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Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition
This bold and brilliant book asks the ultimate question of the life sciences: How did the human mind acquire its incomparable power? In seeking the answer, Merlin Donald traces the evolution of human culture and cognition from primitive apes to artificial intelligence, presenting an enterprising and original theory of how the human mind evolved from its presymbolic form.
424 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 4, 2013
History is bunk, and evolution equally so. I don't mean to take away from any of the staggering advances made in genetics, but in every case the Darwinism has been ported to other sciences, tragedy has followed. The reason is a very simply fallacy that many authors of evolution-based theories don't seem to understand: the Fallacy of Proportion. The idea that a part must resemble the whole, or vice versa, patently false (a clock does not resemble a gear, for example). In practice, this divides the theory of evolution into two propositions: 1) that the majority of traits for whole of a species are going to offer competitive advantages for scarce resources in the biosphere, and 2) that every trait of nearly every human has to offer at least some competitive edge.
The second proposition is false. Unfortunately, it is the basis of much of this book. That the human mind has made us better animals is a given, but saying that each and every though-mechanism has something to do with this purpose is wishful thinking. In practice, theory as this, so devoid of testable claims, tends to reveal more the biases of the authors than the nature of reality. When viewed in this narrow purpose, it is an excellent read.
The second proposition is false. Unfortunately, it is the basis of much of this book. That the human mind has made us better animals is a given, but saying that each and every though-mechanism has something to do with this purpose is wishful thinking. In practice, theory as this, so devoid of testable claims, tends to reveal more the biases of the authors than the nature of reality. When viewed in this narrow purpose, it is an excellent read.
March 22, 2014
An ambitious attempt to trace the cognitive steps that led to the modern day human thought form. I was often lost in the density of the material and would've preferred a less verbose extrapolation, though I suppose it was written with a particular audience in mind. Definitely worth multiple reads for those with greater patience.
The focus is mainly forms of communication and symbolic thought. You are guided from mimetic to theoretic culture, ultimately ending on thought that exists as an interplay somewhere between biological organisms and their externally manipulated ideas.
He may have explained why he chose mainly communication as the representation for the development of the mind, though nothing stands out in my memory. As a point of personal conjecture, I believe it was for its utility in expression of deeper cognitive processes and comparative historical and taxonomic referents.
Even with the emphasis on communication and symbols, Donald employs a broad range of studies into his postulates. He presents his ideas methodically and keeps abstraction grounded in empiricism as well as possible given the subject matter. As stated previously, I got lost in the density of some proofs and would, after numerous pages of dissection, forget the original topic of discussion. Even though I feel like his transitions and outlines could be ambiguous, I again refer to the fact that this was probably written to those of the proper frame of reference.
Regardless, he did a very good job considering the subject matter and amount of evidence that needed to be presented.
The focus is mainly forms of communication and symbolic thought. You are guided from mimetic to theoretic culture, ultimately ending on thought that exists as an interplay somewhere between biological organisms and their externally manipulated ideas.
He may have explained why he chose mainly communication as the representation for the development of the mind, though nothing stands out in my memory. As a point of personal conjecture, I believe it was for its utility in expression of deeper cognitive processes and comparative historical and taxonomic referents.
Even with the emphasis on communication and symbols, Donald employs a broad range of studies into his postulates. He presents his ideas methodically and keeps abstraction grounded in empiricism as well as possible given the subject matter. As stated previously, I got lost in the density of some proofs and would, after numerous pages of dissection, forget the original topic of discussion. Even though I feel like his transitions and outlines could be ambiguous, I again refer to the fact that this was probably written to those of the proper frame of reference.
Regardless, he did a very good job considering the subject matter and amount of evidence that needed to be presented.
July 24, 2021
Fascinating. I particularly liked that Donald extended the exploration of how the human mind works into the extended memory devices that we all currently use and how that has affected our evolution - especially culturally.
May 5, 2017
Written before the internet was everywhere and didn't do a great job of defining terms. Not intended for general audiences apparently. It's kind of a shame I read it after The Symbolic Species, because it seemed pretty dull after that. But once you get through all the basic brain stuff (I mean, still cool and informative, just less compelling after I've just read something kinda similar), you get to some cool ideas at the end about the extended mind.
