The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science

Amazon.com

Try an experiment: take a passenger along on a brief car trip--a jaunt to the supermarket, say. Have a nice conversation while you're driving, and take a scenic route. Now, the next day, try to reconstruct the details of both the conversation and the trip. Chances are, unless something unusual happened along the way, that your memory of both will be indistinct, for we tend to forget the mundane--an example of what the cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett calls "rolling consciousness with swift memory loss."

Steven Mithen, an archaeologist with an interest in psychology, believes that just such a consciousness obtained among early humans when they went foraging for food or made tools. The evolution of higher, more memory-laden consciousness, he continues, occurred only as a result of a cognitive trick that doubtless involved some trial and error. The trick, simply put, was to guess what the social behavior of some member of one's social group might be in a given circumstance--to step outside one's own mind, in other words, and enter another's. This guesswork underlies the famed cave paintings of Altamira, an attempt to predict the behavior of migratory animals. It underlies as well another experiment: the development of agriculture, with the requisite predicting of how plants and animals might behave under a wide range of conditions.

Mithen's reconstruction of the ancestral human mind, laid out in a clear and accessible narrative, is a fine intellectual adventure. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

Here is an exhilarating intellectual performance, in the tradition of Roger Penrose's The Emperor's New Mind and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. On the way to showing how the world of our ancient ancestors shaped our modern modular mind, Steven Mithen shares one provocative insight after another as he answers a series of fascinating questions: Were our brains hard-wired in the Pleistocene Era by the needs of hunter-gatherers? When did religious beliefs first emerge? Why were the first paintings made by humankind so technically accomplished and expressive? What can the sexual habits of chimpanzees tell us about the prehistory of the modern mind? This is the first archaeological account to support the new modular concept of the mind. The concept, promulgated by cognitive and evolutionary psychologists, views the mind as a collection of specialized intelligences or "cognitive domains," somewhat like a Swiss army knife with its specialized blades and tools. Arguing that only archaeology can answer many of the key questions raised by the new concept, Mithen delineates a three-phase sequence for the mind's evolution over six million years--from early Homo in Africa to the ice-age Neanderthals to our modern modular minds. Here is an intriguing and challenging explanation of what it means to be human, a bold new theory about the origins and nature of the mind.

Customer Reviews:

Very Good.......2006-09-20

This book blew me away. The author has a PhD in the field and I assume has done extensive research, so I can guess his assertions are based on sound theory. I may not be an expert in the area, but the author's ideas and general premises are very interesting. We may never know exactly how the brain evolved, but this author presents an interesting and fun exploration into this subject.

Swiss Army Knife, Cathedral Or Tree Of Knowledge?.......2004-06-24

Evolutionary psychologists and cognitive archaeologists have argued that homo sapiens developed large brains to be able to do the immense calculations of social interaction in one's own tribe. Human tribes are large and thus require lots of Machiavellian calculating in order to come out on top and compete for status and resources. This same argument states that our brains have Swiss army knife architectures. Meaning that various domains of intelligence developed separately in homo sapiens; one for tool making, one for dealing with the natural world, one for language, one for society, etc, but in the past they never interacted much and thus there was little awareness of self-which is a social biological explanation of Freud's unconscious mind theory. As human tribes got larger and more complex the social domain took off and by constant interaction and competition, it in turn got "contaminated" by other domains...the Darwinian fittest watching and observing the movements and behaviors of others and hence their unconscious domains, so that cross domain fluidity occurred. This is why Mithen thinks the cultural explosion occurred, a contaminated Machiavellian social domain gathering and compiling non-social domain intelligence to help compete in the social arena. This is a powerful argument because it means that our innate cutthroat tendencies encourage us to gather extra-cutthroat intelligence.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and read it from cover to cover. The only caveat I have with it is that occasionally Mithen's arguments are not soundly based in logic. Often, he'll make a statement saying if A then B, but he'll never say why B. Often he'll make statements that if we observe this behavior then we know that this is true, because "...that is what we expect..." and he'll never back up or explain how if that is so then why is it expected?

There are many leaps of faith here, the ultimate is at the end of the book where he claims that the entire work now thwarts any argument that the mind had a supernatural origin, even though he only invested perhaps a sentence or two on this bold statement and presented no arguments to support it. I am always amazed when scientists do that. They often do not support their materialist, atheistic conclusions with any scientific evidence, argument or experiment. All they do is describe a possible scenario for how reality works, which we expect science itself will eventually expand on or delete as antiquated anyway. Who's to say a supernatural force didn't design the very system Mithen describes, or natural selection, punctuated equilibrium, etc; simply because these scientists' concepts of spirituality, religion and deity are not themselves very developed.

Just because evolution is self-perpetuating, does it mean that this isn't an ideal system that a supernatural mind would come up with? A metaphor is in order: an embryo grows in spite of the fact that the father withdrew his penis from the womb a long time before. Does that make the father unreal? This idea somehow escapes the scientific mind. Scientists need to use scientific method to examine why a supernatural force did not design his own hypothetical system, or leave it alone in agnostic obscurity. Often scientists attack other people's "concepts" of deity and not deity itself and then claim that they have taken down the whole, when nothing of the sort occurred. And, of course, this is unscientific. I am thinking straw man here.

There are too many ifs when that assortment of problems is questioned. For example, if our brains evolved in an atmosphere of Machiavellian intrigue, and the natural tendency would be to go with gravity, would a deity knowing that forbidding man from consuming the metaphorical fruit is nothing more than cross-domain fluidity? Would telling them not to do it insure that they would, and in doing so set the stage for the creation of a nation through and by the function of evil? It takes an understanding of Genesis and Mithen to ask such a question. One can still believe that religion could be an unintended accident or it could be hard-wired, inevitability or a cause, and we are right where we left off. Mithen hypothesized what was there, how evolving minds reacted but not what instigated them. And when reading Mithen, holding these limitations in mind, he nevertheless, has a lot of interesting things to say.

A brave effort, generally persuasive but a bit vague.......2003-12-17

In this book, Mithen takes on the formidable task of describing how the mind of modern humans emerged from the minds of earlier hominids. The scarcity of hard evidence from prehistoric times, particularly about physical changes in the brain, makes this difficult to do. Mithen adopts the concept that there are different kinds of intelligence such as general, social, and technical. In his view, human ancestors evolved from having only general intelligence to supplementing that with other, specialized intelligences that enabled tool-making and language. The explosion in cultural creativity between 60,000 and 30,000 years ago occurred when these various intelligences were integrated, making possible art, religion, and science. Consciousness adopted the role of an integrating mechanism for knowledge that had been trapped in separate specialized intelligences.

Mithen writes that the use of metaphor and analogy is the most significant feature of the human mind. He has to rely on metaphor and analogy to convey some of the ideas in this book. While his speculations are generally persuasive, they often rest on a frustratingly vague substrate. Mithen's epilogue on the origin of agriculture, being better founded on evidence, is more specific. The book is illustrated with numerous diagrams, some of them too schematic to be scientifically useful.

Great.......2003-01-31

This is a great book, and along with M. Donald's Origins of the Modern Mind, the most comprehensive and plausible theories of the evolution of the mind. I leave out of this comment evolutionary psychologists, like Pinker or Tooby and Cosmides, because they focus on the results of evolution, not the process itself.

