why DID we evolve into humans?

Sounds good. At some point, I will do that.I came here looking to explore consciousness, language, behavior and neuroscience through the window of genetics and evolution. So I'm grateful for the ideas. Thanks."Godel, Escher, Bach" shaped a lot of my thinking as well. It's also the first book where the idea of an emergent system jumped out and bit me. For that, I'm grateful.So... I'll see about opening that thread. I still feel too 'raw' on the subject to speak confidently, but then again... I don't think I'll be changing that feeling any time soon.In other words, I'll do it.Ben

Following up...Well, as with most things... I'm trying to take a complex approach to something simple. Go here to make suggestions.Ben

Antonio Damasio in his book THE FEELING OF WHAT HAPPENS does this. He is a neurologist and an excellent writer. He identifies core consciousness and autobiographical consciousness. Bernadette Roberts in one of her books, perhaps her third book WHAT IS SELF makes that point about sensory intelligence of animals vs. the human mode of discriminating concepts, I don't think that is what she calls it though.Buddhist and others in the east have been studying consciousness for many centuries phenomenologically.It seems you are refering to autobiographical consciousness which is an important function of homo sapiens in culture and that does seem to be based on memories and our penchant to construct stories. Language is however hightly abstract and that functioning accesses a limited but very useful part of the total brain/organism.In one sense much of the effort in the eastern traditions is to get free of the conviction that that we are the story we constructed and return to the greater organisms functioning. The idea is that this story of ourselves holds us in effect hynotized with a restricted awaresness. One use of meditation is to break this fixation and experience our being free of the concepts we have accumulated.lfen

Well, I disagree. It appears to me that, besides motor/sensory areas, linguistic processing constitutes the largest share of brain organization.I don't think there's anything limited at all about the parts of the brain devoted to language. To the contrary, the brain seems to really be for only two things - sensory/motor control, and language.Your milage may vary, though. I think most of the Eastern concepts of consciousness are quite upside-down.

But you do make motor/sensory the greater? Doesn't that indicate it's consciousness is greater also?lfen

No, why would it? Everything that moves has sensory/motor control.

Talking about 'size' of brain organization is dubious to me... brain volume and surface area do not necessarily specify function. Anyway, it's funny that I just posted a link to Lieberman's "Human Language and Our Reptilian Brain"--seems relevant here.Here's some (crude) details on the structure of the brain, and some general ideas on correlated function:

• Primary and secondary sensory / motor areas surely take up the largest part of our cereberal cortex. There are numerous (3? 4?) association areas that connect with multiple secondary sensory / motor areas. During linguistic input / output, AS WELL AS NON-LINGUISTIC semantic situations, these sensory areas (as well as primary and secondary areas) show significant activation. In other words, it seems that these areas are all involved in semantic (and sensory) memory.
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• The two areas implicated most often in language processing are Broca's area (secondary motor area) and Wernicke's area (secondary sensory area). Also, brain activity during linguistic production is highly lateralized.
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• There are four more 'parts' of the brain not mentioned here--one is the frontal lobes (implicated in control processes for memory and behavior), subcortical strucures (many which play important roles in sensory, emotional, and memory regulation, as well as, according to Lieberman, a role in language), the cerebellum (implicated in motor regulation as well as linguistic information) and the midbrain.

Overall, I lean to Lieberman's suggestion that some of the subcortical structures play a crucial role in language, then, to a lesser degree, the classical Broca's & Wernicke's area, and then to other non-specific areas.So, I would contend that the brain is not specialized so much for language. I would argue that association areas are semantic, feedback memory areas. I would also argue that control of behavior and the frontal lobes are a 'key' aspect of the human brain.BenP.S. I did a fast google search to produce SOME webpage with pictures of the brain. Page not found | Department of Molecular Biology

This matches my thought as well. There are many studies that I think back this up as well (especially ones dealing with the practice effects on dual-task experiments).lfen, I think you're onto something, but I think we all agree that it's fundamentally different than what crashfrog is talking about. The only thing in question is whether 'consciousness' is the proper word to affix to crash's idea, or yours.Just from the cognitive literature, 'consciousness' is used in crash's sense. Apparently 'consciousness' is also used, in your sense, in the philosophical literature. So, I think this is simply a feature of language, re-using surface forms (words) to name different concepts. That happens a lot, especially when thinking about murky things like consciousness.So, I think everybody's "right" here. I don't see a fundamental disagreement.Ben

My approach is primarily from the eastern nondual schools and I also look at philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience to help try and find personal progress, so my approach is not primarily scientific but subjective phenomenology. Could you amplify or provide some links about these experiments? I think there is a relationship but they are differing kinds of awareness.lfen

lfen,Here's some info, I hope it is good enough for the time being. You can always search pub-med for some links to source papers. Some of these concepts are pretty general, textbook level stuff as well.

