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The internal function is a very efficient operation manipulation with the whole conceptual network and thus enhancement of the very process of thinking. Anyway, a highly developed symbolic language is most probably necessary for origination of higher forms of thinking and self- consciousness. The conceptual network contains better or worse differentiated and internally coherent areas. There belong to them hierarchically-organized scientific disciplines, religions, worldview, fine arts, literature, ethics, and the sphere of common ordinary concepts. At the moment of birth, we had almost no concepts at our disposal.
Our knowledge about the world grew during our life, our view of the world developed, and our understanding of different aspects of reality, products of culture, science, and art increased. Generally, our conceptual network had to evolve during individual ontogenetic development. Our species Homo sapiens originated in the course of biological evolution from animal ancestors that had much less complex neural systems and brains, and were devoid of self- consciousness.
Finally, the set of human minds psyches created culture, science, and religion, which in turn had a great impact on formation of particular minds psyches themselves. For this reason, the evolution of the collective conceptual network of culture had to proceed in parallel with the evolution of civilization. The conceptual network is an epiphenomenon result of supervenience , an aspect or, if somebody prefers, a by-product of the activity of the properly organized neural network in the brain.
Together, they form a broadly understood neural network. The activity of a single neuron within this network consists in perceiving stimuli impulses from other neurons through appendages called dendrites, processing these stimuli with the participation of information already possessed by a neuron memory , and a possible optional transfer of a signal of an appropriate intensity impulse frequency to other neurons through an appendage called axon.
The axon of one neuron is connected to dendrites or the cell body of other neurons through synapses. Neural signals can be stimulatory or inhibitory. Obviously, different neurons differ one from another, as they fulfill different roles and enter the composition of various neural routes, circuits, and centers in the brain. There exist two functional categories of such differences. The internal differences result from the fact that each neuron has a characteristic complex logical function, which transforms the signals reaching the neuron into signals that are sent to other neurons.
The input set combination of signals is equivalent to the set of stimulated dendrites as well the strength and time sequence of stimulation, while the response at the output is equivalent to the fact whether or not a signal is sent further by the axon and how intensive it is what is the frequency of action potential spikes or neuron firing. The output signal intensity is a derivative of the combination of input signals intensities and the time they reach the target neuron.
The pattern of response to incoming signals is specific for a given neuron. The response of a particular neuron, and all the more of a complex of neurons, to a given set of stimuli is not given for ever, as it can be modified by past sets of stimulations experiences of the neuron in the process of learning memory formation. The second-type, external differences between neurons consist in the fact with which other neurons a given neuron is connected, and in what functional way.
Most probably, the such- and-not-another set of functional connections comprising also the synaptic weights or stimulation thresholds is unique for a given neuron: Therefore, the functional identity of a given neuron as an element of the neural network results from its internal and external specificity: For this reason, only the general structure of single neurons and neural networks and the entire nervous system as well their predispositions to form and modify connections can be inherited. A neuron is connected to other neurons through its dendrites inputs and axon output.
It can also receive impulses from receptor cells that react to stimuli from an environment e. The structure of complex neural networks, including those underlying the conceptual network, cannot be inherited, as the genetic record can concern a general potential functional structure of a neuron and the whole nervous system, but not a particular complex network of synaptic connections that is formed and modified during individual development. The amount of information contained in the brain of an adult human greatly exceeds the amount of genetic information contained in human chromosomes. Of course, some aspects of the neural network are inherited.
In primitive animals, most of their dynamic structure of the neural network is determined by the genome. In man, the following functional aspects are encoded genetically: However, the neural network responsible for a complicated system of data processing, thinking, planning, decision making, and behaviors, being the background of our memory and self- consciousness, is formed during an individual development in the process of learning. Of course, the evolution of the conceptual network in the individual ontogenetic development of man is parallel to constitutes an aspect of the evolution of the neural network underlying it.
All these processes occur in the brain, the general plan of the structure and function of which is encoded genetically. At the moment of birth, essentially no conceptual network is present. However, a man is endowed with germs for its development, centers of crystallization of this network. The above-mentioned axes differentiate stimuli arriving from the surroundings and segregate them into various categories, being the germs of first concepts.
The segregation and differentiation occur in relation to already existing significative axes. In turn, the originating concepts form the basis of new semantic axes. The existing significative axes constitute an interpreter for stimuli coming from receptors 4. Stimuli from the environment received by sensory organs are only a bunch of unordered signals that have no sense until an interpretative key or algorithm is applied to them. Most animals have genetically encoded many, if not all, algorithms decoding sensory stimuli. In man, these genetic predispositions concern lower-level integration of stimuli and extraction of features and elements of sensations e.
