of the psychological field, the use of models was deemed mandatory to create an ideal perspective for the reader. Specifically, the "Evolutionary Perspective" and "Language" sections are the ones referred to. I used knowledge acquired in regards to evolution by means of natural selection, and attempted to hypothesis scenarios that applied to the recently discovered mirror neurons. After all, we have had since 1859 to evaluate Charles Darwin's discoveries, but only since 1996 to evaluate mirror neurons. While the models I chose may be right or wrong, that is not the purpose of them. Their purpose is to paint a picture. One that combines something similar to what happened, with what we know mirror neurons accomplish.