VI. Life’s Cerebral Cognizance Becomes More Complex, Smarter, Informed, Proactive, Self-Aware

B. A Neural Encephalization from Minimal Stirrings to an Earthuman Cognizance

Callier, Vivianne. Brain-Signal Proteins Evolved before Animals Did. Quanta. June 3, 2022. Neuropeptide Signaling by Yanez-Guerra, Luis, et al in Molecular Biology and Evolution (39/4, 2022) which indicate that an ancestral choanoflagellate microbe made proteins that were later repurposed by the nervous systems of the first animals. (See also A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life by VC herein on January 7, 2021.) So once more a gestation-like continuity can be quantified and traced all the way nack to life’s earliest cognizant advent.

Our human brains can seem like a crowning achievement of evolution, but their roots run deep. The modern brain arose from many millions of years of incremental advances in complexity which has been traced through the branch of the animal family tree that includes creatures with central nervous systems, the bilaterians. However it is now becoming clear that basic neural elements existed much earlier. This has been made evident by researchers at the University of Exeter who found that the chemical precursors of important neurotransmitters, or signaling molecules appear in the major animal groups that preceded central nervous systems. (V. Callier)

Carruthers, Peter, et al, eds. The Innate Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. An initial volume from the Innateness and the Structure of the Mind project (http://www.shef.ac.uk/philosophy/AHRB-Project) which seeks to advance and update nativist theories due to Noam Chomsky, but which can be traced back to Plato. In contrast to empiricism or constructivism whereby the brain develops mainly in response to external experience, these contents explain and verify that internal propensities do indeed guide cerebral maturation. Typical authors are Gary Marcus, Dan Sperber, Elizabeth Spelke, Daniel Povinelli, and Leah Cosmides, who range from modular brain architecture to language, theory of mind and behavior.

Cela-Conde, Camilo, et al. In the Light of Evolution VII: The Human Mental Machinery. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110/Supple. 2, 2013. With coauthors Raul Gutierrez Lombardo, John Avise and Francisco Ayala, an introduction to this survey of our sapient emergence from life’s singular neural and cognitive encephalization. The title phrase “mental machinery” is from one of Charles Darwin’s notebooks. After many decades of research since, by worldwide collaborations, the 16 articles achieve a consummate retrospective. Contributors such as Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney on “Affiliation, Empathy, and the Origins of Theory of Mind,” Timothy Allen and Norbert Fortin’s “The Evolution of Episodic Memory,” Sarah Brosnan on “Justice and Fairness-Related Behaviors in Nonhuman Primates” and “Similarity in Form and Function of the Hippocampus in Rodents, Monkeys, and Humans” by Robert Clark and Larry Squire, well trace and scope how we late progeny came to be. See also below “Evolution of Consciousness” by George Mashour and Michael Alkire in this issue.

To understand the evolution of a Theory of Mind, we need to understand the selective factors that might have jumpstarted its initial evolution. We argue that a subconscious, reflexive appreciation of others’ intentions, emotions, and perspectives is at the roots of even the most complex forms of Theory of Mind and that these abilities may have evolved because natural selection has favored individuals that are motivated to empathize with others and attend to their social interactions. These skills are adaptive because they are essential to forming strong, enduring social bonds, which in turn enhance reproductive success. (Seyfarth, Cheney)

Changeux, Jean=Pierre, et al. A Connectomic Hypothesis for the Hominization of the Brain. Cerebral Cortex. 31/5, 2021. Pasteur Institute, Paris, and Hamburg University neuroscientists including Claus Hilgetag provide a latest integrative explanation of our cerebral attributes by a novel emphasis on their dense multiplex, genomic-like interconnections. While human brains contain some 87 billion neurons vs. 6.4 billion for macaques, adding in network dynamics further distinguished homo sapiens. One is then led to muse about whomever is this emergent Earthomo planetary facility that can in retrospect learn all this.

Cognitive abilities of the human brain have expanded over the course of our recent evolution from nonhuman primates, with minimum genetic changes. In regard, what we propose relies upon cerebral connectivities which form an anatomical, functional, and computational neural phenotype. An enhanced brain and global neural architecture of primate brains, resulted in a larger number of neurons and the sparsification, modularity, and laminar differentiation of cortical connections. The combination of these features with larger cortical layers, postnatal brain growth, and nongenetic interactions with the physical, social, and cultural evolution gives rise to categorically human-specific cognitive and linguistic abilities. Thus, a small set of genetic regulatory events may account for the origins of human brain connectivity and cognition. (Abstract excerpt)

Changizi, Mark. Principles Underlying Mammalian Neocortical Scaling. Biological Cybernetics. 84/3, 2001. The same fractal self-similarity that describes organic forms and metabolic functions likewise applies to the brain.