They constitute the semantic germ, the center of crystallization of senses composed of a few significative axes. The origination of concepts and their attribution to the phenomena of the external world occur by induction, through a multiple coincidence of similar sets of stimuli. When a given complex of stimuli brings about the same effect many times, and enters the same interactions with the existing conceptual network, it becomes incorporated into this network as a new concept.
In this way, the meaning of new concepts is determined and defined by the already existing complex of meanings contained in the conceptual network. A newborn child has at its disposal the simplest significative axes of a purely biological meaning. As experiences accumulate, the concept of a mother is enriched with new elements, supplemented by visual stimuli, related to other concepts, made more precise. At the very beginning, there are maybe only two concepts: This sounds a little grotesque, as the use of linguistic names to describe these hardly-formed concepts is not quite legitimate.
A strict description of the development of the psyche of a newborn child is not possible at least because of the very weak congruence between originating germs of concepts and the sphere of language. For this reason, general principles rather than accurate account of facts were presented above. The general properties of the conceptual network development are: These processes are strictly connected with each other and in fact constitute various manifestations of the same process. The incorporation of new concepts into the network results therefore in better specification of the already existing concepts.
The appearance of such axes is equivalent to the appearance of new meanings, and therefore new concepts. Already existing concepts are referred to these new axes, which results in their better specification determination. The set of reactions of a baby, its repertoire of behavior is as poor as its representation of the world determined by the possessed network of concepts.
It can be said that a baby is able to manifest one of two states at the output. The evolutions of the degree of complication of the perceptual system, of the picture of the world conceptual network as well as of the system of behaviors, proceed in parallel during ontogenetic development. The first main aspect of the evolution of the conceptual network during the ontogenetic development is certainly its quantitative increase, associated with the origination of new concepts and specification of the already existing ones. The development of the conceptual network does not start from a complete semantic emptiness, as some meanings have to fix the sense of the newly created concepts.
However, the germ of psyche constituted by the few inborn, biological significative axes and by primary integrative structures is very small in comparison with the conceptual network of an adult man. At the moment of birth a baby is suddenly exposed to a plethora of signals coming from the external world. The former is already a representation of the external world, although very poor at the beginning, while the latter is a set of predispositions, a frame for the formation of the picture of this world.
However, such an inborn record must still undergo realization. Nevertheless, only the simplest and most general instructions for the development of the conceptual network are inborn as primary significative axes and primary integrative structures. The rest originates gradually as a part of this network, determining the frame for the directions and character of its further development.
Essentially the entire conceptual network is acquired during individual development of a man and therefore it has to be formed in the process of learning. The development of the conceptual network through gathering experience constitutes the third aspect of its evolution during ontogenesis. One can learn in many ways: A baby, who possesses only its germinal form, is capable only of passive observation of the surrounding reality. Elements of this reality gradually acquire different meaning for the baby, depending on their connection with the fulfillment of purely biological needs hunger, safety etc.
Having acquired some orientation in the external world, it is possible to experiment with it, for instance to move oneself in it or move various objects. This helps to develop the spatial representation of the world and to learn its properties. Gaining knowledge by imitation of parents or other adult people already requires some understanding of the properties of the world, and therefore, it requires a relatively well-developed conceptual network. Mastering of a system of artificial symbols, that is an ethnic language, greatly increases the efficiency of the processes of learning. It constitutes the fourth aspect of the evolution of the conceptual network during ontogenesis.
The language, itself a part of the conceptual network in a human mind, greatly improves the use of this network. The rules of syntax are useful in their appropriate ordering. New pieces of information are located in the existing semantic and syntactic structures of language and thus, of the conceptual network underlying it , and therefore the learning by trial and error is no longer necessary.
This greatly accelerates the process of learning and development of the conceptual network. An additional advantage of language is of course the fact that it allows to transfer information at a distance, both in time and in space. A given language not only stimulates the development of the conceptual network and the picture of the world contained in it, but also shapes and distorts this picture in some way through its structure Sapir, ; Whorf, ; see also discussion in Korzeniewski, b. The structure of the world is unique, while each language has a slightly or significantly different structure.
The structure of language orders the conceptual network in a given concrete way, and therefore the representation of the world formed within it. There are known languages that do not contain verbs in the common ordinary sense Gil, , and therefore the meaning of temporality in their picture of the world is different than in our picture. In still other languages, the names of objects are complexes of properties attributed to them; for instance, the names for both a hand and a tree have a segment standing for a ramification.
A different structure means a different logic of a language and conceptual network, as well as of the world seen through their prism. As a newborn child is practically devoid of the conceptual network, it is obvious that it does not possess self- consciousness. Its appearance and development constitutes the fifth aspect of the evolution of the conceptual network during ontogenesis. Self- consciousness must develop gradually, together with the evolution of the conceptual network.
