On The Origin Of The Human Mind by Andrey Vyshedskiy, PhD.
Footnotes
1. We are talking here about an experienced knitter, typist, and driver. Initially, during the learning stage, we almost invariably use mental synthesis to visually plan our moves and to predict their effect. A student-driver may ask you to turn off the radio and stop talking to him because he wants every resource of his brain to concentrate on driving. As actions are repeated over and over again, the brain may learn to perform them automatically. We tend to perform the automated actions without consciously paying attention to them and without visually planning them in the process of mental synthesis. Note that we can always choose to direct our conscious attention to an automated action and use mental synthesis to visually plan a new move and to examine its effects. This creates the illusion that the conscious mind is always in control of our actions. In fact, this is not the case: a lot of actions are performed automatically.
2. Clever Hans was a horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks. Hans' trainer, von Osten, could ask Hans to perform calculations and Hans would answer by tapping his foot. Due to the large amount of public interest, the German board of education appointed a commission to investigate von Osten's claims in 1907. Psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reaction of the questioner. As the horse's taps approached the right answer, the questioner's posture and facial expression changed in ways that were consistent with an increase in tension, which was released when the horse made the final, "correct" tap. This provided a cue that the horse could use to tell it to stop tapping. Pfungst found that the horse could get the correct answer only when the questioner knew what the answer was, and the horse could see the questioner. When the questioner did not know the answer, Hans could not answer the questions correctly. Pfungst concluded that the horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer, who had the faculties to solve each problem.
3. Animals mainly learn by observation: for example, chimp adults never teach their youngster to fish for termites. They don’t slow down their actions to help an infant see what they are doing. Rather, youngsters learn by observing adults. They first learn that they need a termite mound; then they learn that they need a stick and they just roll the stick over the mount. Only later youngsters learn to put stick into a hole. For some time they have difficulty figuring out the size of the tool, trying to use a stick that is too thick. Clearly, the chimp learning method looks more like a trial-and-error process, than a human act of active teaching that normally utilizes synthesizing language to simulate the process in the mind of students first (mental synthesis); only after the mental exercise students are invited to proceed on their own.
4. The Neanderthal DNA sequence was extracted from two bones (from two different individuals) excavated from the El Sidron Cave in Asturias, north of Spain.
5. Here and later we use a leopard to help a modern reader visualize a fast and agile predator from a group that included the big cats and now extinct saber-toothed cats. The leopard belongs to the genus Panthera that evolved about five million years ago; the modern leopard did not emerge until about one million years ago.
6. In a typical tit-for-tat evolutionary struggle, some snakes, including pit vipers and rattlesnakes, developed a secondary detection system capable of distinguishing immobile prey from a lifeless object over a short distance. This secondary system relies on heat radiated by warm-blooded animals. A rattlesnake, for example, has a small pit located on each side of its head composed of several thousands of receptor cells specialized for heat detection. The infrared sensors are very sensitive to wavelengths of around 10 micrometers (infrared radiation). A snake can use its heat sensors to detect a warm-blooded animal even with its eyes closed. Reliance on a complementary sensory system for prey detection over short distances is not unique to snakes. Great blue sharks primarily rely on vision, smell, and hearing to detect their prey. However, over short distances, sharks may rely on the electric field created by the prey. The sensory organs of sharks detect weak electric current generated by a prey to fine-tune the shark’s last stage of the attack. In an elegant experiment conducted by Douglas Fields and his colleagues, a shark was lured to the center of a submersed T-shaped apparatus by an odor of ground fish. The apparatus was outfitted with sets of electrodes positioned at each end. The right and left electrodes produced weak eclectic current in random order. Amazingly, in the final moment of the attack, the shark ignored the odor source (located in the center of the T-shaped apparatus) and instead turned to bite the activated electrode. This experiment demonstrates that over a short distance, the electroreception overrides even the strong sensory cues of taste and smell.
7. There is little doubt that Neanderthals processed animal skins, which were presumably used for clothing. However the absence of any bone needles among Neanderthal artifacts shows that skins were not sewn together.
8. We should also note that grazing animals moved into savannas. Modern day apes are essentially plant eaters, who occasionally supplement their diet with raw meat (anything from ants and termites to small monkeys and pigs). Meat of larger animals is often obtained by cooperative male hunting parties. The meat is shared among all members of the group and is sometimes used to obtain sexual favors from females. Our Australopithecus ancestors probably had a diet similar to that of modern-day apes. Roaming in savannas provided them with more opportunities to hunt and scavenge energy-rich animal meat but also exposed them to a greater range of predators.
9. Neanderthal spears appear too heavy to be thrown. They were likely used as a weapon that was thrust into an animal from a short distance. Neanderthals hunted many animals: from horses and deer to mammoths. These animals are not easy to kill with a spear. Wounded animals are highly agitated and a single kick by such an animal could break the attacker’s bones. The archeological evidence of a disproportionally large number of broken ribs, femur, fibulae, spine, and skulls supports this interpretation of the Neanderthal hunting style.
10. It should be noted that the visual system may be unique in its reliance on the primary cortical area. Other sensory systems may not activate the corresponding primary cortical areas during imagining that sensual information, saving energy and allowing the primary cortical areas to concentrate on processing incoming sensory information. For example, when subjects recall a sound stimulus in their mind, little activation is observed in the primary audio cortex.