The first part of the model is a special case of the physico-mathematical model recently put forward to explain the quarter power scaling laws in biology. It states that the neocortex is a space-filling neural network through which materials are efficiently transported, and that synapse sizes do not vary as a function of gray matter volume. The second part of the model states that the neocortex is economically organized into functionally specialized areas whose extent of area-interconnectedness does not vary as a function of gray matter volume. (207)

Chein, Jason and Walter Schneider. The Brain’s Learning and Control Architecture. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 21/2, 2012. Per the quote, Temple University and University of Pittsburgh neuroscientists propose a triadic evolutionary cerebral pyramid of an older, initial “representation system,” with a 300 million year old reptilian origin, a “cognitive control network” mammalian feature some 60 mya, topped off by our hominid “metacognitive system.” So we people are the executors of evolution, which appears as a long embryonic awakening of a universe trying to remember, recognize, and individuate itself.

Many brain-imaging studies are designed with the goal of isolating brain regions responsible for a specific mental function. The results, which reveal islands of activity scattered about the brain, can give the impression that the brain is just a disorganized collection of specialized processing centers. However, examination of how brain activity changes as a new skill is learned reveals a structured learning architecture composed of three hierarchically organized systems, each with a distinct role in learning and each characterized by a distinct pattern of learning-dependent plasticity. These systems are a representation system, which supports associative learning; a cognitive control network, which allocates attention during the execution of newly learned behaviors; and a metacognitive system, which guides the establishment of new behavioral routines, monitors the quality of ongoing behaviors, and oversees the transitions from one behavior to another. The combined involvement of these systems allows humans to learn rapidly and to flexibly transfer existing knowledge to novel contexts. (Abstract, 78)

Clark, Damon, et al. Scalable Architecture in Mammalian Brains. Nature. 411/189, 2001. The growing quantification of a linear expansion of modular component and overall brain size during animal evolution.

Within each taxon, brain regions are scalable, tending to maintain fixed proportionality of size to one another independent of absolute total brain volume. This suggests that, within a taxon, the development of multiple brain regions is governed by a common set of mechanisms. (192)

Collins, Christopher. Paleopoetics: The Evolution of the Preliterate Imagination. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. From our late vantage an emeritus New York University cultural scholar reconstructs the ancient neural and cognitive course of how life came to express itself and ones natural surround by way of poetic image and rhetorical utterance. Again Merlin Donald’s episodic, mimetic, mythic, and theoretic stages from primates to people are a guide. But as the second quote evokes, a novel advance is to trace a “dual-process” mental sequence from original holistic scenarios to a serial, discrete, object mode as proto-languages arose. Collins goes on to cite a similarity with right and left brain hemisphere attributes, rarely do you find this evident connection. By virtue of this temporal sequence, an archetypal complementarity of both yin and yang-like phases, per the fourth quote, can be affirmed.

How may one avail this incisive work? On page 120 a timeline runs from an Episodic Epoch some 2.5 mya onto an imitative Mimetic Pleistocene, and as hominids began to speak and inscribe to a Mythic stage. As linguistic content became recorded in external repositories, a societal Theoretic phase intensifies to this day. A strong recapitulation is revealed between personal ontogeny and humankind’s whole evolutionary phylogeny. A further surmise would be the gender essence of these complements, a prior integral feminine milieu supplanted by a particulate masculine rule. In retrospect may a worldwide me and We perceive life's cerebral, cognitive development, individually and collectively, as a genesis universe trying to witness, learn and narrate itself into neonatal existence?

As for my particular venture into Big History, its ultimate purpose is not simply to time-travel to earlier stages in the evolution of the human mind but rather to explore the depths you and I have within our minds here and now, those deep foundations within which certain strings of words have the power to resonate with astonishing results. Accordingly, my first premise is this: the human brain is an embodiment of its own evolutionary narrative. My second premise is that, broadly defined, poetry is the brain’s use of language to recover knowledge that is at once deeply past and deeply present. (9)

Chapter 2, “From Dualities to Dyads,” begins my exploration of cognitive skills preadaptive to language with a consideration of Dual-Process Theory. This field, which emerged in the mid-1990s, posits the coexistence in the brain of two distinct cognitive systems, one intuitive, the other deliberative, a bipartite arrangement reminiscent of the right-hemisphere/left hemisphere duality. Since the intuitive system comprises cognitive features shared with nonhuman animals and the deliberative system is uniquely human, the evolutionary implications of Dual-Process Theory make it highly relevant to paleopoetics. (19)

Information Processing: The Parallel and Serial Modes Much of what I have just described as multitasking and bimanual coordination has been parallel output. From an evolutionary perspective, the parallel mode is as old as unicellular life forms. It is the default mode: in any emergency, living things opt for the parallel processing of incoming perceptions and of outgoing actions. When the serial mode later emerged, it became as narrow as the parallel was broad, its attention to incoming information and outgoing action as sharply focused as parallel attention was diffusely distributed. (43)

In the 1990s, the phrase “massively parallel” became a shibboleth among those who were then discovering the similarities between the brain and the compute as information processors. Serial processing, by contrast, connotes a rather unspectacular plodding along of impulses or thoughts. Since it must be efficient in both modes, the brain might be more accurately described as “massively complementary.” This is especially true of visual cognition, which is possible only through the complementary (dyadic) relationship of figure to ground, of ventral to dorsal streams, and of allocentric to egocentric frames of reference. (100)