It was proposed previously Korzeniewski, , a, a that the neurophysiological background of self- consciousness consists in a recurrent directing on itself of the cognitive center in the human brain, receiving by it signals from itself. Within the framework of the conception of the conceptual network, this is equivalent to the creation within this network not only of a representation of the external world, but also of a picture model of itself.
This means, in a sense, that the network enters at a certain meta-level and looks from above, i. This is the source of the extreme opposition in our psyche of the mind and the external world broadly understood matter. They appear to be categorically identical only at the level of the conceptual network, for both are parts of this network concepts or complexes of concepts, depending on the approach.
This is strictly related to the superior topic of the present article that does not deal with the relation between the mind and the external world, but rather between the representation of the mind and the physical reality in our psyche conceptual network. Of course, these properties of the conceptual network result from the dynamic structure of the neural network in the brain underlying it. Figure 1 presents the difference between a brain devoid of self- consciousness and a brained endowed with self- consciousness. The difference between the brain devoid of self-consciousness and the brain endowed with self-consciousness.
Receptors receive stimuli from the external world or from the interior of the body and send signals to sensory cortex in the brain parietal, occipital and temporal cortex. These signals are appropriately integrated and processed. They are confronted with the existing mostly episodic memory records and participate in formation of new memory records dispersed over essentially entire cortex including temporal cortex. It also uses the existing mostly semantic memory records and creates new memory records.
The undertaken decisions concerning appropriate actions are transferred to motor cortex back of frontal cortex that sends signals to effectors, mostly muscles, causing their contraction in accordance with an appropriate spatio-tem- poral pattern. The muscle work is coordinated by cerebellum. Again, motor cortex uses the existing procedural memory records and participates in formation of new procedural memory records.
In the brain endowed with self-consciousness the cognitive-decision-making center receives signals not only from sensory cortex, but also from itself. It is recurrently directed on itself, creates a model representation of itself within itself. The formation of self- consciousness is strictly connected with the quantitative development of the conceptual network, origination of secondary concepts, processes of learning, and mastering of language. Self- consciousness emerges gradually and one cannot determine the moment of its origin in a non-arbitrary way.
It is of course possible to use different tests, such as recognition by a child of its own face in a looking-glass. However, such tests are able to probe only a few aspects of self- consciousness, and the criteria of classification of different reactions as conscious or unconscious are arbitrary and non-verifiable e. In the case of a baby, this statement refers to the simplest, biological significative axes.
In an adult man, in a fully developed conceptual network, any activity and evaluation is still related, directly or indirectly, to the stimulation positive or negative of the center of pleasure reward system. Therefore, one of the main traits of humanity at the neurophysiological level is the ability to draw satisfaction from science, music, fine arts, but also from altruism, kind-heartedness, and disinterestedness.
Nevertheless, it should be stressed that the commonly known and strictly localized spatially and functionally center of pleasure or more generally the reward system does not necessarily exhaust all functions of what I call the functional motivational center of pleasure. Generally, the conceptual network is a derivative of two conditioning factors. The first is the inborn background for its development in the form of genetically encoded dynamic structures of the brain, endowed with determined possibilities and predispositions.
The second is an acquired during lifetime complex of sensations and experiences, processed, analyzed, and interpreted by processes of thinking, planning and decision making. They are supplemented by chance that can direct the development of the conceptual network in an at least partly unpredictable way. There are no two individuals with identical brains, due to both genetic and phenotypic variability.
Moreover, life experiences of different people differ drastically. For this reason, there are no two identical conceptual networks. Therefore, although it is possible to understand a given man relatively well at the level of linguistic communication, the understanding will never become complete, even if the man speaks the same ethnical language, as the same words and sentences refer to slightly different concepts in different people.
Commonness of language does not, therefore, prove commonness of comprehension. These differences are of course from the statistical point of view greater between people speaking different languages, brought up and educated in different cultures. Therefore, there is nothing like the ideal conformity of concepts that underlie the same linguistic names in different people. This problem is strictly related to the evolution of the conceptual network during ontogenesis.
Each concept means by connotation, by reference to all other concepts. If different persons are shown a photograph of one hill or of two distinct hills, then they will of course provide convergent answers for the question: The concept of the number two applied to two discrete objects, for example two atoms, is not exactly the same concept as the concept of the number two applied to continuous objects e. To sum up, a child gradually acquires self-consciousness in the result of a recurrent self-directing of a part of the conceptual network on itself. Therefore, the sharp opposition between the mind and matter in human psyche, the fact that matter matters for us and we mind the mind so much, emerges gradually during individual development.
As biological evolution is a continuous process, every property of living individuals, including mind and self- consciousness also had to be formed gradually, step by step, from something that had not yet been conscious. The process of emergence of our species Homo sapiens, or genus Homo in general, during biological evolution was continuous, and no sharp barrier separates the human from the non-human. This implies that the situation was similar in the case of the origination of self- consciousness. As the conceptual network is an aspect, epiphenomenon result of supervenience or by-product of the activity of the neural network, the germs of the conceptual network can be expected to exist in organisms that possess at least the simplest neural network.