Mithen's point is that to fully understand the modern mind and its origins, psychology, cognitive science, philosophy and neuroscience are not enough (these are the classical fields, theres of course sociology, AI, etc...) but that archeology has something to add as well. In fact, as he shows, it is a fundamentlal piece of the puzzle to understand the archeological history of primates in order to see what that has to say about the changes the mind went through across evolution. When others might have focused on language, and its origins, Mithen focuses on the actual evidence: bone remains, ancient tools, etc.

Mithen thus divides the evolution of man and his mind in stages, four of them, starting with the common ancestor of man and ape, about 6 million years ago, then with H. Habilis, then H. Erectus and the Nearthentals and finally with, well, us, or Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Mithen basically argues that the mind and its evolution can be understood on the context of the modularity-workspace models of the mind, and that changes in the mind across evolution are simply changes in the interactions (and appearence, existence, use or disuse) of these mental modules and the workspace (which he calls general intelligence). The modules are natural history intelligence, technical intelligence, Social intelligence and language.

This approach works well, and for example, shows that the difference between say, an ape (the model for our common ancestor) and a Nearthental, mindwise, is just that while the ape has general intelligence, well developed social intelligence (apes live in groups and interact a lot), their technical and natural intelligences are rather poor (they struggle to build tools, to say the least). Language is, although this point is controversial, absent. The nearthantal, with his natural and technical intelligence almost as developed as his social intelligence (they migrated, had hunting strategies, knew to forage well, built "complex" tools) and language, would have a much more complex or closer to modern mind. This example is an oversimplification of course, but examplifies Mithens strategy adequately. In similar fashion, Mithen describes the differences and reasons for these differences, in the minds of primates, hominids, and finally man, as well as the gradual change from ape-mind to human-mind.

Things in the book, and theoretically, get interesting when H. Sapiens arrives. The difference is not only on how developed the modules or the workspace is, but how these interact. So, the modern mind is what it is because natural science intelligence say, can interact with language and with social and technical intelligence as well. Thus men might want to depict animals (natural) on walls by drawing them (technical) for social purposes. Thus the origins of art. In a similar way, religion appeared. The appearance of pathways across modules and general intelligence, building a meta-workspace, argues Mithen, is the cause of the cultural explotion, of the modern mind. This is again oversimplified, but Mithen does a good job of arguing for why and how this came about.

As an interesting note, Mithen talks of consicousness's possible role as an integrator of distributed information in the modules. Consciousness is to Mithen present on the modules by themselves, and thus argues H. Habilis was in that sense consicous, but sees reflexive consciousness as taking its modern form by the addition of connections between modules, the creation of a meta-workspace. This is in close and curious agreement with Baars theory of consicousness, or with neurocognitive workspace models of consciousness (Dehaene's The Cognitive Neuroscience of Consciousness).

In closing, this book does much in adding to our understanding of the evolution of the mind, and thus should be read by anyone interested in this most precious aspect of hman life.

Metaphorical melange.......2002-05-01

Mithen makes a valiant effort to establish the evolutionary roots of human intelligence. It's a complicated task, with so little physical evidence to support his endeavour. Still, he uses what there is with commendable ability. In presenting the development of intelligence, he falls back on three metaphorical images - the Swiss Army Knife, cathedral architecture and a dramatic play. The Swiss Army knife is a collection of specialized tools, each applied without relation to the others. You don't decork a wine bottle while trimming your fingernails. The cathedral is comprised of a central nave with connecting chapels. The chapels only connect to each other as intelligence develops. The drama is the history of hominid evolution, vague and obscure in the beginning, growing more discernible with more fossil evidence.

As with most cognitive studies, Mithen's book summarizes what is known of the similarity of chimpanzee [our nearest relative] intellect and abilities in contrast with our own. As do many of his colleagues, he finds our primate cousins lacking in all but minimal skills. With the chimpanzees thus disposed of, he moves to examine the hominid record. This is the great strength of this work. Instead of the usual tactic of portraying what is known of today's human intellect and projecting backward, Mithen starts at the beginnings of human evolution to carry his argument forward. Along the way he utilizes anthropology, morphological studies, even climate and geography. He uses evidence well, assuming little and carefully building the model. Key points in the narrative are two periods of hominid brain enlargement, which he uses to enhance his model of special "intelligences."

With the earliest hominids having only a Swiss Army knife array of mental tools, each segment of intelligence had to develop independent of the others. According to Mithen, this situation led to each "tool" building a separate "chapel" in the mind. Based on a central "nave" of "general" intelligence - keeping the body going, food gathering, sex - new intelligences would arise around it. These new intelligences are technical, natural, social and linguistic. Each operated independently of the others, so that tool-making enhanced "technical" intelligence, while learning about bird migration or fruiting seasons developed "natural" intelligence. The Swiss Army knife aspect prevented these intelligences from interacting until the emergence of Homo sapiens. Then, according to Mithen, a "cognitive fluidity" tore through the walls of the "intelligence chapels" to acquire the broad range of abilities the mind exhibits today. While direct evidence of all this activity is, necessarily missing, the forceful presentation and elegant logic make it all a captivating read.

It's easy to critique Mithen's thesis. All you need is a competitive model of cognition. However, that would be unfair to what he has achieved, a carefully synthesized model of how human intelligence developed. Even without bringing in a competitive thesis, Mithen falls down in two important areas. After lengthy discussion of tool-making enhancing "technical" intelligence and its role in developing hunter-gatherer societies, he blithely omits any input from the "gathering" half of those communities. While rarely mentioning that tool-makers/hunters are almost exclusively male, even among chimpanzees, he restricts mention of female roles to the need to give birth to small-headed babies. He also depicts the changing of "social" intelligence associated with grooming in early hominids to the development of speech later. He ignores the possibility that speech is just as likely to have arisen within the community of females, who had greater reason to utilize it.

The second major flaw is his conclusion on how modern minds evolved from earlier ones. He argues that the "social" intelligence became the tool that opened the walls of his "intelligence chapels" of the cathedral. Since there is no reason to believe that intelligence should be so pigeon-holed as Mithen makes it, "social intelligence" as an integrating force is vague at best. Although i promised not to employ a competitive thesis, it's difficult not to refer the reader to Daniel C. Dennett's Multiple Drafts model of consciousness. If Mithen had consulted Dennett's Consciousness Explained, instead of blithely dismissing it, he would have discovered that his cathedral and chapels would have been built up over time instead of needing serious renovation at the end. Mithen would have been able to use the same evidence, indeed, the same metaphors, but with progressive construction instead of building then redecorating. Knocking down mental walls is not a satisfactory technique to build intellect. Instead, Mithen should have kept the theatre metaphor, which he restricts to history, and built up his drama from a soliloquy to a full cast epic. That would have allowed him to enlarge mental capacities through new players, scenery changes, improved interaction among the cast, perhaps with himself taking the final bow. Given the work he's obviously put into this and the wealth of evidence he's considered and offered us, a smattering of applause [after a careful reading of the libretto] is not out of order.

Evolution of Consciousness: The Origins of the Way We Think
Average customer rating:

outdated

Misleading Title

Great source for understanding the consciousness

Evolution of consciousness...and, maybe, conscious evolution

Not recommended

Evolution of Consciousness: The Origins of the Way We Think
Robert Ornstein
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

outdated.......2007-01-09

I read this book with great interest because research on counsiousness has still a long way to go. After reading books like Dennet, Counciousness Explained and Phantom Limb of Ramachadran I think this book is a little bit of an old fashioned repeat. Even when you keep in mind that above mentioned books are from the same date of publishing. I would recommend this book for younger with litte knowlidge on this subject.

