Cognitive Evolution, Cultural Anthropology or the History of Ideas

I Biological, adaptive prerequisites for self awareness

A The earliest humans date from the Pliocene Epoch of the Tertiary Period of the current Cenozoic Era from two to ten million years ago.

B The trend during most of this time has been towards the development of a larger forebrain to allow for greater perceptual and conceptual ability.

C The opposable thumb in the prehensile hand and pelvic, vertebral and pedal skeletal changes were towards a fully upright stance to allow for humans' general manipulation of the environment afforded by permitting the hands to be free with the upright stance and able to easily grasp things with its maneuverable hand.

D By the Pleistocene Epoch, these modifications allowed mankind to adjust behaviorally to their environment of reduced land and food. These shortages were due to the flooding of the coastal lands and the spread of deserts. Both of these climatic changes are caused by the general rise in temperature which melted the glaciers during the last Würmian ice age. Humans intensified their food production by developing agriculture to replace hunting and gathering so as to cope with both less food and less land to gather food. The sedentary populations that resulted allowed for the slow development of hamlets, villages, towns and eventually cities and the rise of civilization and ever increasingly larger levels of social, economic and political organization.

II Theological - Religious

Links to theological and religious web sites are available here.

A Supernaturalism - prana

Prehistoric man - cave paintings

Belief in an ambiguous force in the universe which possessed power

Early humanity lives in a "state of nature". Evidence suggests Homo habilis, homo erectus and other early humans had a sense of "religion" in its fear of the uncontrollable power of nature. This fear leads to the shamans to try to control nature. The distinction of various spirits in animism versus the ambiguous prana may be considered a function of the development of language as various objects get individual names. Often the names would be considered to represent the essence of the object which must be immaterial (it was thought) if we can conceive of it separately from its concrete occurrence.

B Shamanism - Animism :

The belief that dead people carry power over the earth and that they can be entreated to help humans by special people that can communicate with these ghosts called shamans

Often plants and animals (especially animals) were thought to have spirits as well as dead ancestors which shamans could also commune with. This ability for the shamans to commune especially with animal spirits was important so that the shaman could help the hunters to find the meat which was so important as an essential protein source for the hunter gatherer tribes of primitive humanity.

Ancestor worship is another form of this stage where one's predecessors are watching over their respective families and are similarly appeased to curry their favor much as the shaman does with animal spirits.

C Theism - churches and cities develop -

1 Polytheism - here the many ghosts which were worshiped are granted more power as human centralize political power into urban centers and agricultural settlements expand.

Early agricultural civilizations such as the Egyptian, Mayan and Chinese were polytheistic.

2 Monotheism - Large cities and nation-states combine into far more powerful monarchies as the gods are combined into a single all powerful [omnipotent] god.

In Europe, this occurred largely during the very powerful and centralized Roman Empire in which, once it was no longer thought to be a threat, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire.

Transcendent Idealism - As the industrial revolution changes the agricultural society around the turn of the century [1900 C.E.], increased automation causes the generation of ideas, and creativity to be a source of production especially in such areas as marketing, advertising, telecommunications, etc.

Abstract principles become the central feature of those religions which either believe "god is love" or Intelligence or are without a concept of god but include philosophical principles such as "the inherent worth and dignity of every person".

III Metaphysical - Philosophical

Links to philosophy web sites are available here.

As the island civilization of Greece expanded, it became increasingly dependent on regional trade from Europe to Asia Minor. Here, an unusually cosmopolitan blending of cultures took place as people from India, Egypt, and other distant regions were encountered by the Greeks routinely. Some have suggested that this provided the right atmosphere for philosophy. Exotically different ideas as well as goods entered the marketplace of regional trade and the Greeks became fascinated with the comparison and analysis of these ideas.

Early Greek philosophy is also practical in that it started as speculations about how the physical world itself was composed and worked. It was not until later philosophers such as Plato and Pythagoras when this emphasis is lost. Many have suggested that the merchant lifestyle also predisposed the Greeks to be particularly open to consider new ideas that might prove useful in some way.