Such a network appears in coelenterates e. Therefore, the beginnings of the conceptual network should be looked for in primitive neural systems. Both the set of stimuli to which a given organism reacts and the behavioral repertoire of responses are frequently extremely poor.
It does not belong to our ancestors and is an external parasite. However, at a certain stage of evolution our ancestors had possessed a comparable degree of complexity of sensory data, conceptual network, and behavioral repertoire. The whole activity of a tick during its life consists of climbing on a tree, waiting for an animal passing-by, falling on it, and finding a proper place to attach itself and consume blood. Additionally, it must find an individual of the opposite sex and transfer its genes or, more strictly, its identity to progeny.
Scientists well know that a roe-deer is built of atoms, these in turn, of a nucleus and electrons, which are ruled by the laws of quantum mechanics. In a tick, this network has only a few nodes. Of course, there exist also very significant qualitative differences. In my opinion, the co-evolution of the neural system and conceptual network during biological evolution had the same five main aspects as during the individual development, namely: The quantitative development consisted in an increase of the number of elements of both systems: The origination of new senses and the development of the already existing sense organs enabled the growth of the quantity and variability of data about the surroundings.
Therefore, the most primeval chemical sense smelling, taste was supplemented by the vision sense, hearing sense and mechanical sense touch, pressure, pain. The already originated receptors underwent gradual differentiation and improvement. The development of receptors and the neural system had therefore to proceed parallel to the evolution of effectors increase in their number, diversity, and efficiency of action. This led to the formation of still better developed locomotion system that could secondarily also fulfill certain manipulative functions e. This constituted the basis of the development of the conceptual network.
Such a representation is always imperfect, and its form depends to a large extent on the physiology of sensory organs, on the complexity of the system of effectors chiefly muscles as well as on the dynamics of the neural network in the brain integrative and associative structures. For this reason, secondary concepts are not, and cannot be, completely separated from the world.
They differ from primary concepts, as they capture the reality not only through the prism of the physiology of senses and simple neural networks related to them , but also through the mechanisms of integration and association of stimuli, including on a higher level the processes of thinking, planning and decision-making. Perceiving, ordering the world in such categories as three-dimensional space, time, individual objects, and causal relations between them results from the manner of integration of sensory data by our brain.
Predispositions to perceive the world in this way that is to such-and-not- another integration and processing of sensory stimuli are inborn although, of course, the concepts of space, time, material objects and causal relations are not inborn. On the other hand, there exist secondary concepts that have little to do with reality, for instance the concept of ghosts of ancestors. These categories are absolute in the philosophy of Kant and lie entirely on the side of the human mind. On the other hand, the structures of human thinking shaped by evolution are, of course, not absolute and something in the external world corresponds to this what we perceive subjectively as space, time, material objects, processes, movement, and causal relations.
The degree of the cognition of the real world is gradable according to the evolutionary approach. This degree is very low in organisms that possess a weakly developed and differentiated neural system. It increases together with the development of the neural system as well the system of receptors and effectors, reaching its maximum in humans at least in the present time on our planet; it is certainly possible to go further. It is most probably possible to follow a different evolutionary path and to develop different receptors sensitive, for instance, to infrared radiation or ultrasounds and different mechanisms of integration of signals coming from them.
This would result in formation of a slightly or very different picture representation of the external world in the conceptual network. Scientific methodology including mathematics-based theories can further improve the cognition of reality by gaining knowledge in ways that partially eliminate the necessity of direct sensory insight.
An appropriate scientific methodology is responsible for this.
The representation projection of the world formed in the conceptual network is neither a faithful image of this world, nor an accidental structure that has nothing in common with the structure of the world. The development of the conceptual network proceeding in parallel with the evolution of the neural system and resulting in an increase in the number of concepts and in their better specification led to a more adequate and detailed representation of a greater amount of various aspects of reality. All concepts developed from, and are based, more or less directly, on stimuli received from the external world that are transformed into sensations by sense organs and integrative neural structures.
At the same time, the connection of secondary concepts with the world is much more indirect than the connection of primary concepts. The third common aspect of the parallel development of the nervous system and conceptual network during biological evolution is a growing contribution of the component of the neural network functioning, behavioral repertoire as well as integration, association and interpretation of sensory impressions that is acquired by an individual experience, and a decreasing contribution of the inborn, completely determined by the genetic record component. This aspect is strictly related to the excessive character of the nervous system with respect to the function of a direct translation of the set of received stimuli into the behavior of an animal, and to the development of the memory-recording processes.