Misleading Title.......2005-08-30

This book does not describe the evolution of consciousness but rather the evolution of unconsciousness. It describes the work scientists have done in determining the limitations and inaccuracies in consciousness thought. This is useful in helping frame something as poorly defined as consciousness. However, mostly you can get this from your Psyc101 text. The worst is at the end where Ornstein introduces a sort of Sufi mysticism as a substitute for the reason he believes is so flawed. This is a poor substitute that falls apart at the first rational question, why should I believe this new system which has no evidence for it, as opposed to any other? You know the book is flawed when a single paragraph he quotes from William James "Varieties of the Religious Experience" has more insight than the rest of the book. Readers who are interested in what Ornstein is trying to commmunicate are better served by reading William James.

Great source for understanding the consciousness.......2003-07-24

I came across this book as I was searching for answers to the many questions concerning the consciousness of human beings and the enigmatic process of intelligent thinking. Subsequently, I was attracted to this book by the title and by the credentials of the author, who is a neuropsychiatric researcher and is the president of the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge and a professor at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco and at Stanford University. The author has done extensive research on the human brain and is the author of twenty books concerning the human brain. It wasn't difficult to realize that if anyone is to speak about the human consciousness, Dr. Ornstein is the one.

The book begins by shocking the foundations of your knowledge of the human brain. The first thing the author tells you is that "The mind is a squadron of simpletons. It is not unified, it is not rational, it is not well designed - or designed at all." And as you may have noticed by now, you must be a fan of the Evolution theory to even carry on after this sentence as the first third of the book discusses the steps that our ancestors had to evolve through for us to end up with the conscious mind. Dr. Ornstein discusses the most recent biological and paleontological findings that can help us reconstruct the history of the evolution of the human brain. Then, he takes a shot at answering one of the famous dilemmas of the human evolution theory that questions the reasons behind the evolution of the human brain. Why did a brain capable of landing humans on the moon, splitting the atom, painting the Mona Lisa, writing Hamlet, and composing Don Giovanni evolve at a time when human beings were barely working with stone tools? What brought about the ballooning of a Homo habilis' brain measuring 600-750 cubic centimeters to the Homo erectus' brain measuring 775-1,225 cc? The author extends a surprising but logical argument in this case.

Dr. Ornstein proceeds to explain that the environment that shaped and influenced the evolution of our brains ceased to exist only very recently in evolutionary terms. Our brains are equipped to react to events and dynamics that are completely gone, and our brains were not given sufficient time to physically evolve to fit the environments that our own advancements brought about.

The author carries on in his campaign to render more common notions erroneous by explaining that the conscious mind is much weaker than what is publicly thought to be. He demonstrates how the unconscious mind influences our supposedly rational and logical thinking and even our free will. He does that while describing the mechanics of thinking, dreaming, and memorization. I learned many astonishing facts about the way our minds work. I learned how our unconsciousness gets wired up throughout our earliest years and how it continues to affect us for the rest of our lives.

After that, the author begins to define what is the "Self" and how it can be identified. This is a very exciting yet confusing part of the book as the author argues that there are many selves existing within us. He provides evidence proving that not one "I" exists within us, but many. Each "I" has its own priorities and skills and is brought into action by the subconscious when the situation is deemed to require that specific "I." He explains how the working of those minds-in-one affect our lives and how they are being taken advantage of by advertising agencies and politicians to name a few.

The last part of the book discusses the author's view of the future of humanity. He predicts a grim destiny based on the limitations of the human brain to think on a global scale when human activities began to have numerous global effects. The brain is equipped to work in a small environment and never had to deal with events and concerns that affect the world as a whole. He explains how our means of raising children and of education are enforcing these limitations upon our minds. But the author doesn't leave the picture at that. He suggests solutions as to how help the mind evolve consciously to fit our rapidly changing environment. He recommends methods to strengthen our conscious minds and to make us more aware of the workings of our unconscious minds. He concludes the book by saying that "Undertaking conscious evolution, with an understanding of the complexity of our myriad minds within, may be easier, closer at hand, and more liberating than we might normally think."

The book will definitely take you through a fascinating journey into the human brain and its origins. The author's writing style is very accessible to non-professional readers while maintaining a high level of sophistication. You can be assured that you will stumble across many new ideas that will raise your eyebrows in astonishment and amazement. The book contains many drawings to help explain (and sometimes to prove) the author's arguments, though I found some drawings to be too silly and too obvious to be included.

However, you will come across many grammatical and spelling mistakes that might shake your faith a bit in the overall quality of the book as it did to mine.

In summary, this books addresses many questions about what consciousness is, how it affects our lives, and how can we advance it even further. If you find this topic to be interesting then this book is a must read.

Evolution of consciousness...and, maybe, conscious evolution.......2003-06-27

Trying to do scientific reading on consciousness studies can often be as pleasant as pulling teeth, the stuff of nightmares for those who are not biology majors. For all those interested in the subject but yearn for an authoritative scientist who speaks layman's English, this book is for you. Dr. Ornstein was one of the groundbreaking researchers in hemispherical differences in brain functioning (right v. left), and here he treats the reader to an eminently enjoyable exploration of how--and why--human consciousness likely evolved, what its true properties are, and what these mean for understanding ourselves. The illustrations in the book are priceless and hilarious (much in the tradition of Macaulay's "The Way Things Work), along with Ornstein's witty writing style and easily digestible prose to communicate complex ideas and concepts in a lucid, exciting manner.

His euphemism "a squadron of simpletons" is a common and welcome refrain--he shows us a human brain equipped with more non-specialized neurons than it will ever need, adaptable to more habitats and social situations we can ever imagine. His tie-in of Freud to Darwin is ingenious, and proves his point that much greater: fundamentally the human brain, he argues (echoing colleagues like Gerald Edelman, etc.), is not a rational mechanism like a computer; it was never designed to be. Instead, it is adaptive: the ultimate gift of evolution to our species of the ultimate survival adaptation--evolution becoming conscious of itself. This book does indeed clear one's mind in a rather "zen"-like fashion, once you understand the transitory and fragmentary nature of ordinary consciousness and the revisionist nature of memory. In the end, Ornstein suggests, such an account of the evolution of consciousness can help our species adjust to its next, possibly final adaptation: conscious evolution, utilizing what we know about human consciousness to better inform our interactions with our species, and with the larger world.

Not recommended.......2002-05-11

I found this book discouraging...depressing. The information may be of value to students of psychology but not to people who prefer a postitive outlook.

