Human Evolution

1. Human Evolution Session III Man-Neurology A multidisciplinary anthropic focus

2. Biological roots • Man emerges as a product of life evolution on Earth. • Man connects immediately with the species of hominids. • Hominids have its origin in natural history of life. In a scientific view, man is to be explained as a superior development of the emergent anthropic properties of life-matter-universe. 2

3. Biological roots The emergent anthropic properties of life-matter-universe are: • Stable hypercomplexity of living organisms. • Constitution of ‘sensibility’. • Constitution of self-controlling. 3

4. MAN-NEUROLOGY Biological roots 4

5. Primordial mechanical, sensation • Physical causality were predominant. • Sensation began and caused adaptive responses. • The organic system evolved until superior animals finally coordinated both: • Classical cause-effect mechanisms • Control of consciousness and psychic subject • Psychic activity develops. • Psychology is related to neurology. 5

6. Emergenceof sensations If we postulate matter’s ontology to be ‘physical support’ for ‘sensation’, life emerged from physical world as systems of interaction between differentiated and individual entities of fermionic matter: Why, when and how did sensation evolutionarily emerge? 6

7. Emergenceof sensations In advanced stages of cell evolution, unicellular organisms, like paramecium, seem to respond with ‘sensitivity’. • Should it be attributed to quantum effects of microtubules according to the Hameroff-Penrose hypothesis? • Are there other alternative theories to justify when and how sensitivity evolved? 7

8. Neuronal patterns 8

9. Neuronal patterns • Although all cells seem to have certain sensibility, the selective and organized sensitivity in pluricellular bodies is called the nervous system. • Neurons begin to form systems of interaction (patterns, cannons, maps, structures, networks, engrams…) that produce information and control responses. 9

10. Neuronal patterns • A certain part of these patterns produce the structural and sensitive basis for the ‘psychic subject’. • The major part of patterns do not have ‘sensitive’ connection with consciousness and psychic subject, they form the unconscious launching pad of psychic activity, but coordinated with all conscious functions. 10

11. Neural systems • Neural patterns have been organized in differentiated subsystems. • Criteria for this organization are the different functions to serve in order for an evolutive optimum survival adaptation. • The most primitive differentiation was between information (sensitive) and motor systems in order to adaptive stimulus-responseconnection. 11

12. MAN-NEUROLOGY neural systems • Inner and outer perceptual and motor skills systems appeared. • Sensitive body’s cartography in brain and systems integration produced the emergence of the neural basis for a ‘psychic subject’. • New fields of neurons grew up to form the cerebral connection areas: • Animal superior brain. • Human brain. 12

13. Human phenomenology • The specific human brain development is supposed to be the cause of specific human behavior. • Phenomenology distinguishes between animal and human behavior: • Animal behavior is instinctive, closed responses with short indetermination field. • Human behavior is ratio-emotional with a wide indetermination referred to a self constructed field of possibilities. 13

14. Human phenomenology Reason is the main specific feature of human mind. Which causes produced the evolutive emergence of reason from inside the animal realm? 14

15. Monism • The main phenomenological feature that needs explanation is reason. The human mind is characterized by ratio-emotional functioning. • How can reason, as a fact, be referred to by its causes? • What is the scientific explicansfor emergence and rational functioning of the human mind? 15

16. Scientific response = monism • Monism means unitary explanation of the universe as a whole with all its contents. • Are human sciences up to a monistic explanation of the evolutive emergence of human life? • For the dualistic proposal, monism is not capable of explaining the human mind. There is a dualism: • referred to life in general. • restricted to human mind 16

17. Dualism Dualism argues the incapability of monism to explain: • In general dualism: the unity of consciousness, holistic experience, and indetermination. • In human dualism: the specific features of human mind such as rational-emotional behavior. 17

18. Dualism The increasing high quality of a monistic view immediately reduces the justification of a dualistic assumption. 18

19. Explican’s framework • Does a monistic view explain the emergence of the human mind? • Monism coordinates different theories: • in connection with a general theory of life (classical and quantum theories). • for specific explanation of the new human ratio-emotional behavior. • For human sciences, and neurology, the main point is to explain origin and causes of the emergence of human reason. 19

20. Reductionism framework • Reductionist theories continue to exist • Classical theories of fermionic causation, which do not consider quantum field effects. • Their models of brain activity are computational machines: either serial or connectionist (PDP). • Reason would be thus a hypercomplex computational processing of information to produce behavioral adaptation. • Sensation – perception – consciousness are epiphenomenal features, they are not the cause of behavior. 20

21. Neural Darwinism, Edelman • Edelman did not consider that quantum effects play a role in explaining consciousness. • The brain is not a computer, but aspects of its behavior can be better understood either by simulation or by computer modeling. • Organic nucleus of consciousness, countless neural maps and reentries between them, neural deterministic selection between countless possibilities are the basis to explain: • Holistic unity of consciousness. • Hypercomplexity. • Indetermination and behavior’s flexibility. 21

22. The origin of Reason What about the origin of reason? The final stage of a ‘representation’ evolution that has its origin in memory (remembered present). 22

23. Quantum Neurology • Accepts any determinist (classical) causes and the framework of neural Darwinism. • Evolutive emergence of quantum niches produce ‘sensation’ and phenomenological psychic activity in coordination with unconscious and classical mechanisms. • Psychic activity through consciousness produces and controls behavior • What about the origin of reason? Should it also be understood as a final stage in the evolution of Reason? 23

24. Hominizationtheories • Hominization theories can be considered as complementary inside the framework of the basic theories. (Reductionism, Darwinism, Quantum Theory) • Hominization by inespecialization (A. Gehlen). • Hominization by labour adaptation (the classic monistic theory). • Hominization by language-socialization (Tobias, Eccles, Lea Rey …) 24

25. Hyperformalization, X. Zubiri • Animal formalize the perceived world. • A supposed human hyperformalization would have made it possible to sense the world not only as a stimulus but as an independent ‘reality’. • ‘Sensation of reality’ would produce a human representation of reality as a structure. • Reason would therefore be representation of reality by analysis and synthesis of real structures. 25

26. Anthropic projection • Man is for Science an evolutive product of Matter-Universe and its biological forms of organization. • The primordial anthropic properties of Matter-Universe have provided the constitution of the human brain and the psychic activity of the human mind. 26

27. Anthropic projection Neural organization of human brain opens a new world of anthropic possibilities: • Man begins to think carefully over reality. • Rational analysis leads beyond immediate phenomena to question ultimate truth. • All possibilities of Science are opened. • All possibilities of Technology are opened. • Life with a new ratio-emotional feeling. • Man seeks the ‘meaning of life’ through philosophy, theology and culture in general. 27