A Presocratics

In the Miletian school, god was intimately associated with the universe itself and not above or separate from it.

These were Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes primarily.

The Miletians saw the nature of god or the universe to be regular law-like and knowable

It was "a theology of general principles not the arbitrary rule of a pantheon of gods"

In the Eleatic school, a nontheistic skepticism is introduced by Parmenides in which the criteria for truth are:

systematic coherence

inclusiveness

agreement with observed phenomena

Similar arguments were introduced by Zeno, his student

In reaction to the Eleatic skepticism came increasingly skeptical and even cynical philosophies in the Sophistic school

Protagoras is the best example in which he argued for reliance on immediate sensory experience and for the cultural relativism for which he is more famous.

The "Hellenistic" Schools of philosophy such as the Epicureans and Stoics focused on theory of how men should relate to each other.

Epicureans suggested that pleasure is the goal of life. One should endeavor to use one's intelligence to achieve the most amount of long term pleasure as possible

Later philosophers such as the Utilitarians have been influenced by this notion.

The Stoics thought that emotion was overvalued. The only way to achieve peace in the world is to be emotionally removed from it.

The Atomist school of Democritus and Anaxogoras was influenced by the Sophists in that they determined that the truth which is general principles must be determined entirely by the sensory input which can be misleading.

B Socrates

Taught the highly skeptical technique of endlessly successive questioning in which perpetual analysis eventually leads the questioner into a contradictory statement.

His technique was later called the Socratic Method and was referred to by Plato as the dialectic. This is also the beginning of the discipline of logic.

C Plato

Taught that there was a separation of the World of Forms and the World of Physical Reality and that the forms were similar to template which informed or shaped the matter and gave the things of this world their essence. Matter provided imperfect representations of the forms of the higher world

He also taught that a select few philosophers who were well trained in the mental disciplines can reach the World of the Forms and realize the highest form in this other world, the Form of the Good

Those people who have realized the Form of the Good know what is the best [what is Good] for people and therefore should be kings known as philosopher-kings as explained in his Republic.

The theologian St. Augustine was heavily influenced by Plato as cited by Augustine in his seminal work City of God.

D Aristotle

Argued that the forms [the essences] of the things in this world are to be found by analyzing the things themselves [much like the Atomists, the Sophists and the Eleatic philosophers before him]

His political philosophy was not based on the philosopher-king model and therefore was not as elitist.

He did not believe in the notion of mystical insight into knowledge because such knowledge was not in a separate world but within this one.

He is sometimes considered the founder of science because he reintroduced this empirical emphasis against the Platonic trend.

The theologian St. Thomas Aquinas was heavily influenced by Aristotle as he is cited in his early work Summa contra Gentiles which is later incorporated into his five "proofs" of God's Existence in Summa Theologiae.

Reneé Descartes

In taking Eleatic, Socratic, Atomist skepticism to its extreme he argued persuasively that one cannot know anything with certainty except that one exists as stated in his famous Latin phase "Cogito ergo sum", "I think, therefore I exist".

He also refined the scientific method that was studied by Aristotle and others before him

Immanuel Kant

Argued that Descartes dilemma of philosophical uncertainty is unsolvable and that one should simply strive for internal coherence among the ideas within one's head

He also argued for a total devotion to duty based on "a cold respect for the truth". This truth was a priori knowledge which is based on the structure of our minds and how it processes information not on the empirical evidence of the senses.

Later philosophers expanded upon these Cartesian/ Kantian ideas such as William James, Alfred Jules Ayer and Bertrand Russell. Edmund Husserl is influenced by Kant's epistemology (theory of knowledge) in writing his book Ideas, An Introduction to Pure Phenomenology.

Friedrick Nietzsche around the turn of the century reacted against this highly rationalist doubting and argued for the primacy of the emotions.

He wrote all of his philosophy in lyrical poetry and suggested that "God is dead" because of the rationalism of the emerging sciences which were replacing religion as the guiding force behind society.

He suggested a biological evolution of the human race into an ubërmench or "overman" which will reach a "higher state of existence".