Origin of Mind: Evolution of Brain, Cognition, and General Intelligence

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Thoughtful, complex text with significant philosophical implications
Jacket Cover Blubs
The Definitive Work on the Brain As WeKnow It

Origin of Mind: Evolution of Brain, Cognition, and General Intelligence
David C. Geary
Manufacturer: American Psychological Association (APA)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Customer Reviews:

Thoughtful, complex text with significant philosophical implications.......2006-03-28

This is an thoughtful, erudite and complex book weaving together various strands of research in evolution, neural organisation, cognition and mind together. Every page is littered with references, not carelessly I hasten to add. The author's main thesis, as i understand it, is that the mind essentially 'runs' simulations, and this is an evolution endowmnet arising from ontogenetic requirements to exercise control of behaviour and the environment. Anyone locked into folk psychology, especially Stich's simualtion theory, will find much to ponder here. Geary holds that folk psychology has many 'anchors' that orient the human organism towards fundamental activities to sustain itself, e.g. social cues. These anchors are shaped in development under evolutionary imperatives. Much of the book is devoted to teasing out in detail the framework that allows this to occur. The notion of a fluid intelligence is introduced to debnk the g factor (as too limitinf a construct) and explain adaptive behaviours. Each chapter deserves a review by itself. Overall, the book is tremendously impressive and detailed however, it still faces to problem of splicing folk psychological concepts with neuroscientific data, and it is here that most critics will focus there attention. Geary has assemled a welther of piece sof evidence and argumentation to make this work, but eliminativtists will not be satisfied. Having read this book quickly, I can state baldly that it is the first book in years that I will reread. Lots of food for thought.

Jacket Cover Blubs.......2004-12-10

People often complain that modern psychology is a ragbag of phenomena without a theory to make sense of it all. The Origin of Mind makes that complaint obsolete, because in it David Geary has given us a coherent and satisfying framework for the sciences of mind. It combines an impressive coverage of the latest literature with hard thinking about how to synthesize topics like evolutionary psychology, neural plasticity, human development, and intelligence testing. The Origin of Mind is invaluable both as a reference work and as a road map for the sprawling territory covered by modern psychology and neighboring sciences.

-Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University; author of How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate

Human nature is one of natural selection's most stunning feats. David Geary takes seriously the implications of this for psychology-that it must be an evolutionary discipline. He sets out the theories with admirable clarity and deals systematically with the wealth of multidisciplinary evidence. This book pioneers a Darwinian synthesis, pulling together the disparate strands that currently criss-cross the study of the human mind. Here lies the future of psychology. So now read on.

-Helena Cronin, Professor, The London School of Economic; author of The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today.

In his book, The Origin of Mind: Evolution of Brain, Cognition, and General Intelligence, David Geary shows that he is indeed a scholar for the 21st century, providing a truly interdisciplinary synthesis on a topic of both great theoretical and practical importance: human intelligence. He presents clearly research from neuroscience, behavior genetics, and cognitive science (among others) and integrates them in an evolutionary framework to yield a comprehensive theory of the human mind. This book will be must-reading for anyone interested in intelligence, cognition, or human evolution.

-David F. Bjorklund, Professor, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, F; coauthor of The Origins of Human Nature: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology

The Definitive Work on the Brain As WeKnow It.......2004-11-16

The brain has long been the most mysterious of the organs. Part of the problem has been that the brain can be viewed in so many different ways. The same organ can think of Einstein's Theory of Relativity in one instant and be smiling and talking baby talk to an infant the next.

In this book Dr. Geary brings together research from neuroscience, behavior genetics, and cognitive science along with the behavioral sciences such as primatology, anthropology, and sociology to present an integrated view of the brain as we know it today.

The chapter "General Intelligence in Modern Society" is brilliant in it's explanation of IQ testing and its relationship with society. It both confirms, explains, and rejects the findings in the best seller "The Bell Curve" from 1994. "The IQ test," Dr. Geary says, "was designed to predict educational outcomes." And in this it works very well - in one study 20% of the people in the 99th percentile had Ph.D. degrees. He then discusses other aspects such as motivation, family, social presures and more as reasons for achievement in education, work and income. There's far too much to cover in a short review like this one.

This is not a book that has been dumbed down for the general reader. It is a definitive tome on the state of the understanding of the brain as it exists today. It is fascinating reading, but not something that you're going to race through in an afternoon.

The Biology of Mind: Origins and Structures of Mind, Brain, and Consciousness

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I can't imagine a better intro to neuroscience
Good review.
Perfect !
Synthsizing Knowledge
A comprehensive and brilliant look at our integrated selves.

The Biology of Mind: Origins and Structures of Mind, Brain, and Consciousness
M. Deric Bownds
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

This new book makes state-of-the-art research on the human mind accessible and exciting for a wide variety of readers. It covers the evolution of mind, examines the transitions from primate through early hominid to modern human intelligence, and reviews modern experimental studies of the brain structures and mechanisms that underlie vision, emotions, language, memory, and learning.

Customer Reviews:

I can't imagine a better intro to neuroscience.......2005-06-27

I really cannot imagine a better introduction to neuroscience and the mind in general. For one, the book covers all the practical bases of an intro book by offering book recommendations at the end of each chapter and interesting additions such as the "self-experiments" scattered throughout the book. What truly impressed me, however, was how much insight Bownds brings to each of the topics being discovered (especially impressive considering it is introductory). He incorporates several themes into the book and uses them to tie all the ideas together. I highly recommend this to anyone with a budding interest in the brain/mind and also to those who want to gain a better understanding of human nature and society.

Good review........2002-01-06

This book is essentially a review of current neuroscience. It is not at all technical, and very clearly written. It should serve as an introductory text, and it is not intended to be anything more. Do not expect the advancement of controversial theories or cutting edge research. It is all quite fundamental. The focusing in evolution, embodiement, top down and top up approaches, makes it a complete volume, a solid introduction to neuroscience. The consciousness section is not very interesting. It considers somo work by dennett and Llinas, but nothing really original. It is a fun and easy book to read, and unless you are an expert or someone who is very familiar with the field, you should find a lot of useful information.

Perfect !.......2001-11-26

One of the best books that introduces how consciousness, selfhood, emotion, etc. arise from the brain, under the intertwined effects of evolution, genes, environment and cultures. Topics covered are broad and adequate for both students and general readers. The book is wisely organized and easy to read. Each chapter contains an outline at the start and a comprehensive summary at the end. Important points are emphasized in the margins. Also there are many interesting self-experiments that are not only entertaining but also very helpful for readers to understand important concepts in the book. There are thought-provoking questions at the end of each chapter that encourage one to think and explore deeper. Although a copy of the book is available online, I recommend readers to buy it since it is inexpensive.

Synthsizing Knowledge.......2000-07-04

I am a psychiatrist with a life long passion for understanding the common meeting ground of psychology, biology, spirituality, neurocognitive science,and experiential therapy. This book is the best introduction to and synthesizing of an understanding of how the brain/mind operates as the center of that nexus. He integrates evolutionary priciples, linguistic theory, constructionist models, and experiential principles with a wholistic understanding of humans as persons. Great basis for those in all fields that want to move outside the narrow confines of their own area.