As a result, the elasticity and dynamics of the conceptual network was significantly enhanced. Its dynamic structure was to a smaller degree determined genetically, and to a greater extent formed in the process of learning and gathering experiences during lifetime. The care for progeny enhanced this effect, as parents constitute a kind of a buffer between a young individual and the environment, its behavioral hood, which compensates for threats from the surroundings, supplies food and facilitates acquisition of experience until it reaches maturity.
The conceptual network acquired during the individual life is completely different from the inborn, genetically-determined conceptual network. First, the former is ampler and more differentiated than the latter. Only the structure of simple neural networks can be recorded genetically due to connotative meaning of particular neurons in this network and, in a sense, denotative relation between a complex of genes representing a linear, one-dimensional record of information and the genetically-encoded functional three-dimensional structure of the nervous system.
For this reason, more complex conceptual networks can develop only in the way of learning, acquiring information during individual development. This can occur through the accumulation of experiences by the method of trial and error or by imitation of parents 7 or other adult individuals.
This kind of learning is characterized by quickness the whole process is contained in an individual life , elasticity and excessiveness that allow to react adequately to unpredictable situations that have never been faced yet. It also allows a huge size and complexity of the developed network. Only the most effective of them that are most adequately adapted to reality are passed through the natural selection sieve. Moreover, conceptual networks formed in this process are much smaller, less complex, less flexible, and completely resistant to correction during individual development.
On the other hand, even individuals of the same species can frequently live in quite different environmental conditions, and a behavioral repertoire that is adequate in some conditions can be quite inadequate in other conditions. For this reason, inborn conceptual networks are much less adapted to differentiated and significantly varying in space and time environments, than networks shaped during individual development. The lack of necessity of a genetic record of the functional structure of the whole neural network allows a much faster evolution of the nervous system, chiefly the brain.
The acquisition of experiences during individual development learning , also favors the origination of thought processes autonomous activities of the neural network. An inborn, strictly determined neural network is devoid of elastic association of various processes and complex decision-making based on previous experiences , strictly associated with the processes of thinking. Summing up, a genetically programmed conceptual network is poorer and stiffer, evolves slowly, is not endowed with autonomous activity, and reflects the real world less adequately than a conceptual network originated in the process of learning.
At some stage of human evolution 8 , our ancestors acquired the ability to use language, first spoken, and afterward written. This is the fourth aspect of the development of the neural and conceptual network during biological evolution. It required a co-evolution of the speech-generating apparatus larynx, tongue, lips and so on and the brain, for instance such centers related to using language as the Broca center, responsible for translation of thoughts into sentences, ordering words in grammatical sequences and formulation of linguistic utterances or Wernicke center responsible for understanding language.
The origination of language not only enabled efficient interpersonal communication and greatly facilitated operation with the conceptual network, but also shaped and distorted the picture of the world formed in our mind conceptual network Korzeniewski, b. The fifth, final aspect of the development of the neural and conceptual network during biological evolution is the origination of self- consciousness, the emergence the psychical subject able to follow investigate the processes occurring in these networks.
It associates integrated data incoming from receptors with records of memory, coordinates various functions of the central nervous system, plans future actions, and makes decisions concerning the stimulation of effectors. In other words, it confronts signals from the environment with the acquired memory, knowledge, and the picture representation of the world formed in the conceptual network, but also uses these signals to form new memory records as well as to develop and differentiate the already existing representation of the world.
This is presented in Figure 1. The thinking processes, based on the autonomous spontaneous functioning of the neural network, play an important role in this activity. Generally, they underlie what is called psyche. In most animals, the inputs of the cognitive system in the brain are constituted by receptors and centers processing signals coming from them located primarily in sensory cortex.
The self- consciousness originated when a part of the inputs of this center started to receive signals not only from the sensory cortex and memory records, but also from itself, became directed onto the system itself, created its own representation model within itself apart from the representation of the external world. This was equivalent to the self-recognition of the processes occurring in the cognitive center. These processes started to process themselves as well, in the same way they previously processed the data coming from receptors and memory records see Korzeniewski, , a, a, b.
As any other aspect of the structure and function of living individuals, self- consciousness originated gradually in the process of evolution. It is not possible to fix in a non-arbitrary manner the moment of its origin, as it is not possible to determine the strict moment of its emergence during the individual development.
It was not that our forefather became suddenly fully endowed with self- consciousness, while his parents were entirely devoid of it. Self- consciousness was developing continuously, from generation to generation. Anyway, it is likely that some presently living animals for instance chimpanzees or dolphins possess germs of self- consciousness. The relation between these phenomena is most probably bi-directional: Dolphins are also devoid of such a perfect manipulative tool as the human hand, enabling the realization of more complex orders of the brain.
Language that is itself a part of the conceptual network affects the development of this network in a fundamental way, as it significantly facilitates the process of operating with concepts within the conceptual network. The appearance of language within the conceptual network of primeval men acted as a positive feedback, resulting in a self-accelerating development of this network, including its elements directed on self-recognition.