• Expert Memory (Dr. K. Anders Ericsson) http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html
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  This would address issues related to consciousness and your abilities at a skill. I haven't read these much, only heard some anectdotal summaries. But he is an expert in studying experts.
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• Working Memory and the "Central Executive" (Nelson Cohen, Paul Verhaeghen)
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  This addresses issues of conscious control in dual-task experiments, and how performance improves from focusing on one item (i.e. conscous control) to being able to 'focus' on up to four items (i.e. becoming unconscious / subconscious, like driving a car)
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  Verhaegehen presented at the ICWM in Kyoto, Japan this year a talk called "A working-memory workout: How to expand the focus of serial atention from one to four items, in 10 hours or less"; I've basically summarized his results above.
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• Attention and Dual-Task (Practice effects - Pashler, Klausoberauer)
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  This is dual-task experiments, but from a different perspective. In attention theory, there is a theory of a 'central bottleneck'; these two fight about if the 'central bottleneck' exists. It's basically a fight of conscious control (central bottleneck) vs. unconscious / subconscious control (bottleneck disappears; Pashler claims it's just been "avoided" but that it still exists). Basically the same idea as the working memory experiments.
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• Simultaneous Interpreting (Gerver, Gile)
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  As with many skills, simultaneous interpreting is possible after practice effects make you able to do listening, understanding of meaning, and formulation of speech in a different language, all simultaneously, with minimal 'effort.' When a student is learning to do this, they are 'conscously putting forth effort' to try and accomplish the task. Experts still 'put forth effort,' but rather use the effort for other tasks (to try and remember figures and names, to use a more fluid style, etc)

I hope that helps. The basic idea is, the more you practice something, the more 'automatic' it becomes. The classical example used is driving a car. When you're new, you devote all of your 'attention' and 'effort' to trying to drive the damn thing. You're very aware of what you're doing. On the other hand, experienced drivers routinely let their mind wander, even to the point where they almost 'wake up' and are surprised that they've driven so far--or even missed their exit.Ben{added by edit: name and a little more info for Paul Verhaeghen}This message has been edited by bencip19, 11-23-2004 08:16 AM

OMG you guys are way smarter than me.

Ben,Just got up and am making morning coffee. But I am very excited about your information because I think it will be helpful in another interests of mine which is dancing Argentine tango. An activity that is more complex than driving a car but which requires learning skills to the point that you no longer need to concentrate or even be aware of them as you move with your partner expressively to the music. I'm hoping this may lead me to greater clarity on some issues around learning and teaching as well.Dancers will talk of "muscle memory" which I find a misleading phrase. I've preferred the term "neuro-motor skills". In his "Inner Game" books such as THE INNER GAME OF TENNIS Tim Galwey talks about self 1 and self 2. Self one is what I've come to call the deliberate ego and Self 2 I've been thinking of as the total organism. Self 1 learning has a large linguistic component with self talk, verbal instructions, whereas Self 2 learning is by sensory input observation with modification by sensory feedback. It's not an either/or but a how much time is spent in one mode or the other.It may take me sometime to work through your links but I will be getting back to you. Thanks,lfen

Ben,I'm a little uncertain on how to track citations in this style, is this a Pub-Med citation?I'm beginning to muse of the comparison of simultaneous translation and expressive dance. Of course the translation of the first is from linguistic to linguistic, while the second is music to movement and auditory to kinesthetic but I'm still looking for ways to get dancers to move from executing steps in time to music to the point of listening to the music and their feelings and then find a way to move that is expressive of the music/feeling at each moment and now I'm wondering if translation might be a helpful or valid analogy. I can see it could be confusing is someone thought there were literal analogues. I'm not addressing content but the process how to parallel listening and moving.lfen

hahaCrash I say the same thing all the time when I read anything you write about genetics, evolution, etc. Well except it usually is preceded by banging of my head against the keyboard.Anyway, (hopefully) I'll be entering grad school for cognitive neursocience next year (applications due soon!!) instead of being a jobless bum in the most expensive city in the WORLD!Ben

lfen,I read a paper yesterday (again) about motor equivalence (how can we sign our name with our FOOT?? But we can, and it looks a WHOLE lot like the way we do it with our hand).Kelso JA, Fuchs A, Lancaster R, Holroyd T, Cheyne D, Weinberg H.
Dynamic cortical activity in the human brain reveals motor equivalence.
Nature. 1998 Apr 23;392(6678):814-8.
and in it, I came across a couple of references about motor control that sounded EXTREMELY interesting to me.Bizzi E, Mussa-Ivaldi FA, Giszter S.
Computations underlying the execution of movement: a biological perspective.
Science. 1991 Jul 19;253(5017):287-91. Review.

Georgopoulis, A.P. Neural networks and motor control. Neuroscientist 3, 52-60 (1997)(note I couldn't find the second link in pubmed, and the link is just to the author's homepage. I couldn't find either article freely available on the internet).Anyway, I don't know too much about motor control. However, there are different levels (motor, premotor in the cortex, midbrain, spine) where we can try and understand "muscle memory." But of course, muscles don't have a mechanism for 'remembering' within the tissue.Gotta run. Late!