A comprehensive and brilliant look at our integrated selves........1999-10-14

THE BIOLOGY OF MIND authored by M. Deric Bownds from Madison, Wisconsin takes us on a wonderful journey into realms about thinking and feeling and willing that so many people have written so much about. Who among us has not been drawn to ideas and possibilities about who we are and from whence we come? This book is a bit different from others I have read on this engrossing topic. This one talks with us not at us; Dr. Bownds engages us as we read about perception, vision, language, growth, senses, adaptations, origins, development and, of course, brain and mind and what all that means. There are many self-experiments - excercises that we can do as we read the book that help us understand by direct application that which Dr.Bownds is telling us. I have read the book twice now and am sure to do it again. I, sometimes, just pick THE BIOLOGY OF MIND off my book shelf and just read a chapter that I select at random. I am always struck with Dr. Bownds' ability to bring out and introduce ideas allowing us to assimilate them at our own pace. Oh..and the cover is terrific! Enjoy the read. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

Psychology and Evolution: The Origins of Mind

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Psychology and Evolution: The Origins of Mind
Bruce Bridgeman
Manufacturer: Sage Publications, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0761924795

Book Description

"Bridgeman’s Psychology and Evolution is a superb textbook in evolutionary psychology…I see it as a landmark in the emergence of evolutionary psychology as no longer a controversial minority current but as a central aspect of the mainstream. The book reflects the state of the art in current work in evolutionary psychology…the reader is brought up-to-date about evolutionary theory, modern genetics, human prehistory, and relevant issues in modern linguistics."

--M. Brewster Smith, Emeritus, University of California, Santa Cruz and Past President, American Psychological Association

"This is an important book. Readers partial to evolutionary psychology, as well as those who remain skeptical, will benefit from a careful reading of this reader-friendly book…The author endorses the core assumptions of evolutionary psychology…but, refreshingly, he includes, often with a new slant, relevant material usually overlooked by both believers and skeptics."

-- Andrew Neher, Emeritus, Cabrillo College

In recent years, evolutionary theory has been offering a framework that more and more psychologists are finding increasingly relevant to address one critical question: Why? Why do we behave, develop, and interact the way we do?

Psychology and Evolution: The Origins of Mind introduces students to the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Bruce Bridgeman applies concepts of evolutionary theory to basic psychological functions to derive new insights into the roots of human behavior and how that behavior may be viewed as adaptation to life’s significant challenges. Examining courtship, reproduction, child rearing, family relations, social interaction, and language development, Bridgeman uses evolutionary theory to help in the search to elucidate the foundations of human perceptions, experiences, and behaviors.
introduces students to the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Bruce Bridgeman applies concepts of evolutionary theory to basic psychological functions to derive new insights into the roots of human behavior and how that behavior may be viewed as adaptation to life’s significant challenges. Examining courtship, reproduction, child rearing, family relations, social interaction, and language development, Bridgeman uses evolutionary theory to help in the search to elucidate the foundations of human perceptions, experiences, and behaviors.

Encouraging thought and discussion, this engaging volume includes:

Opposing approaches and controversial topics
Greater breadth of coverage on the field of evolutionary psychology
Innovative applications of evolutionary theory to areas that have not previously been analyzed in this context
End-of-chapter discussion questions with annotated suggestions for further reading
Key terms and concepts highlighted within the text and defined both in context and in a glossary

Psychology and Evolution presents an innovative application of biological ideas and data to establish a comprehensive theory of evolutionary psychology—a theory with the potential to unite all of psychology under a single framework and to explain the basis of human behavior and experience.
presents an innovative application of biological ideas and data to establish a comprehensive theory of evolutionary psychology—a theory with the potential to unite all of psychology under a single framework and to explain the basis of human behavior and experience.

Primarily designed as a course textbook for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in the social and behavioral sciences, Psychology and Evolution will also appeal to scholars in the field and educated readers interested in the development of human behavior.

Instructor’s Manual Now Available!

An Instructor’s Manual on CD-ROM is available to qualified adopters of Psychology and Evolution and provides instructors with examination questions, additional background material on discussion questions in the text, and other helpful aids. The IM encourages critical thought about the issues raised in each chapter and provides useful recommendations for structuring discussions and promoting further research.

The Origin of Minds: Evolution, Uniqueness, and the New Science of the Self

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An extraordinarily clear account of the "world knot."
High-tech head bump measurement
Mother Lode of metaphor
This book explains things so well.
Educational.

The Origin of Minds: Evolution, Uniqueness, and the New Science of the Self
Peggy La Cerra , and Roger Bingham
Manufacturer: Harmony
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

The Origin of Minds is a landmark book that presents for the first time a provocative model of the principles guiding the evolution of all life intelligence systems, from plants to bacteria to the human mind itself.

In contrast to the static model suggested by evolutionary psychologists, The Origin of Minds describes a mind that is dynamic and ever-changing, redesigning itself with each life experience. Authors Peggy La Cerra and Roger Bingham explain how individuals are made and describe the mechanism that gives rise to six billion unique human minds. They explain how (and why) we construct our various selves and personalities; shed light on the day-to-day differences we see in our children as they navigate the complex dynamics of family and move into the world at large; and offer a new, more hopeful interpretation of depression, mania, and the so-called personality disorders. Thoughtful and illuminating, The Origin of Minds presents a groundbreaking scientific model of the self, taking you on a journey from the laws of the universe to the creation of your own unique mind.

Customer Reviews:

An extraordinarily clear account of the "world knot.".......2006-12-26

As a practicing psychiatrist, the relationship between mind and brain is ultimately fascinating, although it is unlikely ever to be solved to everyone's satisfaction. Yet we feel compelled to try, and LaCerra's and Bingham's skillfully presented book is a giant leap toward correlating brain events with human experience and behavior. The lucid writing and excellent examples make it both intellectually stimulating and a joy to read. Although I agree with previous reviewers that this book skirts the many spiritual, religious, and philosophical issues involved in this ancient "world knot," the authors' intention was clearly to remain within their paradigm, and they elegantly achieved their goal of describing the physical concomitants of human subjectivity. In no way does such scientific research negate transpersonal efforts to explore the mystery of consciousness as a thing-in-itself, but instead lays a firm foundation for philosophers to build on. Highly recommended! John Nelson, author of The Remembering and Healing the Split.

High-tech head bump measurement.......2003-04-15

While this book is an excellent, but intensive, book discussing the neurological function of the brain, it thumps an anti-religion undertone proclaiming we are nothing but a collection of electrochemicals that dictate behavior from primordial oceans over a billion years ago.

Modern brain research is on a direct collision course with thousands of years of religious philosophy. One field denies that we may very well be an immortal spirit using the brain like one drives a car. The other screams "See this, you ARE the brain and nothing else because we cannot measure it." When you read this, keep your critical eye in high gear.

Maybe fifty years from now, we may look at this book with the Freudian era practice of measuring intelligence by associating it with physical brain size and the number of head bumps. Only this time they are using MRIs and electron microscopes instead of just a caliper to measure the brain.

Mother Lode of metaphor.......2003-04-15

La Cerra and Bingham provide a starting point for those wishing to gain some knowledge of the roots of human behaviour. They stress the individual - individuals ranging from the mundane to those breaking "patterns," exhibiting "abnormal" behaviour or showing creativity. They open with an explanation of how difficult it is to explain individuality in Darwinian terms, but acknowledge that evolution is basis of how our brains operate. With rich use of metaphor, and many examples from fiction, the text is free-flowing, if not "flowery." Devoid of footnotes and including what can only be described as a [sad] bibliography, the book is of mixed value.

