Modern Darwinism- Language of Adaptation.pdf

Progress in Biophysics & Molecular Biology, 2019

Although the origin of self-referential consciousness is unknown, it can be argued that the instantiation of self-reference was the commencement the living state as phenomenal experientiality. As self-referential cognition is demonstrated by all living organisms, life can be equated with the sustenance of cellular homeostasis in the continuous defense of 'self'. It is proposed that the epicenter of 'self' is perpetually embodied within the basic cellular form in which it was instantiated. Cognition-Based Evolution argues that all of biological and evolutionary development represents the perpetual autopoietic defense of self-referential basal cellular states of homeostatic preference. The means by which these states are attained and maintained is through self-referential measurement of information and its communication. The multicellular forms, either as biofilms or holobionts, represent the cellular attempt to achieve maximum states of informational distinction and energy efficiency through individual and collective means. In this frame, consciousness, self-consciousness and intelligence can be identified as forms of collective cellular phenotype directed towards the defense of fundamental cellular self-reference.

2018

the argument I locate la m arck in a loose sense within the sensationalist discourse and the materialist discourse as understood in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Thus, I analyze Lamarck’s discussion of the human from the point of view of problems and difficulties faced by eighteenth-century attempts to establish a science that anachronistically can be called psychology. I argue that Lamarck cut through the knots of mind-body/mind-brain relations by positing an evolutionary self, which he called “sentiment d’existence / sentiment intérieur.” This construal allowed him to offer a self that by virtue of being evolutionary was hierarchically spread across the evolutionary system and had a different measure depending on its evolutionary history. Capacity for experiencing was differential and depended on bodily structures, meaning that less complex living entities had a very rudimentary sense of existence, and those with a more complex nervous system had a correspondingly exp...

The British Journal of Politics International Relations, 2003

Ethology and Sociobiology, 1993

This is an important book. Several of its authors have made original contributions to evolutionary theory (e.g., Daly 1978; Orians 1979; Cosmides and Tooby 1981; Tooby 1982); and many have studied behavior in nonhuman species, including nonhuman primates (Feistner, McGrew, Symons), kangaroo rats (Daly, Wilson), blackbirds (Orians), and dolphins (Mann). That makes them uniquely qualified to bring evolutionary theory to the study of psychology (see too Crawford, Krebs, and Smith 1987). These papers cover topics from social exchange cognition, to mate choice and retention, to pregnancy sickness, to language, to visual perception; the perspectives are often new, the work is often scholarly, and the conclusions are often persuasive. But not persuasive enough. Contributors to this book use "selectional-thinking" (Symons, p,. 141) and "evolutionary logic" (Wilson and Daly, p. 289) as "heuristics''-"providing aid or direction in the solution of a problem. but otherwise unjustified or incapable of justification" (O.E.D.). But neither Darwin's theory of natural selection, nor its recent modifications (e.g., in Fisher 1930; Williams 1957; Hamilton l964), is '*unjustified or incapable of justification." They are deductive theories, and give rise to falsifiable hypotheses (e.g., Darwin 1859: 135, 146, 148). TIIC Adtrptcd Mind advocates two kinds of research (e.g., Tooby and Cosmides, and throughout). First is the identification of adaptation by "design." Second is the identification of adaptation by Pleistocene reconstruction. There are problems with both. The problem with using "design" as a criterion for identifying adaptation was recently put concisely by George Williams. "Unfortunately those who wish to ascertain whether some attribute of an organism does or does not conform to design specifications are left largely to their own intuition, with little help from established methodology" (1992: 41: see too 1966: 260). "Design" assessments in The Aduptc>d Mind are often after the fact; traits are judged too complex to be determined by chance, and natural selection is argued to be the probable determining force. That judgement will often be right (contrast Dawkins 1986 with

Evolutionary psychologists attempt to infer our evolved psychology from the selection pressures present in our ancestral environments. Their use of this inference strategyoften called ''adaptive thinking''-is thought to be justified by way of appeal to a rather modest form of adaptationism, according to which the mind's adaptive complexity reveals it to be a product of selection. I argue, on the contrary, that the mind's being an adaptation is only a necessary and not a sufficient condition for the validity of adaptive thinking, and that evolutionary psychology's predictive project is in fact committed to an extremely strong and highly implausible form of adaptationism. According to this ''strong adaptationism,'' the macroevolutionary trajectory of a population is determined by, and therefore predictable on the basis of, the selection pressures acting upon it. Not only is this form of adaptationism prima facie highly implausible, it requires making a number of naïve and likely false assumptions concerning the nature of heritable phenotypic variation in natural populations. In particular, it assumes that phenotypic variation is inevitably small in its extent, unbiased in its direction, and copious in its quantity. Because it is unlikely that these conditions obtain as a general rule, and even more unlikely that they obtained in early human populations, I conclude that there is little reason to believe that adaptive thinking can be used to infer the current structure of our minds from evidence of past selection pressures.

Choice Reviews Online, 2005

2002

Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1997

We propose that the capacity for a symbolic self (a flexible and multifaceted cognitive representation of an organism's own attributes) in humans is a product of evolution. In pursuing this argument, we note that some primates possess rudimentary elements of a self (an objectified self) and that the symbolic self (a) is a trait that is widely shared among humans, (b) serves adaptive functions, and (c) could have evolved in response to environmental pressures, with ecological and social pressures being of particular relevance. We suggest that these two environmental pressures caused the symbolic self to emerge in the Pleistocene epoch as an adaptation for Homo erectus, and we review the possible functions served by such an adaptation.

Current Psychology, 1992

Contemporary research on the construction of the self emphasizes the products rather than the process of self-development. Borrowing from the writings of William James and contemporary views of natural selection, we propose a model of evolutionary selfconstruction. Grounded in the principles of evolution and the philosophy of pragmatism, evolutionary self-construction proposes a process that guides the seeking of "truth" in possible selves. According to this view, the self develops in response to uncertainty reduction with the "correct" self identified via the "sentiment of rationality." Selves presently identified as correct are considered to be "instruments of action" that facilitate the interaction between an individual and the environment. Selected selves can then be developed to one's best advantage and presented in an optimal fashion. This model helps organize contemporary frameworks around a common theme and embraces affect as a central component in the development of the self.