Generally, self- consciousness appeared because of origination of a special sort of the dynamic complexity of the system neural network in the brain Korzeniewski, a. Once a certain sort of the functional complexity of matter originates, it must generate self-conscious- ness this also concerns life , as the latter is a necessary aspect by-product of the former Korzeniewski, a.
Similarly, I cannot understand how self-consciousness could emerge from the oscillations of simultaneous neuron firing with frequency 40 Hz Crick, The part of the neural and conceptual network that is not directed on itself contains the representation of the external world, while the part of these networks that is directed on itself contains the representation of the internal world that is equivalent to self-consciousness. Therefore, the apparently extremely sharp opposition within our psyche of objective reality broadly understood matter and subjective mind results directly from neurophysiology, from different signal processing by complexes of neurons in the brain.
Humans gradually acquired self-consciousness during biological, social, and cultural evolution. Perhaps, this happened only 50 - 20 thousand years ago. While the human brain reached its present size at least thousand years ago or earlier, first artifacts like elaborated tools, adornments, and sculptures of human figures e. Culture accompanied the last stage of biological evolution and is present practically in the entire period of the individual development of man.
As such, it co-shapes the conceptual networks of society members and is, in turn, formed by these networks. Culture constitutes a form of collective communication of people, both in space and in time. It binds sets of individuals in particular: The culture as a whole is related to the conceptual networks of people living in it and creating it. In this context, the psychological aspect of culture, and not, for instance, its material products, is of special importance.
Rather, it is a convenient conventional category, a commonly understood concept accepted because of its usefulness in ordering, describing, and interpreting the world of phenomena accessible to us. Culture and its origin are based on the conceptual network acquired during individual development, and not inherited through genetic transfer from ancestors it is not based on genetically-recorded network of neural connections. The simplest process of learning is imitation.
This is how young individuals learn to gain food, avoid danger, bring up progeny, and respect hierarchical principles. Also adult individuals can assimilate new forms of behavior from other adult individuals. For instance, if one individual in a herd of Japanese macaques invents the method of washing grain in water, in order to separate it from sand sand sinks, grain floats on the surface , after some time the entire herd starts to do the same.
This behavior is transferred to next generations through young individuals as an already-established behavioral pattern of a given population. The complex of such behavioral activities can be gradually enriched, as the population discovers still new possibilities of more efficient ways of gaining food, avoiding predators, hiding against bad weather or performing other, biologically important functions. For instance, some individuals can discover or invent simple tools, such as stones used to break nuts by monkeys or mussel shells by sea otters, thorns used by some birds to pick insects out of slits in the bark, or sticks used by chimpanzees to collect termites.
The development of the behavior repertoire may also proceed by finding new sources of food, new hiding places or removing parasites by way of mutual grooming. The above-mentioned kinds of behavioral activities, although frequently complex and associated with the development of the conceptual network, are not germs of culture yet. They realize well-determined biological tasks, everything is purposeful and nothing arbitrary in them. The discussed behavioral patterns mean in an objective manner, and their elements can be fully rationally justified and explained.
These meanings lack subjectivity or rather inter-subjectivity , arbitrariness and conventionality that are the most pronounced traits of culture. The situation changes diametrically when conventionality and arbitrariness appear. Let us consider a certain herd of monkeys.
In this heard a loud scream can be a signal of danger in the form of an approaching predator. Monkeys in the herd can give out slightly higher-pitched or slightly lower-pitched voices, but the pitch of the voice is initially accidental: However, at a certain moment of time one of the monkeys, preferably situated high in the hierarchy of the herd, starts to react with a high-pitched voice to a panther and with a low-pitched voice to an eagle.
As different strategies of escape are required with respect to different predators, such a distinction would be biologically purposeful increasing fitness. Therefore, it is likely that after some time all individuals in the herd will warn other herd members against a panther in a high-pitched voice and against a bird of prey in a low-pitched voice, and the warned individuals will react adequately. The origination of such a behavioral pattern is already a germ of culture. This example is not a speculation. In reality, in vervet monkeys different voices are attributed to different kinds of predators leopards, eagles and dangers snake in the grass Dunbar, Therefore, germs of culture can be found already in monkeys.
As it was said above, this what differentiates culture from purely biologically-purposeful activity, what constitutes its essence, is arbitrariness and conventionality. The assignation could be reversed and the biological purposefulness of the discussed behavioral pattern would not change. A high-pitched voice and low-pitched voice can be regarded as the most primitive names, meaning designating the concepts: For this reason, the presented example of the origination of culture constitutes also an example of origination of language: The answer to the question why culture originated is essentially the same as the answers to the questions why life and self-consciousness originated.
