In the September issue of Discover, Kathleen McAuliffe has written a superb article on the shrinking human brain. Razib commented on it yesterday:
For several millions years up to ~200,000 years ago there was a study increase in hominin cranial capacities. I say hominin because it seems that this increase was evident in all branches of [...]
Tags:aggression·brain evolution·brain size decrease·Christopher Stringer·cranial capacity·David Geary·Discover·doctrinal·domestication·encephalization quotient·extended cognition·extended mind·Harvey Whitehouse·imagistic·intelligence·John Hawks·Kathleen McAuliffe·Merlin Donald·modes of religiosity·Neolithic Revolution·Razib·Richard Wrangham·The Incredible Shrinking Brain
Over at Seed, the clinical physician David Weisman weighs in on the centuries old debate regarding the existence of souls and suggests that the widely held notion of a soul is inextricably linked to an erroneous sense of unified mind. This debate was famously framed by Descartes, who proclaimed — as a first principle and [...]
Tags:A Mind So Rare·aphasia·Beyond Good and Evil·Cartesian dualism·cogito·commonsense dualism·consciousness·David Weisman·Descartes·Divided Minds Specious Souls·evolutionary psychology·How the Mind Works·ischemia·Merlin Donald·mind·modular·modularity·Nietzsche·soul·soulists·souls·spirit·Stephen Pinker·subconscious·subjectivity·unified mind
A few months ago, the cognitive archaeologist David Lewis-Williams published Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion. When I saw the title, I worried that perhaps I had been scooped. Now that I have nearly finished the book, my worry has passed. Lewis-Williams’ title is a bit deceiving, given that the book combines [...]
Tags:A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness·altered states of consciousness·cognition·consciousness·David Lewis-Williams·Francis Crick·Gerald Edelman·Merlin Donald·Richard Dawkins·Sam Harris·supernatural thinking·The Conscious Brain·Thomas Nagel·What Is It Like To Be a Bat?