The authors are exceptional at relative comparisons. In order to place humans in a frame of reference with other creatures, they describe the environmental sensitivity of a bacterium, E. coli. They explain that its information retention capacity lasts a duration of but four seconds. In that brief span it must decide whether to pursue possible "food" or rest and wait for a change in condition. They show that such decisions must be made by every living creature - how much energy to expend on survival strategies? This pattern, with added ramifications as you progress through more complex life forms, particularly ourselves, requires increasingly intricate reasoning powers. In humans, many of these powers have been shown to be dependent on various neurochemical processes. To the authors, this rules out any
genetic "absolutes" driving behaviour at the molecular level. This "strawperson" has been built and scattered before. La Cerra and Bingham raise their stook, then destroy it gently - but a straw man remains a straw man.

A number of scholars and their findings in cognitive studies are addressed, but only someone with a rich knowledge of the field is likely to perceive this. Many ideas are presented, but you remain unclear of their origins. Antonio Damasio and Steven Pinker are listed in the Bibliography, but the text makes no references to their views. Careful reading suggests neither scholars had much impact on the development of the authors' ideas. Daniel C. Dennett is given thanks "after publication" [??]. One yearns to read that "correspondence." To a degree this book insults the reader they wish to reach - those wanting to understand human reasoning and behaviour. It is difficult to accept that an inquiring reader is going to be diverted by a few pointers to further information. The reader is left with the impression that the authors have a new, innovative concept of thinking and behaviour. Sadly, that's false.

The rich use of metaphor guides the reader over what might be otherwise difficult concepts. The issues in cognitive studies are not simple, however, and require more explanation than the authors' seem able to give. The metaphors, instead of aiding in the explanation, become roadblocks to legitimate understanding. The authors leave the impression that all the issues in cognitive science have now been resolved by their book. Confidence in your own work is admirable, but should rest on a firmer foundation than La Cerra and Bingham provide. If the topic is new to you, this book may open a few doors. However, don't stop here, but move on to those who explain the background to the metaphors with sound research instead of simply breezy writing styles. Other scholars can write well. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This book explains things so well........2003-03-15

This book is a great read for anyone who is intrigued with the workings of the human mind and nervous system, the capabilities of the mind, the tiny neurochemical happenings that make possible all the automatic and deliberately chosen activities of our mind and body, and language/neurolinguistics.

The Origins of Minds sort of has the intriguing, poetic sensuality of Diane Ackerman's writing, but Minds feels by far more scientific. The sophisticated academic/medical/scientific language was worth the slight challenge it presented; the clarity with which the book's concepts and premises are laid out is awe-inspiring. Everyday metaphors are employed to make the most complicated concepts accessible, yet the authors let you know when they are oversimplifying, and why. The book is written with respect for the reader who perhaps studied biology a long time ago, or wants to nurture a recently born interest the incredibly interwoven workings and capabilities of body and mind.

The book describes some of the less complex formations and abilities of "mind" as it operates in E. coli bacteria with memories just 4 seconds long, and in bees who know to return to successful nectar-gathering sites yet know to adapt to a better segment of flowers when the previously rich source tapers off. You learn about instinct, reflex, and neocortical activity-- a person's uniquely personal history that archives the environment, inner state(s)-- the idiosyncratic `adaptive representational network' which provides you at every moment with access to memories of past situations similar to the present one, and a menu of past and present choices accompanied by how each past choice has worked out and how each choice you might make now is most likely to affect your hierarchically organized motivations and desires.

Living things are programmed to repeat behavior that assists in their survival and reproduction. The Origin of Minds explores and challenges this premise again and again, and it's quite elucidating and satisfying. What are our instincts and what ultimate purpose do they serve? How are instincts different from reflexes and why should it matter? How (and even why) does our DNA pass along certain physiological adaptations down through the generations? How is the hierarchy and intensity of our various and often competing goals organized in our psyches? What motivation underlies the development of a unique, individual personality and how does this conflict with or relate to our need for social cooperation for survival? You'll find it here.

Also, the book describes the workings of dopamine, seratonin, noradrenaline, depression and even antidepressant medication with tremendous clarity and detail. Having often seen those subjects treated by authors in a cursory, oversimplified way (to the point of being unhelpful) for the non-medical professional, I deeply appreciate this book's responsibly fleshed-out information. Very accessible. An extremely enjoyable read.

Educational........2003-03-12

If you enjoy learning intense subjects, keeping your dictionary handy, learning of the brain, and sorting out neuro-jargen you should check this one out. If you are a person of high intellect and enjoy learning of the brain and how it has evolved ( and evolving ) then this would be a good read. However, if you enjoy rudimentary leveled books, this isn't the one for you. I gave this book four stars because it was enjoyable, but not 5 star worthy.

Promethean Fire: Reflections on the Origin of the Mind

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Gene-culture coevolution.

Promethean Fire: Reflections on the Origin of the Mind
Charles J. Lumsden , and Edward O. Wilson
Manufacturer: Replica Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0735102406

Book Description

There is a missing link in human evolution about which few facts are known and surprisingly little has been written. It is not any one of the intermediate forms connecting modern man to his apelike ancestors. It is something much more challenging—the early human mind. How did it come into existence? And why?

In Promethean Fire Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson take us down the twisting corridors through which our species traveled in the two-million-year odyssey from Homo Habilis to modern man. They ask why, out of the millions of species that have emerged and gone extinct, human beings alone took the last, abrupt journey to high intelligence and advanced culture. Lumsden and Wilson attribute the sudden emergence of the human mind to the activation of a mechanism both obedient to physical law and unique to man. This "Promethean fire" is geneculture coevolution, a mutually acting change in the genes and culture that carried man beyond the pervious limits of biology—yet restrains his nature on an elastic, unbreakable leash.

The authors' argument builds impressively from across the entire range of biological and social sciences, but their presentation is essentially lyrical. They share with the reader their reconstruction—both stunning line drawings and colorful vignettes—of how the primitive mind may have functioned in exercising cultural choice with genetic bias. Step by step, they guide us through the diverse categories of evidence, including recent studies of incest avoidance, color vocabulary, infant gaze patterns, taste discriminations, and phobias, which led them toward the theory of cultural transmission based on the importance of genetic filters in individual mental development.

Customer Reviews:

Gene-culture coevolution........2002-12-22

This book proves that there is no division between culture and biology, but that both are intertwined. As the authors state: Gene-culture coevolution is "a complicated interaction in which culture is generated and shaped by biological imperatives while biological traits are simultaneously altered by genetic evolution in response to cultural innovation." (p.20)

The authors illustrate this coevolution convincingly, mostly by the case of brother-sister incest.

In fact, this theory tells us how the mind is 'formed', but doesn't explain the origin (come into being) of the mind. The title is a little bit misleading.