Namely, once appropriate conditions were fulfilled and the opportunity appeared, culture had to originate because of the development of psyche and social relations. This process was favored by language that codified the conventional system of cultural meanings. The originated self-consciousness that could fulfill some biological- social functions for instance clear separation of oneself from the surroundings, including other individuals , required knowledge not only about the external world, but also about oneself.
The knowledge about the surroundings was constructed to a large extent by chance from accidental meanings. These meanings did not have to represent adequately the reality, if only the indifferent physical world expressed its silent agreement.
The conceptual network of culture did not start from nothing, but from a complex of purely biological meanings. In principle, its evolution is not limited by anything within the borders fixed by the physical and biological and social reality the cultural conceptual network must not decrease the efficiency of functioning in this reality. New concepts are built in the conceptual network of culture and, in a more detailed form, in the conceptual networks of its members during individual development based on the already existing concepts.
The long and inglorious history of religious wars testifies to the strength of meanings created by pure chance. Humans live in a unique physical and biological world. On the other hand, there exist and existed in the past an enormous quantity and diversity of cultures. This fact can be explained by the accidental character and conventionality of meanings of culture. The divergence of cultural evolution can be seen in the variability of beliefs, religions, philosophies, rites, customs, ethical systems, fine arts, and, last but not least, languages.
The more divergent cultures are, the more difficult is to translate their concepts, meanings, and worldviews between them. These difficulties in understanding other cultures increase with the dissimilarity of ethnic languages, whose structures have a huge impact on the perceiving, interpretation, and categorization of the world, the shape of its representation in a given culture Sapir and Whorf theory Sapir, ; Whorf, Complete understanding of a given culture by a man brought up in another culture is in principle impossible, because of the absence of mutual adherence of the conceptual networks of these two cultures.
The senses existing within separate cultures and related to religion, fine arts, social relations, and language are purely intersubjective and disappear completely or to a large extent once one leaves a given culture. This fact is strictly related to the divergent evolution of cultures.
As long as the elementary facts, laws and requirements of physical and biological world are obeyed by members of a given culture, for instance the necessity to feed and to avoid predators as well as to protect oneself against cold and parasites in order to survive, the objective world is neutral in relation to such a culture and gives it full freedom.
Otherwise, cultures could not exist, as physics and biology neither promote any ethical or aesthetic values, nor favor any rites, nor else affirms any kind of divinity. This domain is science. Let us imagine a developing conceptual network, where new concepts are being created. Still other concepts develop on their basis. The situation is completely different in the case of broadly understood culture and the humanities including most philosophies. The possibility of their verification by confronting them with the objective world is very limited.
The evolution of conceptual networks of natural sciences that originated in different cultures must be convergent. This is because their structures must adhere to the structure of the real physical and also chemical, biological, geological etc. The methodology of natural sciences can compensate any significant deflections of the structure of the conceptual networks of scientific disciplines from the latter.
This is an example of the negative feedback. On the other hand, in the evolution of most of culture especially philosophies, humanities, and religions , accidentally chosen directions of further development are enhanced and followed consequently. The already existing structure of the conceptual network of culture fixes the frames for its further evolution, but within these frames chance rules. This constitutes an example of the positive feedback. The further a given culture goes along a given route of development, the more decidedly it follows this route.
The humanities, studying culture, create it at the same time. For natural sciences, the object of their studies exists independently of them. Culture and the humanities and many philosophies frequently create by themselves the object of their studies. On the other hand, a complex of various cultures including philosophies resembles a bush bifurcating vigorously in all directions.
During the evolution of the conceptual network of culture there can be seen a clear tendency to absolutize linguistic names and their underlying meanings concepts and to attribute real existence to their designates Korzeniewski, b. Inevitably, the names and sentences of language correspond only roughly and approximately to some aspects of the world, and attribute to the world features that are only and exclusively features of language.
The segregation of the phenomena perceived by our senses and processed by integrative structures in the sensory cortex that already carry out a preliminary categorization into different discrete semantic compartments facilitates excellently our manipulation of the accessible information, and therefore the functioning and development of the conceptual network. However, this process results at the same time in a significant distortion of the representation picture of the world formed in within the conceptual network Korzeniewski, b.
Culture as a whole and most of philosophy have much in common with magic and religion. For instance, magic not only establishes a kind of necessity of the relation between names and their designates, completely ignoring its accidental character, but also endows words a performative power. The esoteric and necessary character of names also manifests itself in religion. However, the world is not discrete like language, but continuous like the conceptual network. Also here, science plays a significant role.
Physics decomposed the concept of matter into field equations, functions of probability, equivalence with energy and other concepts, being as much real objects as products of our mind, so that matter has become in fact only an empty name Korzeniewski, The process of decomposition of the concept of self- consciousness spirit into other concepts performed by neurophysiology is also significant, although it has not advanced that far.