Soren Kierkegaard, in Nietzsche's tradition, emphasized the irrational and the need for each person individually to determine the meaning of his own life.

Later philosophers who also taught that each person creates his own meaning out of a meaningless and absurd universe are Jean Paul Sartre, and Martin Heidegger who, like Kierkegaard, are known as existentialists.

IV Positivistic - Scientific

(Web links to scientific sites can be found in later pages of this web site.)

Science began as a rediscovery of the ideas of the classical philosophers mainly of Greece (and Rome). It may be considered to have flourished because of the same basic social and economic forces that might have driven the initial philosophical schools of Greece which is a burgeoning expansion of an empire (especially under Alexander the Great) which in the seventeenth century was the expansion of colonialism which brought an age of exploration and the discovery of two entirely new continents in the Western hemisphere. These discoveries spurred scientific interest and caused many explorers to investigate the new flora, fauna and societies which were present. Back on the European continent especially in Britain, science was used to start an industrial revolution and revolutionize economics. What had begun weakly in the middle ages in astronomy was now being more fully developed in physics (Opticks by Isaac Newton) and later biology (Origin of Species). Some of the social sciences also started around this time such as economics with Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and psychology with Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. Some pragmatic political science was also expounded by Niccoló Machiavelli with The Prince. Around the turn of the nineteenth century, anthropology and sociology were started by Sir Edward Taylor and August Cmte respectively.

Science is based on many of the metaphysical presuppositions of earlier philosophers such as the Eleatic, Sophistic and Atomistic

Isaac Newton discovered the three laws of motion which are described in his book Principia:

law of inertia - an object in motion tends to stay in a uniform straight line motion unless acted on by another unbalanced force.

law cause and effect - force acting on an object produces acceleration, the potential energy of mass [inertia] is converted into kinetic. Force = (mass)(acceleration).

law of action and reaction - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

He also discovered the mathematical relationship between bodies we call gravitation:

F= (6.67 x 10 )-¹¹ mass₁ x mass₂

         [distance between centers]² .

Reneé Descartes refined the scientific method in his book Discourse on Method.

Galileo Galelei made well known the cosmological investigations of Copernicus which Copernicus had published quietly in De Revolutionibus.

Johannes Kepler determined much of the mathematics regarding the revolutions of celestial bodies.

Charles Darwin formalized the mechanism of biological evolution that early Greeks had speculated about in his books The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.

Gregor Mendel discovered the principles of inheritance by giving mathematical and experimental demonstration of these principles.

James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the molecular structure of the mode of inheritance is deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and published their discovery in the journal Nature.

Joseph Thompson discovered the electron as part of the atom and, with Ernest Rutherford, started a more modern model of the atom as particles that orbit others elaborated by Niels Bohr.

That the atom behaves like a wave as well as a particle was conceived of by de Broglie, encouraged by Einstein and mathematically discovered by Erwin Schrödinger in his quantum mechanical wave equation.

In cosmological mechanics the work of Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler has been modified by Einstein's general theory of relativity in which space and time as well as matter and energy are integrated into a simple equation,

E = MC² .

The relativity equation was discovered before the quantum mechanical equation and do not mathematically agree with complete exactness. Astrophysicists and quantum physicists are both working in an attempt to find a grand unified theory where the gravitation force of relativity are united with the electromagnetic and nuclear forces of quantum mechanics. People such as Stephen Hawking are continuing the work towards such a solution which Einstein had begun.

In the field of quantum cosmology, Stephen Hawking is using Einstein's equation combined with quantum mechanics to "quantize" the entire universe into a wave function of the universe in which other potential universes are represented mathematically and with with ours is connected at least through small wormholes [the size of Plank's constant]. These wormholes are connections between black holes, caused by the death of massive stars, and white holes into which some of the matter may be emitted.

