A Brief History of Me (2000)
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Transcript of A Brief History of Me (2000)
A History of Me
piero scaruffi
Origins
• I was born billions of years ago...
The Computer Age
• A digital world • We fear machines• Each generation has been afraid of the new
tools available to their offspring• We fear the way machines will change daily
life
The Computer Age
• We are a tool-making species. • And tools have always shaped the mind. • We are not the only tool-making species, and
we are not the only species whose "cognitive life" is shaped by tools.
• Even a spider, that has built a spider-web, will have a "mental" life that revolves around the spider-web.
The Computer Age
• Each new tool, whether it's fire or television, has shaped the mind of the humans who used it.
• Tools have "created" the mind as it is now. • That includes our "artistic" expressions
Mind
• Where does the mind come from? • Why do we think?
The Origin of Thinking
• Darwinian paradigm:– It must have evolved from something
primordial and it must have evolved because it had a useful function for survival.
– The most primordial mind one can think of is a mind that has very basic emotions, possibly only pain and pleasure.
The Origins of Thinking
• The evolution of emotions– Emotions evolved, as much as any other organ. – Emotions had an evolutionary value, as they
helped bodies survive– It is unlikely that humans are the only species with
emotions…– ...but it is likely that humans are the species in
which emotions evolved in the most spectacular way.
The Origins of Thinking
• The evolution of tools– Tools relieved us from many daily chores. – Our emotions had been invented to help cope with those
chores, but tools made them less and less necessary– Our mind was nonetheless still producing emotions, just
like the immune system is producing antibodies all the time
– Those emotions flowing through our mind eventually got organized, and yielded thought.
The Origins of Thinking
• The evolution of thought– Thought eventually yielded a continuous flow
of emotions and a concept of the self: consciousness was born.
– Consciousness was born because our mind had nothing to do most of the day, and that happened because we invented tools
The Origins of Thinking
• The evolution of thought– Co-evolution of tools and emotions– At the same time there was evolution of the
body– And several scientists would add evolution of
language and evolution of memes– They all evolved together (co-evolved). – It was evolution on several parallel tracks.
The Origins of Culture
• As tools became more and more sophisticated, we also started using them for thinking. For example, language. For example, writing. For example, music. For example, painting, cinema and comics.
The Take-over of the Mind
• We started identifying with our mind. • We are no longer bodies with some organs
that helped the body survive (including a mind) but minds that have a body
• If we transplant Helen’s brain to Jim, is Jim getting Helen’s brain or Helen getting Jim’s body?
The Mystery of the Mind
• So we started wondering where our mind comes from, not just where our body comes from.
• Little by little we have been able to rediscover our past, and understand how our mind was created, how "I" was created.
The Mystery of the Mind
• Unpleasant discoveries– The more we realize that we are mere accidents of
evolution. – We are not what we think we are: we do not think,
we are thought– We only see and hear and ultimately think what
makes sense in our ecological niche.– We are driven by the environment in what we do
and what we think
The Mystery of the Mind
• Unpleasant discoveries– Our mind is recreated all the time, whether we want it or
not. – The amount of control over our mental life is extremely
low– The brain works all the time, and most of the time we
don’t know what it is doing– Most of the cells of the body (including neurons) and
most of the connections between the neurons change in one year
Creativity
• Creativity is something we do because we have to do it.
• Our mind is continuously reshaped by the tools we invent, and continuously explores them.
• We are always creative or we are never creative: there is no difference between the two processes.
Creativity
• Our mind has no choice but to create meaning all the time out of the flow of emotions using the tools it has invented.
• We are both the creators and the products of our technology.
BibliographyDamasio Antonio: DESCARTES' ERROR (1995)Donald Merlin: ORIGINS OF THE MODERN MIND (1991)Edelman Gerald: NEURAL DARWINISM (1987)Gibson James Jerome: THE SENSES CONSIDERED AS PERCEPTUAL
SYSTEMS (1966)Jaynes Julian: THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF
THE BICAMERAL MIND (1977)Kauffman Stuart: THE ORIGINS OF ORDER (1993)Macphail Euan: THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS (1998)Maturana Humberto: AUTOPOIESIS AND COGNITION (1980)Neisser Ulric: COGNITION AND REALITY (1975)Ornstein Robert: EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS (1991)
BibliographyPenrose Roger: THE EMPEROR'S NEW MIND (1989)Pinker Steven: HOW THE MIND WORKS (1997)Searle John: THE REDISCOVERY OF THE MIND (1992)Stapp Henry: MIND, MATTER AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
(1993)Unger Peter: IDENTITY, CONSCIOUSNESS AND VALUE (1991)
Bibliography