Matter seems to be to an increasing extent at least within theoretical physics a product of the human mind, while all known evidences indicate that the mind emerges from the functioning of sufficiently and appropriately complex material systems human brains. I propose one of possible ways how this can happen. As the development of science proceeds, the mind- matter opposition matters, and scientists mind it, still less and less.
The same applies to many other concepts and problems, with which philosophy struggled for centuries, and which were shown by science as empty or apparent. Therefore science, by escaping from the conventionality of culture, enables us to de-my- thologize many aspects of our culture. At the same time, science especially neurophysiology and psychology suggests that the conceptual network is a more adequate tool for formation of a relatively faithful representation of the world than language. Language, being anyway a part of the conceptual network, is a very efficient tool that allows an easy, but far from perfect, operation and manipulation with concepts within the entire network.
However, this does not mean that human thinking has a linguistic nature and occurs primarily at the linguistic level Korzeniewski, b, b. Languages are frequently so different and sometimes simple that science as we know it could not originate at all in many of them and therefore in the minds of the people using them , or it would have a rudimentary character, adhering very weekly to the structure of the world. We are so accustomed to European or, more broadly, Indo-European languages, which seem so different for us, that we usually do not realize the true diversity and dissimilarity of languages developed in different cultures and ethnic groups.
Multiply groups of languages have completely different structures and grammatical rules than Indo- European languages. It is difficult to imagine the development of science, or even a more advanced culture in populations speaking exclusively these languages. The fact that Western science originated in the circle of the Mediterranean culture is probably a derivative of many factors, including language and especially protestant religion Weber, as well as chance. Nevertheless, language is not an autonomous phenomenon, but a fragment of the conceptual network of the entire culture and of its members.
There takes place a bidirectional relation between them: Generally, the present form of the conceptual network of a given culture comprising language, science, religion, system of believes, customs and so on in the last instance is a result of its evolution consisting in a sequence of accidents and various limitations.
The probability of realization of this task determines its fitness. People realize not only purely biological purposes especially reproduction with a maximum possible speed , but first of all psychic and cultural purposes, even if they stand in contradiction with the former Korzeniewski, Practically nobody in the modern civilization tends to produce the maximum possible amount of progeny, and some people do not reproduce at all, as they sacrifice their lives to science, fine arts, religion, or other kinds of social activity.
In this context, the psycho-socio-cultural individual predominates over the purely biological individual. This aspect of humanity has not been taken into account by, for instance, socio-biology, or at least its extreme forms. As an example there can serve the origination of ethics, which cannot be completely explained within the conceptual framework of socio-biology, although socio-biology can investigate the biological roots of ethics. Even the so-called reciprocal altruism which is not altruism at all , frequently used in models of population genetics, assumes the existence of some minimal psyche that enables individuals to recognize other individuals in a herd and to remember the results of previous meetings with them Dunbar, It is replaced to a large extent in the psycho-socio-cultural evolution with the axis: The feeling of pleasure, underlined on the level of the neural network by a positive stimulation of the reward system in the brain, appeared initially during biological evolution as a fitness-maximizing mechanism.
A completely new, psycho-socio-cultural level of reality emerged in the moment of this divergence. Pleasure gained its autonomy as a psychic phenomenon together with the emergence of self-consciousness and the subjective psychic sphere. A new kind of evolution began with the appearance of self-con- sciousness, namely cultural evolution, which has nothing in common apart from obvious biological connections with natural evolution.
Of course, here the psychical identity, and not biological identity, is in question. People in society are not mutually replaceable like ant workers in an anthill not because of genetic and therefore biological differences between them, but because of their psychic-social roles. Therefore, the psychical identity is undoubtedly something completely different from the biological-evolutionary identity.
The preservation in time and possible extension of its operation and impact range, namely the dissemination of its elements among the members of a given society, becomes of primary significance for the psychical identity. This expansion can adopt various forms. Scientific, philosophical, literary, artistic, social, and political activities are its more sophisticated manifestations.
In extreme cases, it manifests itself as a pursuit of fame or power. The projection of identities of members of a society onto this society as a whole leads to establishing a certain system of cultural senses. Nevertheless, much more people accept and propagate cultural senses created by other people, than invent and propagate their own senses. Cultural senses are ultimately born from chance. The differences between various psyches can be at least partly reduced to different world pictures and complexes of cultural senses they contain.
A huge majority of cultural senses is inherited through the mediation of cultural transfer, and not via the biological channel. A great role in this process is played by parents, school, society leaders and so on. On the other hand, particularly in the modern civilization of the West, man is exposed to a great diversity of propositions of cultural senses to choose from.
Such a possibility, although much more limited, has existed in all cultures since their origin. What in most members of society occurs on a small scale and concerns secondary things, determines the exceptionality of so-called outstanding persons: Citations Publications citing this paper. References Publications referenced by this paper. Showing of 32 references.
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