Others have studied the two equations and found a mathematically elegant and rigorous solution referred to as superstrings in which matter is ripples in the fabric of space-time. Space-time is unified by integrating the four forces [and two basic equations] with higher dimensional geometry in which, mathematically, ten dimensions are needed to generate a single equation. Matter is ultimately caused by a breaking of symmetry in primordial matter in the first few seconds after the Big Bang in which some fundamental particle or stuff becomes unevenly distributed. This asymmetry causes the clumping of particles which give rise to the existence of atoms (and matter) as well as the uneven large scale warping of the geometric space-time near these large collections of matter (primarily stars and also planets - pulsars, quasars, etc. are stars at the end or near the beginning of their time span). The four fundamental forces have been integrated into two forces mathematically. The origin of the universe and its more exact structure, microscopically and macroscopically, may be at least hinted at if not solved by a grand unification of these two forces, the electroweak (electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear forces - all microscopic) and the gravitational force.

V A Potential Synthesis of These Three Cognitive Perspectives

A Science is asking philosophical questions that have never been considered to be answerable in empirical terms.

Quantum and astrophysicists are asking epistemological questions about how we can know about the universe in terms of its more distant objects [quasars, black holes], its size [finite vs. infinite], quantity [several universes? bubble universes?], and "life span" [eternal (i.e. open) or thermodynamically limited (i.e. closed and inevitably doomed to collapse into a Big Crunch and then another Big Bang, a pulsating universe].

Geneticists are asking ethical questions about what is the nature of man in molecular terms regarding possible genetic controls of behavior and man's similarity or close kinship with chimpanzees and other "advanced" animals. They are also asking questions about to what extent the genetic code of humans should be altered or edited to remove defects or even improve humankind. The theoretical possibility of splicing in nonhuman genetic material into people has even been considered.

Medical technologists have asked the question of whether life should be extended "at any expense" both physically and financially. Advanced life support systems can maintain otherwise hopelessly incapacitated people in a vegetative state almost indefinitely. The issue of quality of life and whether life is worth living under those conditions arises and therefore the value or meaning of life itself is questioned.

These questions go to man's fundamental assumptions about his universe and himself which traditionally is the study of first principles or metaphysics, the core discipline of philosophy.

C Philosophy in modern industrial societies has replaced or transformed theology as an explanation of existence and reality through these ubiquitous scientific issues in every aspect of life. This is, however, not true among evangelical and fundamentalist whom sociologists often consider to be reacting to a sense of moral malaise about the uncertainty of the answers to the questions mentioned above that science raises. It is an experience of future shock which is culture shock in one's own society due to the extremely rapid rate of change and the inability to adapt to the incessant changes of values and behavioral norms which makes one disorientated and seeking flight from the present into a more secure, stable, constant. orderly and unchanging past.

D A philosophical - scientific approach to life's questions in which final judgment is routinely suspended for more input or analysis is emerging in secularizing societies such as Europe, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and to some extent in the United States. [Sociological studies of the process of secularization which is defined as less religious and more philosophical explanations for various questions about life shows that in surveys the U.S. still ranks as far less secularized than the other countries mentioned. However, it is far more secularized than Third World nonindustrialized countries indicating a connection between the processes of industrialization and secularization.]

E It seems that religion is influenced strongly by the economic system of a society as illustrated in the hunting-gathering, agricultural, industrial and information-based societies of the world show in anthropological studies.

F It seems that as more societies advance to these industrial and information based economies and receive the notions of these societies by cultural diffusion through telecommunication networks, this industrial/ information-based philosophical-scientific worldview will become a genuinely global view as the term worldview might suggest.

G The rise of science in influence was both presaged and reacted against by early existentialists and their forerunners [e.g. Dostoevsky and Nietzsche]. This sensitivity to the metaphysical adjustments that modern man would have to undergo has made this school rather influential in the present century. However, it has reached a dead end in its pessimistic and nihilistic conclusions with its most recent exponents [e.g. Heidegger and Sartre] which has caused a decline in its prominence. A recent existentialist, Colin Wilson, has pointed out a few mistakes that, if corrected, could get existentialism off to a new start that is both optimistic and futuristic.