Customer Reviews:

A brand new idea about human origins.......2006-06-18

This is a book that will forever change your view of what it means to be a human being. It is a work of enormous scope, from the minutiae of neurophysiology to archaeology and anthropology to the curriculum of mediaeval schools and modern systems theory, and everywhere closely researched with evidence weighed with care and insight.
The argument is broadly this: our evolutionary cousins, the apes, have brains which enable them to represent to themselves and remember "episodes" or events, something which their evolutionary predecessors either do not have or have only in a limited form.
Homo erectus, the evolutionary link between us and the apes, extended this ability to perceive events, into "mimesis", a capacity to reproduce events they have perceived by use of their own body. Donald shows how this ability, which involves no modifications of the body and relatively modest changes in the brain, allows for the voluntary representation and communication of events of the past and emotions not actually felt concerning things not actually present, a foundation for the later development of symbolic action. Homo erectus dominated the hominid world for a million years, adapting themselves to this "mimetic" culture. According to Donald, mimetic representation remains with us as a vestige of our homo erectus ancestry, as a fully functioning, underlying mode of representation and intelligence.
Homo sapiens in turn developed this ability into speech, with a radical adaption which occurred about 500,000 years ago. According to Donald, homo sapiens had a "mythic" culture hinged around the ability to tell stories, and this ability provided a means to make sense of the world and create a shared understanding of the world. This mythic culture survives to this day, constituting a crucial mode of understanding the world.
Modern human beings, homo sapiens sapiens, emerged only about 50,000 years ago with a rapid accumulation of a myriad of forms of cultural artefacts, culminating in the beginning of writing about 8,000 years ago. This led to a "theoretic" culture for which symbols held in material forms outside the body, play an essential role. According to Donald, human beings have evolved by biological adaptation to the culture it created and lived in and was crucial to its survival strategy.
There is a lot of maybe, perhaps, possibly and if in this work, but the best books open research programs rather than completing them, and Donald has certainly done this. The basic framework is very sound and argued convincingly but his suggestion opens up a plethora of questions begging for investigation.
In particular, the idea of several (episodic, mimetic and linguistics) modes of representation coexisting in consciousness has vast ramifications.

this book is out of date.......2005-11-07

The book is 17 years out of date.

Donald writes, ""Broca's region" and "Wernicke's region" are convenient fictions, the truth being that aphasia can be caused by wide variety of legions that spare these areas, while occasionally the complete loss of these areas will spare language function altogether, provided the adjacent white matter and basal ganglia are not damaged. The implication is that higher-level integration appears to be fluid and plastic in its underlying anatomy, and the anatomy looks modular through out."

The current consensus refutes this position.

new horizons for any cognitive science reader.......2003-02-18

I am an oby-gyn specialist and readings of cognitive studies is one of my interests. Of course I prefer superficial writings and any book becomes out of touch and rejected as soon as it involves deeper issues. Paradoxically some rare books are easy to digest, yet exceedingly succesfull at promising new ways for capturing a glimpse. This work is such an attractive one. If consciousness will reveal its secrets someday, I feel that the key is evolutionary approaches and this master-piece of Donald is one of the bests in its era.

A really swell read...........2001-01-24

This is a fun book to read-- which is something for a book that credibly spreads across a number of disciplines and through some pretty dense stuff....

Donald is a credible writer and has a style that is simultaneously engaging without losing academic credibility. After opening up with a couple of chapters dealing with a review of literature stemming from before Darwin, he moves into an examination of archaeology, anthropology, and neurology trying to trace how the human mind came to function as it does (if you see it as special... or not....)

He traces through most of history. It is a broad, well-constucted swoop but one of which I still have not passed my final judgement. Perhaps it will take a couple of reads before I get to that point. What I am certain of is that this book, secondary to Julian Jaynes "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" made me THINK more about how we think than any other book I have come across.

I wholeheartedly recommend for you to buy this book if you have stumbled across this page....

Earnest, Learned and Valiant Effort.......2000-05-18

Although I didn't finish this book altogether convinced (nor altogether unconvinced) of his schema for human cognitive evolution, I was nonetheless very pleased and very grateful for Merlin Donald's clear and thorough review of the facts. Donald carefully sorts through the wealth of anthropological, paleontological, physiological, linguistic, and, most intriguingly, cognitive-psychological data, to separate the real clues from the red herrings. He expertly demonstrates the complexity and nuances of the evidence, while at the same time building his outline of a theory of the emergence of human consciousness. While I found this theory somewhat hazy and incomplete, particularly with respect to the "mimetic" stage he posits for H. erectus, it is quite acceptable in the spirit in which it is given: a tentative suggestion of what a plausible origins scenario must look like. From this perspective, his thoughts are most valuable, and by necessity provoke the reader to ruminate on the bewildering array of issues the author navigates so expertly. Merlin Donald does not adopt the strident, advocative tone that so many big-picture human evolution theorists do--rather, he lets the steady buildup of evidence and counter-evidence show you how he arrived at his ideas. The book is a dated, but still glittering, treasure of references and findings in the fields of linguistics, anthropology, and animal and human cognition--I have used it quite a few times simply to remind myself--and others--of the strange but true, and of how things don't always conform to the wished-for pattern. For instance, Donald's wonderful and almost touching account of "Brother John", a paroxysmal aphasic, is a perfect rejoinder to anyone who equates "language" with "intelligence".

The Red Lamp of Incest: An Enquiry into the Origins of Mind and Society

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"we hear less of the female case"
Courageous and Creative

The Red Lamp of Incest: An Enquiry into the Origins of Mind and Society
Robin Fox
Manufacturer: University of Notre Dame Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Kinship and Marriage: An Anthropological Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology 50)

ASIN: 0268016208

Customer Reviews:

"we hear less of the female case".......2007-01-20

This book is a biological, anthropological and psychological look at incest taboos and whether it is this taboo against incest that separates humans from other animals. Fox rightly shows that other animals and humans have natural mechanisms to avoid incest/inbreeding. He also looks at Freud's 'primal horde' theory and, rightly again in my view, shows that by replacing father-son conflict over access to the mother with older males-younger males conflict over access to females we have the origins of kinship, exogamy and taboo.

Fox believes that it was when the youger males, as hunters with weapons, became a serious threat to the older males that psychological mechanisms of inhibition of behavior, guilt, rules etc evolved so the younger males respected the elders and waited their turn for access to females.

Unfortunately, as Fox says: 'since the males tend to make the rules we hear less of the female case'. So he does not consider that female animals are more antagonistic towards inbreeding than males because conceiving by the 'wrong' male is far more devastating to female reproductive success than it is for the male. Males can mate with a sister as an additional female but females, once pregnant, are out of reproduction possibly for years and cannot afford to waste their limited reproductive potential on a poor quality conception.

Fox does not consider how the removal of female mate choice in human societies would have meant the removal of this natural inbreeding avoidance and created a need to replace it with the rules of kinship and exogamy and incest taboos. Fox only provides us with male views on incest so we do not know if females ever have guilty desires about brothers or fathers. We would expect not. Also, Fox seems to think that a daughter would not be troubled by an incestuous relationship with the father if it was not treated with such shame by society. This seems highly unlikely considering the potential damage to her reproductive fitness and it is more likely that she would be very antagonistic to, and distressed by, such matings.

The absence of the female perspective and the belief that males and hunting are what led to human brain growth also means Fox misses female traits such as empathy, impulse inhibition, sexual behavior divorced from hormones, language skills, social bonding etc etc that are just as important in our evolution.

Fox also ends by suggesting that women should go back to using their status as mothers to achieve their aims rather than being part of the public, political, economic sphere of men. I agree that motherhood needs to be valued more by everyone but there is nothing 'natural' in females that leaves them willing to put their welfare, their children's welfare or even the planet's welfare solely in the hands of men who have their own agendas that can conflict with those of women and children.

The importance of this book is the inclusion of biology and evolution which adds to our understanding. Its faults lie in missing the real differences of females and imagining that the females human males have been able to construct - largely in their own interests - are 'natural'.