And of course, assorted weirdo ideas and factoids like so:
"Animals without centralized nervous systems, like insects with ganglionic nervous systems, are incapable of true coordinated action, because each appendage is under local control. The legs, for example, each work in parallel, and no part of the insect's nervous system has information on the state of all the legs. Therefore, an insect deprived of a leg may circle endlessly, where a more sophisticated creature, like a mammal, would drag itself with novel locomotor action patterns to its destination."
And of course, assorted weirdo ideas and factoids like so:
"Animals without centralized nervous systems, like insects with ganglionic nervous systems, are incapable of true coordinated action, because each appendage is under local control. The legs, for example, each work in parallel, and no part of the insect's nervous system has information on the state of all the legs. Therefore, an insect deprived of a leg may circle endlessly, where a more sophisticated creature, like a mammal, would drag itself with novel locomotor action patterns to its destination."
January 15, 2012
I'll give this four-stars, though I'm really not competent to rate this. I read substantial portions of it, but much of it is -- if not over my head -- at least too dry and scientific for my tastes and attention deficits. I'm a scientific illiterate, unfortunately -- and even in philosophy, epistemology was my weakest area. So this speculative, synthesizing approach to some highly technical aspects of cognitive evolution, memory storage, evolutionary biology -- what is the mode of awareness of fish, as opposed (say) to homuncular models of human consciousness... was both fascinating but, ultimately, more than I can handle. Those with a background or aptitude for this sort of thing might want to look at this book. The author seems to be quite brilliant, so far as I can tell -- and he is clearly dealing with some very key issues.
February 16, 2009
It's surprisingly hard to figure out how humans' ability to speak evolved. The two general theories -- the 'unitary' and the 'modular' -- each have problems. How could all the various interrelated physical and mental components necessary for voice suddenly become available all at once? So the unitary theory doesn't make much sense. But the modular isn't much better -- many of the components of voice have no conceivable use except for producing vocal tones. What's needed is some kind of intermediary step that makes sense. Donald postulates a 'mimetic' mind -- where people can't talk, but they can act out what they see and perform dumb shows for their fellow primitive humans. He makes the idea seem plausible enough in itself, but you're still left with the problem of getting to things like vocal chords. The book is written in a highly academic, dense style that will put off all but the most dedicated students of evolution.
January 13, 2020
Around four million years ago, tucked away somewhere in the savannah of east Africa, the lineage of our ancient ancestors split off from the branch of apes today known as chimpanzees. At that time there were no cities, there were no books, and no one had even dreamed of the most primitive technologies that we take for granted today. Somewhere in that time human brains became much cleverer than chimps, but deciphering how exactly they became cleverer is a difficult task. Humans aren't smarter than chimps because our brains are bigger--whales have much bigger brains than humans and you don't see any whales doing arithmetic. It also wasn't a simple change. The change was really a series of changes that accumulated over millions of years. Because evolution does not plan for the future, each of those changes must have provided an important evolutionary advantage to our ancestors. Understanding why and how this all happened is a daunting task, but lucky for us, Canadian neuroscientist Merlin Donald did an admirable job of unravelling some of these mysteries in his book Origins of the Modern Mind.
The basic outline of his theory goes something like this: human minds evolved from our ape ancestors in three seperate stages, each distinct but dependant on the stage that came before. Before this process began human minds were in a state of what he calls episodic culture, and it is the type of thinking that we share with other apes. Chimpanzees are highly intelligent animals but they possess no language. Their intelligence depends instead on their ability to remember specific 'episodes' from their past and store that knowledge in some sort of mental hard drive. This type of thinking gave our ancestors a nice advantage over other animals, but humans remained unable to generalize between these episodic memories.
The mimetic mind came next, and like its name suggests it gave apes the ability to 'mime' the actions of others. If a child saw an adult breaking open a nut with a rock, the child might get the idea to copy the adult's behavior. In this early stage the rudiments of culture began to form, amd some sort of cultural heritage started to pass between individuals. There was still no language, but the hominids probably started to communicate by way of gestures and grunts.
The next rung up the ladder was the mythic stage. Human vocal structure became more advanced, and primitive but expressive languages began to form. Hominid groups started constructing elaborite mythologies about how the world worked, and these myths were passed down orally. These myths transcended the family group and were integrated into a larger culture. These are probably the earliest of the hominids that we would consider modern humans.