1 Existentialism is ultimately based on the Cartesian notion "cogito ergo sum" in which one's awareness of his own consciousness is the only absolute certainty

2 No major philosophy since has focused on consciousness as the primary [much less the only] item of investigation thereby assuming that it is "a reflection of reality"

3 Philosophers such as Edmund Husserl in his Phenomenology of Perception point out that consciousness affects its own reality by the expectations it has of the physical world. We redefine stimuli [through the primary process of intentionality] and filter out other stimuli [through the secondary process of "bracketing" also called epoche]

4 Our consciousness can be expanded if we systematically investigate the workings of our own minds both through the use of phenomenology and its applications in psychology.

This expansion of consciousness can become the start in "the first step in a new phase of human evolution".

H Neuropsychology can help in the study of the structures of consciousness by identifying organismally where various cognitive processes occur and their interaction with each other and the rest of the body through the nervous system. Neuropsychology thus provides a physical model indicating how the cognition may be physically occurring.

I The possibility of parapsychological phenomena such as telepathy (which Colin Wilson briefly mentions) can be researched phenomenologically as he suggests but it may in the future be possible to study it physically as a quantum mechanical field interaction with consciousness.

J Free will it seems would then emerge as partly a statistical fluctuation in the quantum mechanical electrochemical state of the brain's activity and partly as the self-organizing tendency towards coherence of the brain's activity within these random fluctuations it is subjected to.

K Cognitive Enhancement

1 Technological, biocybernetic or bionetic

2 Pharmacological and neutriceutical (often based on neurochemistry)

L Avenues for future research:

1 Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl)

a Bracketing concept is analogous to Zen as is the concept of intentionality somewhat.

b The search for "pure experience" in phenomenology, free of brackets, is a very Zennish idea as Zen seeks direct perception of the human condition (which is thought to be suffering or dukka) to reach a higher state of consciousness (known as nirvana, satori or kenso).

2 Shamanism or Naguelism (Carlos Castenada)

a Focuses on levels of energy or reality (which can be compared to frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum as is often loosely done)

b "Energy filaments" are thought to be self aware or conscious

i) Filaments as fundamental seems analogous to the Superstrings grand unified theory of quantum astrophysics to unite the gravitational and electroweak forces into a single mathematical equation to account for all microcosmic and macrocosmic phenomena

ii) The notion that all matter (or energy which is primary) is conscious is consistent with Dr. Wolf's hypothesis of the Dreaming Universe and is, incidentally, similar to Henri Bergson's concept of the elán vital.

iii) Teaches that level of consciousness is based on the shifting or movement of the assemblage point which is located behind the shoulder blade in the energetic egg shaped field surrounding humans.

1 Analogous to chakras in yoga

2 Analogous to auras in parapsychology

iv) Teaches that the displacing of the assemblage point is particularly easy during sleep but requires focus and control and memory of dreams which carries over into one's waking state.

1 Seems consistent with Wolf's Dreaming Universe hypothesis and its nonrational focus on the consciousness of the universe as a whole.

2 Is analogous to the control of dreams through "active imagination" as propounded by Carl Jung.

iv) The process of bracketing may lead to "pure" states of consciousness like those in shamanism if this phenomenological exploration is considered to be a voyage into new realms of consciousness.

3 Zen

a Anti-conceptual in its focus on nonrational experience to transcend the cognitive perception of the world usually by use of the meditation uponkoansor riddles which include paradoxes or apparent contradictions.

b Its focus on direct perception, again, is similar to the phenomenological approach of bracketing (epoche) to reach a higher state of consciousness or "pure experience"

4 Dreaming Universe hypothesis (Dr. Fred Allan Wolf)

a Supports the shamanistic worldview of Castenada in that Wolf's notion of all matter as conscious is similar to the world of "inorganic beings" described by Castenada.

b Uses scientific language and understanding to achieve a view of the cosmos analogous to that of Castenada and somewhat similar to that of Zen in its nonrational or synchronistic focus on the unity of all experience and of the cosmos. The monistic overtones of Zen are captured in Wolf's hypothesis though his hypothesis is admittedly more rationalistic (scientifically or analytically prone) than Zen is which attempts to avoid or bypass this route of perception.

4 Artifiicial Intelligence

5 Biocybernetics or Bionetics

6 Cognitive Neuropsychology

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