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Category: development

Why did consciousness evolve?

Why did consciousness evolve?

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From David Barash, evolutionary biologist and professor of psychology at University of Washington. “Brief explanatory excursion: it is a useful exercise to ask what brains are for. From an evolutionary perspective, brains evolved not simply to give us a more accurate view of the world, or merely to orchestrate our internal organs or coordinate our movements, or even our thoughts. Rather, brains exist because they maximise the reproductive success of the genes that helped create them and of the bodies…

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Homo deus

Homo deus

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Power Valued Over Truth Dear Ed and All, “We are the ones that create human nature by inculcating cooperation and care over selfishness and power.” The view you express, Ed, contesting Harari’s claim in Homo deus, seems to edge up closely to the “pre-modern” standard social science of model of human nature, i.e., that it is almost solely a product of culture, with no or minimal influence of naturally selected genes and very fancy naturally selected epigenetic mechanisms for gene…

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The evolutionary and present significance of reading

The evolutionary and present significance of reading

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In her new book, Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, author Maryanne Wolf explores how reading affects the brain and mind. What different effects result from consuming digital media rather than print media and long forms rather than tweets, posts, and other microcontent? In her excellent recent article, she says, Will new readers develop the more time-demanding cognitive processes nurtured by print-based mediums as they absorb and acquire new cognitive capacities emphasized by digital media? For example, will…

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Affective neuroscience of self-generated thought

Affective neuroscience of self-generated thought

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By Fox et al. (2018), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 12 May, pp. 1 – 27. The abstract: “Despite increasing scientific interest in self-generated thought—mental content largely independent of the immediate environment—there has yet to be any comprehensive synthesis of the subjective experience and neural correlates of affect in these forms of thinking. Here, we aim to develop an integrated affective neuroscience encompassing many forms of self-generated thought—normal and pathological, moderate and excessive, in waking and in…

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Newly discovered form of interneural communication

Newly discovered form of interneural communication

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Two independent teams of scientists from the University of Utah and the University of Massachusetts Medical School have discovered that a gene crucial for learning, called Arc, can send its genetic material from one neuron to another by employing a strategy commonly used by viruses. The studies, both published in Cell, unveil a new way that nervous system cells interact. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/memory-gene-goes-viral

Consciousness Regained:

Consciousness Regained:

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“Disentangling mechanisms, brain systems, and behavioral responses” by Johan F. Storm et al., Journal of Neuroscience 8 November 2017, 37 (45) 10882-10893. The abstract: “How consciousness (experience) arises from and relates to material brain processes (the “mind-body problem”) has been pondered by thinkers for centuries, and is regarded as among the deepest unsolved problems in science, with wide-ranging theoretical, clinical, and ethical implications. Until the last few decades, this was largely seen as a philosophical topic, but not widely accepted…

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Neuroscience of Consciousness Journal

Neuroscience of Consciousness Journal

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Their blurb: “Neuroscience of Consciousness is an open access journal which publishes papers on the biological basis of consciousness, with an emphasis on empirical neuroscience studies in healthy populations and clinical settings. The journal also publishes empirically and neuroscientifically relevant psychological, methodological, theoretical, and philosophical papers. As well as the primary phenomenon of consciousness itself, relevant topics include interactions between conscious and unconscious processes; selfhood; metacognition and higher-order consciousness; intention, volition, and agency; individual differences in consciousness; altered states of…

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Damasio on consciousness

Damasio on consciousness

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From the introduction to Chapter 9 of his new book The Strange Order of Things. “The term ‘consciousness’ applies to the very natural but distinctive kind of mental state described by the above [subjective] traits. The mental state allows its owner to be the private experiencer of the world around and, just as important, to experience aspects of his or her own being. For practical purposes, the universe of knowledge, current and past, that can be conjured up in a…

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From computers to cultivation

From computers to cultivation

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Another article Sulikowski referenced, highlighting the debate between the computational and 4E models. Therein it notes that the computational approach is akin to Chomsky’s computational linguistics. Note that Lakoff broke from Chomsky on this and went on to formulate embodied linguistics. It appears this debate is an ongoing battle in different fields. The abstract: “Does evolutionary theorizing have a role in psychology? This is a more contentious issue than one might imagine, given that, as evolved creatures, the answer must surely…

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Why economics needs a new invisible hand

Why economics needs a new invisible hand

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In this clip Hartmann interviews David Sloan Wilson on his new article by the above name. A new economics needs a new foundation from the typical and shopworn invisible hand proposed by Adam Smith. That new hand is applying evolutionary theory to the topic. David S. Wilson is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University and Arne Næss Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo. His most recent book is Does Altruism…

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