Crespi, Bernard. Pattern Unifies Autism. Frontiers in Psychiatry. Fenruary, 2021. The Simon Fraser University, Canada clinical biopsychologist (search) has sketched a mental spectrum from this malady that can only view dots without connections (unable to relate to anyone) all the way to schizophrenia whence only patterns exist, often not there. Human awareness, or lack thereof, is thus due to varying degrees of “perception, recognition, maintenance, generation, seeking, and processing,” As a way to appreciate, it occurred that one might apply this range to public propensities from anarchy to individualism, egalitarian, authoritarian and totalitarian conditions. The USA is grievously beset by divides and disunity, unable to connect dots. Russia is now in ruins because its leader is obsessed with and acting upon senseless scenarios. In regard, historian Thomas Piketty(search) lately recommends a Participatory Socialism so that peoples might converge on a middle reciprocal balance.

Autism is a highly heterogeneous condition, genetically and phenotypically. These diverse causes and influences have impeded its definition, recognition, assessment, and treatment. Current autism criteria involve restricted interests, repetitive behavior (RRBs) and social deficits. I suggest that this suite of autistic traits, and more can be grouped under the single rubric of “pattern,” a term that involves consistent brain and cognitive functions. RRBs result from decreased and imbalanced pattern-related perceptions, and consequent social deficits from aberrant connections and imagery.

Cunningham, Karen, et al. Jellyfish for the study of nervous system evolution and function. Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 88/102903, 2024. MIT and Caltech behavioral biologists including Brandon Weissbourd describe how these primordial invertebrate are now found to have sophisticated sensory abilities even at their rudimentary occasion. See also. Dynamics of neural activity in early nervous system evolution by Ann Kennedy and BW in Current Opinion in Behavioral Science. (59/101437, 2024). Into the mid 2020s, a second evolutionary course of of neural stirrings and cognitive acuity is being well traced and populated wth animal smarts.

Jellyfish comprise a diverse clade of free-swimming predators that arose prior to the Cambrian explosion. They play major roles in ocean ecosystems via a suite of complex foraging, reproductive, and defensive behaviors. These behaviors arise from decentralized, regenerative nervous systems composed of body parts that generate the part-specific behaviors. Here, we discuss the organization of jellyfish nervous systems and opportunities afforded by the recent development of a genetically tractable jellyfish model for systems and evolutionary neuroscience.

Behavior appeared before the nervous system due to organisms without neurons ranging from the navigation of paramecia to the contractions of sponges. These actions rely on a suite of molecular assemblies from ion channels to peptide release to control cilia, contractile tissue and intercellular chemical signaling. As time went by these functions gave rise to first neurons and synapses as they wired up to create neural networks. (1)

De la Fuente, Ildefonso, et al. Evidence of Conditioned Behavior in Amoebae. Nature Communications. 10/369, 2009. Twelve Spanish systems biologists describe the clever ways by which to perceive the life’s associative learning method in effect even in these early, unicellular organisms.

Associative memory is the main type of learning by which complex organisms endowed with evolved nervous systems respond to environmental stimuli. It has been found in different multicellular species, from cephalopods to humans, but never in individual cells. Here we describe a motility pattern consistent with associative conditioned behavior in the microorganism Amoeba proteus. We confirm a similar behavior in a related species, Metamoeba leningradensis. Thus, our results indicate that unicellular organisms can modify their behavior during migration by associative conditioning. (Abstract)

Donald, Merlin. The Definition of Human Nature. Rees, Dai and Steven Rose, eds. The New Brain Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. The Canadian psychologist reiterates his highly regarded synthesis of the emergence of intelligence in mammals, primates, hominids and homo sapiens, which is the subject of previous two books noted on the website. This article makes a distinction between an earlier holistic, non-symbolic, neural net cognition in the animal kingdom and a symbol-driven, increasingly language-based mode that could form representations in memory. The great advance that defines evolving human beings is an externally stored, composite culture.

Donald’s succinct review suggests these reflections: in retrospect, the long evolution of cognitive faculties seems akin to the maturation of a singular planetary brain, for it passes through the same stages. The prior neural, “hologram-like” phase, in interaction with an environment, is more right brain, while later quantitative abilities are left hemisphere in kind. Human cerebral development proceeds in the same fashion. Moreover, it is noted that children learn to speak and remember by passing through the similar mimetic, mythic, and so on sequence as the human species did.

Cognition in humans is a collective product. The isolated brain does not come up with external symbols. Human brains collectively invent symbols in a creative dynamic process. (43) A more adequate description of human symbolic literacy would encompass all the skills needed to use every kind of permanent external symbol, from the pictograms and line drawings of the Upper Palaeolithic, to the astrolabes and alchemical diagrams of the medieval era, to the digital information codes used in modern electronic communications. (53) We might still be able to think of ourselves as ‘monads’ in the Leibnizian sense; that is, self-contained entities bounded by our skin membranes. But, as peripatetic minds plugged into a network, we are immersed in a gigantic external memory environment within which we can move around. (58)

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