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Evolution of human 'super-brain' tied to development of bipedalism, tool-making
Eurekalert ^ | Wednesday, April 20, 2011 | John Hoffecker

Posted on 04/21/2011 8:15:16 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

CU-Boulder Research Associate John Hoffecker said there is abundant fossil and archaeological evidence for the evolution of the human mind, including its unique power to create a potentially infinite variety of thoughts expressed in the form of sentences, art and technologies. He attributes the evolving power of the mind to the formation of what he calls the "super-brain," or collective mind, an event that took place in Africa no later than 75,000 years ago...

While anatomical fossil evidence for the capability of speech is controversial, the archaeological discoveries of symbols coincides with a creative explosion in the making of many kinds of artifacts. Abstract designs scratched on mineral pigment show up in Africa about 75,000 years ago and are widely accepted by archaeologists as evidence for symbolism and language...

While crude stone tools crafted by human ancestors beginning about 2.5 million years ago likely were an indirect consequence of bipedalism -- which freed up the hands for new functions -- the first inklings of a developing super-brain likely began about 1.6 million years ago when early humans began crafting stone hand axes, thought by Hoffecker and others to be one of the first external representations of internal thought.

(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs

1 posted on 04/21/2011 8:15:18 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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2 posted on 04/21/2011 8:16:15 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
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To: SunkenCiv
He attributes the evolving power of the mind to the formation of what he calls the "super-brain," or collective mind,

WTF is a collective brain? That sounds like the antithesis of creativity.

3 posted on 04/21/2011 8:22:51 PM PDT by mylife
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To: SunkenCiv

Me not stupid just because I left handed.

4 posted on 04/21/2011 8:44:48 PM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open ( <o> ---)
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To: mylife; SunkenCiv
WTF is a collective brain?

Shortest possible answer... A collective brain is what you'd have if human communication prior to the incident associated with the tower of Babel were basically telepathic (which is one interpretation of Julian Jayne's findings), if Jaynes were correct in thinking that consciousness as we know it did not exist 4000 years ago, and if consciousness in those days were basically general rather than individual.

5 posted on 04/21/2011 9:00:22 PM PDT by wendy1946
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To: mylife

Michael Crichton wrote a science fiction novel called “Prey”. The plot concerns a research lab develops tiny nano-machines capable of replicating animate objects capable of intelligent behavior when many of them swarm together. It’s a step up from the idea that certain insects, like bees or termites, that seem just as stupid as any other insect when acting alone, are capable of building complex structures and organized colonies when interacting in large numbers.

I Googled “collective brain”. Computer software people seem to be trying to simulate this idea.


6 posted on 04/21/2011 9:01:36 PM PDT by haroldeveryman
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To: mylife
WTF is a collective brain?

The Democrat Party?

7 posted on 04/21/2011 9:12:41 PM PDT by UCANSEE2
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To: haroldeveryman
I Googled “collective brain”. Computer software people seem to be trying to simulate this idea.

Yeah, it's called The Cloud.

8 posted on 04/21/2011 9:14:34 PM PDT by UCANSEE2
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To: wendy1946
"(which is one interpretation of Julian Jayne's findings)"

I was in college right about the time Jaynes' big book - name escapes me - came out. It came up in a theology class (Catholic University), and the discussion became so heated, people almost came to blows. As I remember it, much of it revolved around humans not being self-aware (or something), prior to a certain time in the neolithic era.

I thought it was idiotic then and thirty years later, nothing has changed my mind, at least that would suggest our "self-awareness" happened sometime in the 1K-2K BC range, especially considering some of the archeological finds that have been proven to predate even Mesopotamia.

9 posted on 04/21/2011 10:04:25 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
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To: mylife

Maybe a better name might be the “integrated brain”. This seems to be the idea of Jaynes, for one. I was quite impressed by his book, although I couldn’t agree with his conclusions. Even so, the scope of his thinking impressed me. After all, if you believe that there was a natural origin of human consciousness, you must face the question how it occurred.

I will say that whatever the natural history of consciousness may be, its mere existence is beyond the ken of materialist philosophy.


10 posted on 04/21/2011 10:14:30 PM PDT by dr_lew
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To: dr_lew
Some people think that the brain created consciousness.
I think it is the other way around.
11 posted on 04/22/2011 12:31:49 AM PDT by TigersEye (Who crashed the markets on 9/15/08 and why?)
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To: dr_lew; OldDeckHand
Jayne assumed mankind had EVOLVED into a state in which human societies were controlled by what he termed a system of shared auditory hallucinations; that is clearly unworkable. The rest of his findings appear believable enough, particularly the use of a part of the human brain which is no longer used. More likely is that he was investigating a period of time (between Moses and Alexander more or less) during which the phenomena he described was DEVOLVING into dysfunction and ultimately disuse, and that the original use of these phenomena prior to the flood and the tower of Babel had been human communication.

There is no real way to believe that present human languages evolved from some original spoken language like ours, too many things such a theory could never explain.

12 posted on 04/22/2011 2:24:32 AM PDT by wendy1946
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To: OldDeckHand
I have seen 7,000 yr old acts of love from one person to another expressed through how they were prepared for burial: hair made, hands placed under their head, buried with their dogs curled up at their feet, in a hole dug @2 meters down through red clay by hand big enough for all of them to stretch out. That also implies dogs regularly slept at the foot of the bed, even 7,000 years ago, and were adored members of the family. There was also a burial of a male/female couple with their arms placed around each other by their loved ones after death. That site was in North America, but it can't be discussed in further detail until the site report comes out.
13 posted on 04/22/2011 3:39:57 AM PDT by DavemiesterP
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To: SunkenCiv

great post.

as a beekeeper i have often marveled at how the hive is like a brain in its complexity.

also, the idea that the internet could usher in the most significant human advance in 75,000 years is also intriguing.


14 posted on 04/22/2011 12:03:58 PM PDT by beebuster2000
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To: SunkenCiv
Well, not all human brains followed the evolutionary path.


15 posted on 04/22/2011 12:54:01 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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