Figments Of Reality: The Evolution Of The Curious Mind

Is the universe around us a figment of our imagination? Or are our minds figments of reality? In this refreshing new look at the evolution of mind and culture, bestselling authors Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen eloquently argue that our minds necessarily evolved in an inextricable link with culture and language. They go beyond conventional reductionist ideas to look at how the mind is the response of an evolving brain trying to grapple with a complex environment. Along the way they develop new and intriguing insights into the nature of evolution, science and humanity. figments of realit y Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen Figments of reality The evolution of the curious mind published by the press syndic ate of the universit y of c ambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom c ambridge universit y press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, cb2 2ru, UK http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk 40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, USA http://www.cup.org 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen 1997 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1997 First paperback edition 1999 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge Typeface Swift 9/14pt. System QuarkXPress™ [se] A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Stewart, Ian, 1945– Figments of reality : the evolution of the curious mind / Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. isbn 0 521 57155 3 (hardcover) 1. Cognition and culture. 2. Consciousness. 3. Intellect. 4. Genetic psychology. 5. Pluralism (Social sciences) I. Cohen, Jack. II. Title. bf311.s679 1997 153.4′2–dc21 96–49357 cip isbn 0 521 57155 3 hardback isbn 0 521 66383 0 paperback Contents Preface ix Figure Acknowledgements xiii Prologue 1 1 The Origins of Life 5 2 The Reductionist Nightmare 33 3 Ant Country 63 4 Winning Ways 77 5 Universals and Parochials 109 6 Neural Nests 135 7 Features Great and Small 165 8 What is it Like to be a Human? 193 9 We Wanted to Have a Chapter on Free Will, but We Decided not to, so Here It Is 227 10 Extelligence 243 11 Simplex, Complex, Multiplex 271 Epilogue 301 Notes 305 Further Reading 313 Index 317 vii zarathustran theory of everything: E=8 Preface Isn’t it strange that the animal we used to be developed into the creature that we now are? How – and why – did human intelligence and culture evolve? How did we evolve minds, philosophies and technologies? And now that we have them, where are they taking us? The orthodox answer to these questions looks inside our brains to see what they are made of and how the various components operate. This leads to a story based upon DNA biochemistry, the evolution of nerve cells as pathways for sensory information, and their organisation into complex networks – brains – that can manipulate neural models of natural objects and processes. Mind is seen as a property of an unusual brain – complex enough to develop culture – but here the ‘reductionist’ story starts to lose its thread. Many people see mind as something that transcends ordinary matter altogether. Philosophers worry that the universe around us may be a figment of our own imagination. In Figments of Reality we explore a very different, but complementary, theory: that minds and culture co-evolved within a wider context. Every step of our developm