Courageous and Creative.......1999-12-08

I have never read a book on incest that has been able to so thoroughly keep itself away from bleeding-heart prose. Fox is a sober scholar who has no agenda other than the pursuit of truth. His tying of incest and evolutionary psychology is revolutionary. I encourage everyone with a family to read this book.

Coming into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness

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Soulful mind improvisation
A book that changed me.
A scholar and intellectual, at full gallop
Vintage Thompson Mind-Jazz
Buy this book. It has ALL of Thompson's work.

Coming into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness
William Irwin Thompson
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0312158343

Book Description

In his best-selling The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light, William Irwin Thompson intrigued readers with his thoughts on mythology and sexuality. In his newest book, Coming Into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness, he takes the reader on a journey through the evolution of consciousness from the preverbal communications of early stone carvings, to the writings of Marcel Proust, around the monumental wrappings of Christo and up to the rebirth of interest in the Taoist philosophy of Lao Tzu. Owing as much to the rhythmic constructions of jazz as to established methods of scholarship, Thompson plays a riff on biology and culture seeing the birth of the mind in Proust's Madeleine, the displacement of humanity in Christo's wrapping of the Reichstag and, in Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, the path forward to a new planetary culture. In Coming Into Being, William Irwin Thompson presents a fascinating vision of our past, our present, and our future that no one will want to miss.

Customer Reviews:

Soulful mind improvisation.......2007-10-05

Why is William Irwin Thompson so little read, so little known, so little talked about? I think it is because he isn't easy to read, classify or pin-down. His thinking is a performance of what he talks about: the dawning integral consciousness, fluid and insightful, a psycho-sensual expression of knowledge-art.

Thompson traverses a wide territory, touching on everything from Ken Wilber to Zecharia Sitchin, Rudolf Steiner to Marshall McLuhan, molecular biology to Egyptian mythology. Anyone interested in "integral thinking" should give him a read--an important poetic counterpoint to Ken Wilber's systemizations.

A book that changed me........2005-12-01

Thompson is one of those authors who I wish that I had encountered years ago, and yet I simultaneously wonder if I could have comprehended him years ago -- or did I need all of the years of searching as mere preparation for the moment of discovering him?

This was the first book that I read by Thompson, and although I'm glad, because I am now deeply hooked on him, I wonder how much more he has to offer. Well, I'm definitely going to order his recent books to find out!

He mixes Buddhism, Gaia theory, Gebserian new age envisioning, and top notch literary scholarship into not a reified dogmatic doctrine, like other writers (read: Ken Wilber), but something more minimalistic and thereby somehow better: mind-jazz, or Wissenkunst, as Thompson perfectly characterizes his own work. Through metaphors, digressions, and uncanny comparisons, Thompson uses the literary, religious, and artistic history of the world to tell a story with deep truth and revelatory power.

A scholar and intellectual, at full gallop.......2002-02-06

At a time when the question, "Who are America's intellectuals?" was circulating, and the mention of Susan Sontag in this regard left me queasy, I remembered my exhilaration reading Thompson's books in the 70's and 80's and wondered what he was doing lately. I didn't finish this book--some of the "texts" weren't of that much personal interest--but the first three-fourths were wonderful. The introductory essay, which was prophetic in its emphasis on the terrorist-fundamentalist forces at work in the world--is alone worth the price of admission. A brilliant, incisive mind with an insatiable curiosity to expand its range, and we are the beneficiaries.

With Thompson in the lists, I think we Americans can hold our own with intellectuals the world over.

Vintage Thompson Mind-Jazz.......2002-01-26

Reading this book is a bit like watching a Baz Lurhrmann film like "Moulin Rouge" or "William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet." Although the text, superficially, is the printed record of a 1992-1994 lecture series, the lectures themselves were not designed as a linear narrative exposition, but in Thompson's words, operated as a form of mind-jazz -- an improvisational riff on ancient texts.

The texts function in the book very much the way an archetypal storyline does in Luhrmann's films -- as a structural anchor for a great whirl of pop references and images that have no temporal relationship to one another but are perceived to occupy the same ideational space. When this strategy works, the results are exhilarating.

Thompson's focus is the living interaction of consciousness and communicative form -- the way in which a consensual instrument of communication serves as the performance of tacit assumptions about what it means to be human. Influenced in this enterprise by the theories of Marshall McLuhan, Thompson demonstrates in diverse communicative fields -- art, literature, religion, myth, history, archaeology, poetry, pop imagery -- how new possibilities for meaning take hold in a culture, relegating displaced forms to folk art, and setting in motion fundamentalist movements in which the frankly archaic returns nativistically, a vocabulary wielded by those disenfranchised by the process of ideational change.

Thompson has been taken to task, in this respect, for the so-called Whig fallacy of history -- that is, for treating past social orders as though they'd been groping along, step by step, to reach our own point of conscious development. But these reviewers are equally irritated by Thompson's multidimensional approach to his subject, regarding it as a rejection of western narrative convention.

It seems to me that the book's structure is more profitably understood as a deliberate reflection of the thesis that Thompson is advancing: that all variants of a conscious perspective exist at once as performances of that perspective, whether or not they served to reflect or influence the society in which they found expression. This thematic consistency both unifies the material and allows for expansive variation, much as an ostinato binds a musical composition while allowing for constantly changing contrapuntal parts.

Although some of his ideas are certainly familiar from post-modern theory, Thompson rejects the nihilism and political utilitarianism that so often attend a deconstructionist perspective on great literature. He appeals, rather, to the reader's imagination, that intermediate psychological ground between matter and spirit, where language serves as a form of currency: a means of exchange between the sensorium and dimensions that lie beyond its direct perceptual acquisition.

This felicitous analogy allows Thompson to introduce the evidence of texts that are not usually understood to have relevance in a technologically oriented society. Like a marriage contract, whose value is not in its material existence as a piece of paper, some texts operate as a "consensual instrument," allowing, as Thompson puts it, a domain of meaning to come into play.

Like Thompson's other books, this one is not an easy read. It's in the business of limning texts as performances of the worldview in which they were generated, determined not only by culture but by gender and adaptive context. And it attempts, by its very form, to invoke as well as to describe what Thompson calls a hermeneutic of the imagination.

Understanding our current state of cultural organization as a bifurcation point, a time in which the traditional forms of literate civilization are undergoing an electronic meltdown, Thompson regards the present communicative medium as the concrete performance of a state of consciousness that is collective rather than individual. Our consensual vocabulary for understanding this evolution, however, is unremittingly technological, which has paved the way for immense corporate interests to define the emerging global landscape. Spirituality, accordingly, is devolving into archaic personal cosmologies.

"Coming into Being" is an attempt to jump, feet first, into that perceived breach between science and mysticism, between abstract scholarship and embodied folk wisdom, between self and Other, between being and Being, in order to celebrate the many textual images, both ancient and contemporary, of their potential integration. I loved this book -- even its recapitulation of "The Time Falling Bodies Take To Light" as though it were a text like any other, important for its ideas and images and not because Thompson happened to write it.

Buy this book. It has ALL of Thompson's work........2000-12-15

See my review of the hardback with 284 pages and twelve essays compared with 336 pages and fifteen essays. Hint: the last three essays bring Thompson's thoughts to a higher and more mature plane. Hence the hardback should merit four stars and the paperback rates five stars with me. Buy it! Gordon E. Beck, Ph. D., Emeritus Professor, The Evergreen State College, Olympia.

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