Consciousness and the Modular Mind.

I have found myself increasingly reading contemporary theories of the mind. (Self awareness, free will, consciousness etc...) Along with this I've been exploring heaps of paleoanthropological stuff upon the evolution of the human animal. So I now find myself in a position where I should soon commit and tentatively suggest which theories of the mind fit with the anthropological material.

What follows is unchecked, unreferenced and pretty much brain spew. In fact it's pretty much my overdue opinions following a glut of semi-digested information.

So here we go:

On the Mind.

It seems to me that all the good theories upon the mental functioning of us spine-having life forms, (our cognition and ensuing 'consciousness' from which it springs), point towards what is generally referred to as 'The Modularity of the Mind'. (Jerry Fodor is the touchstone of this kind of thinking.) Basically this modularity simmers down to say that the brain is kind of like a mechanics tool box. Different brain tools are isolated and assigned to different tasks. Some academics even attempt to designate which areas are cognitively isolated such as 'Natural History Module', 'Technical intelligence module' and 'Social intelligence module'.

Humans are the only animal that seems to be able to operate less like a toolbox and more like a Swiss Army Knife. We routinely overlap our modules using knowledge from natural history modules to solve problems that are usually assigned to the tech intelligence module. In prehistory this would amount to Cro-Magnon man using bone to make certain delicate tools where his proto-human forbearers would have used precision lacking shards of stone. Following this it's plain to see that in modern times we shuttle happily between modules without even realising. This seems normal and a fundamental process of thinking (in fact it's quite hard to imagine what thinking would be like with these cognitive barriers still intact.) However, it can be seen that our high order problem solving, facilitated by this Swiss army knife effect, is a hugely perplexing anomaly among life on this planet.

With this in mind, the big question becomes; what causes or allows our modules to overlap? One might even ask what does this entail for our strictly domain specific problem solving.

Simply put, why is our cognition so blatantly different from all the other animals??

Here I think it helps to veer into the field of evolutionary cognitive psychology. In this area researchers from an eclectic array of sciences often try to catch a peek into the obscure history of the minds evolution. They look at the intellectual development of children as a window into the Pleistocene human mind. Similarly and possibly more fruitfully they look at our closest genetic contemporaries, the great apes. Decades of experimentation and observation have shown that it is the module of social intelligence that is the most developed and frighteningly powerful in our primate cousins. This suggests a similarly massive social intelligence domain calling the shots among our good self's.

It's important to note the characteristics of social intelligence. It is dominantly reflexive, as in the engaged subject uses it after the social interaction upon which it muses. It is primarily concerned with selfish information transfer i.e. communication (selfish because misinformation is just as prized in evolutionary terms as truth.) Social intelligence becomes definitional upon actions that are in effect calculated and executed by the other modular domains. So in a perceptual sense it possesses the practical modules.

What other metaphysical state is covered by these characteristics? Self-awareness! Therefore, I would ask is a burgeoning and grossly mutated domain of social intelligence the key to the way our consciousness differs from that of your average domestic pet?

Here I'm going to stray into Philosophy of the mind. I recently came across a book by Nicholas Humphrey where he suggested some interesting conclusions to the oft referenced experiments of Benjamin Libet (outline here). He tackles the problems of Free will versus Determinism head on (I'm kind of putting words in his mouth here as I haven't got the leabhair in question at hand). Humphrey argues that consciousness is in fact entirely reflexive, occurring outside the decision making process altogether. And as Libet's work suggests human action and agency occur outside directly perceptual consciousness. WOW! That's a big deal, and one which chimes sweetly with the modular theories of the mind which cognitive anthropologists tout as a consequence of the empirical data they accrue.

This doesn't mean Determinism is the answer, nor does it mean free will is in jeopardy. In fact it frames these auld belligerents as kind of moot positions. I guess this type of argument might be considered Compatibalism but Humphrey's work suggests a solution where you have free will. Paradoxically you don't really know about it until afterward.

Following Libet when you or I decide to pick up or move an object the decision has already been made by our subconscious just milliseconds before we perceive the decision. Our conscious thoughts are merely monitoring the object-moving proceedings. That sounds like an extreme lack of free will with a small helping of innocuous and neutered self-awareness.. Yum yum. That's not really the full picture though. Our little side order of sentience is in actuality a de-facto retrogressive kind of free will. The act of musing over your actions (during the illusion of real-time decision making and after) actually augments the subconscious for future decision making. This operates in the same way as thinking of your actions afterward and deciding to do different next time. I've come up with a little analogy to illustrate this which I'll unveil shortly.

First some monkey brains and Venn diagrams.

Obviously no one can do a CAT/MRI scan of a brain and see these patterns in a kind of cranial-topography, (yet!) but I'm now going to suggest a visual arrangement of our minds. The theory of modularity is often graphically displayed with each module or domain assigned a relatively proportioned oval (like Venn diagrams in mathematics). The mind of a chimpanzee would show an extra large social intelligence module followed by the other domains. Each module is largely distinct from each other with the areas of overlap amounting to a small area of 'General intelligence'. This diminutive section allows for rudimentary problem solving of the kind that sees a clever Chimp moving away from his peers, placing nuts on a hard surface and using a suitably heavy object to prepare the nuts for consumption. Natural history, social and technical intelligence combine for our ape to have a clandestine undisturbed meal.
Let's imagine now the common Hominin (that's not a typo H-o-m-i-n-i-n) ancestors between us and the contemporary apes. Imagine the ovoid module for social intelligence growing incrementally larger as our modes of communication diversify and complicate as genetic selection aggressively favours larger social cohesion. Imagine it growing amorphous and slowly encroaching upon the other more modest modules. Imagine the new cognitive abilities of our proto-humans as they can, through inter -communication and raw individual cognition flit between domains. This white hot flux where our mass of social intelligence spills into the other domains is, I think, effectively what we call high order self-awareness. The interchange where Descartes thinks and figures that he is. I've read Dennett's tidy phrase 'fame in the brain' and I think this is where it hides.

Now for the ubiquitous analogy:

(This took me ages to think of and it's not what you'd call elegant but it serves me for the moment.) The human mind is a structure like a church. Let's say a Catholic church.

Lots of people come to the church to listen to the charismatic, bossy and conservative priest (the people are the assorted, mental modules the priest is the powerful social intelligence module). Our flock, one by one, meet the priest and confess their sins and actions. Our bossy priest beats his Alter telling the flock what to do, his sermon informed by confessions of the past. Of course the priest has no direct control over what the flock do in their everyday lives, they make their own choices, but his words will tweak their future actions and he is convinced of his own importance. Between them the priest and his followers make up consciousness (sub and otherwise).

So where is the human mind's navel-gazing, heady self-awareness? The flock collectively have an idea of our priest's moral compass; they have an inclination what his sermon will be. Similarly the priest has inklings as to what the people think he will say and of how to manipulate them accordingly. This slight ineffectual and mutual insight, I think, makes for a reasonable metaphor of where high order consciousness comes from. It doesn't directly make anything happen it does however powerfully, albeit subtly, infer the discourse between our modules metaphorically in the priest and his followers.

Whew.., that was tough. Hope it's not complete shite when I read over it tomorrow. For the record this written and posted on a bus. (That's my disclaimer)