The final stage, the theoretic stage, is characterized by the way humans create and interact with external media to construct theories. With the invention of writing, humans created a way of storing memories outside of our minds in what Donald calls the External Memory Field. Human minds don't just create the External Memory Field, they are very much a part of it. One of the reasons that humans have been able to advance so far beyond apes is that we started offloading our knowledge outside of our minds, through painting and writing, and then began to interact with these external mental artifacts. Once humans took this step there was no longer any need for one brain to do the thinking or one brain to do it all at once. The knowledge of all previous generations was suddenly readily available, and a sort of global intelligence evolved. I've written about this before, but Donald provides a nice framework for just how this change might have taken place.
Donald's book is sometimes difficult and meandering, but it's also fascinating and I'd recommend it for anyone looking for a plausible theory of how the cognitive architecture of our minds evolved. For a lighter read on the archaeology of human evolution, I would recommend Steven Mithen's The Prehistory of the Mind.
The basic outline of his theory goes something like this: human minds evolved from our ape ancestors in three seperate stages, each distinct but dependant on the stage that came before. Before this process began human minds were in a state of what he calls episodic culture, and it is the type of thinking that we share with other apes. Chimpanzees are highly intelligent animals but they possess no language. Their intelligence depends instead on their ability to remember specific 'episodes' from their past and store that knowledge in some sort of mental hard drive. This type of thinking gave our ancestors a nice advantage over other animals, but humans remained unable to generalize between these episodic memories.
The mimetic mind came next, and like its name suggests it gave apes the ability to 'mime' the actions of others. If a child saw an adult breaking open a nut with a rock, the child might get the idea to copy the adult's behavior. In this early stage the rudiments of culture began to form, amd some sort of cultural heritage started to pass between individuals. There was still no language, but the hominids probably started to communicate by way of gestures and grunts.
The next rung up the ladder was the mythic stage. Human vocal structure became more advanced, and primitive but expressive languages began to form. Hominid groups started constructing elaborite mythologies about how the world worked, and these myths were passed down orally. These myths transcended the family group and were integrated into a larger culture. These are probably the earliest of the hominids that we would consider modern humans.
The final stage, the theoretic stage, is characterized by the way humans create and interact with external media to construct theories. With the invention of writing, humans created a way of storing memories outside of our minds in what Donald calls the External Memory Field. Human minds don't just create the External Memory Field, they are very much a part of it. One of the reasons that humans have been able to advance so far beyond apes is that we started offloading our knowledge outside of our minds, through painting and writing, and then began to interact with these external mental artifacts. Once humans took this step there was no longer any need for one brain to do the thinking or one brain to do it all at once. The knowledge of all previous generations was suddenly readily available, and a sort of global intelligence evolved. I've written about this before, but Donald provides a nice framework for just how this change might have taken place.
Donald's book is sometimes difficult and meandering, but it's also fascinating and I'd recommend it for anyone looking for a plausible theory of how the cognitive architecture of our minds evolved. For a lighter read on the archaeology of human evolution, I would recommend Steven Mithen's The Prehistory of the Mind.
July 18, 2020
This book provides very important insights into the neurological evolution of the human mind. Very interesting and technical, which I like. It is not easy to read for non-academics, but I don't think that is a disadvantage.
I do think this book provides bridges between Philosophy, Biology and Logic which are of paramount importance.
I do think this book provides bridges between Philosophy, Biology and Logic which are of paramount importance.
October 1, 2022
Evolution to consciousness
Scientifically intriguing and a responsible step by step journey from biologic responsiveness to consciousness, giving a new appreciation for where primate ancestors were and to where homo sapiens sapiens has come. A bit heady but well worth the investment of time. Cheers
Scientifically intriguing and a responsible step by step journey from biologic responsiveness to consciousness, giving a new appreciation for where primate ancestors were and to where homo sapiens sapiens has come. A bit heady but well worth the investment of time. Cheers
Want to Read
June 27, 2020recommended: [EP59 Gregg Henriques on Unifying Psychology - The Jim Rutt Show](https://jimruttshow.blubrry.net/gregg...)
November 26, 2024
A little heavy at times, but highly influential beautiful book
July 13, 2008
The book is an overlooked classic in popular books about how the mind works. Donald's core hypothesis is that the human brain has made great leaps forward as it has new means of storing information: spoken language, writing, printing and new computers. Along the way, he offers many fascinating and scientifically solid insights into how our brains evolved.
January 2, 2015
Although it was tough work and I cannot remember all of what I read, nor could I synopsise what it actually is that the author wants to say, if indeed he wants to say anything in particular, many parts of it were enjoyable and I am glad that I read this book. It is very academic in language and style and certainly not popular science.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews