Steven mithen cognitive fluidity

Steven Mithen 8 Followers. The focus of this paper would be to understand Cognitive Fluidity and how it came about in Homo Sapiens. Furthermore, an attempt would be made to understand how the Early Modern Humans or Homo Sapiens demonstrated it. For staying relevant For staying relevant to the course of the paper, the archaeological perspective would be considered primarily while taking hints from the advances in neurobiological fields of study.

A comparison between the cognitive fluidity as demonstrated by the Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens would also be considered in certain aspects, to understand how the Early Modern Humans came to initiate the institutions of science, art and religion. After the Ice: A Global History. Aft er the Ice: A Global History. Cambridge: Harvard University.

ISBN hardback. The latter appear to have had a mentality that was original domain-specific in structure; a series of largely isolated cognitive domains for thinking about the social, material, and natural worlds. With the advent of modern humans the barriers between these domains appear to have been largely removed in the attentive mode and hence cognition became more fluid.

Exactly how does Mithen suppose that dedicated areas of the mind become suddenly connected late on in human evolution? Unless there was already some connection, in which case they were never isolated, an entirely new class of neurological structures and their underlying genetic basis must have appeared abruptly. I find such an idea anatomically and genetically implausible.

Mithen's approach perpetuates mind-body dualism and illdefined concepts such as 'think', 'create' and 'imagine' mean yet more special pleading for humans. Of course, it is unfair to expect Mithen to cover neurobiology, genetics and computer science, as well as archaeology, linguistics, psychology, social anthropology and cognitive science!

The Prehistory of the Mind is a well written review and part synthesis of pre-existing work, which the author does much to acknowledge. If nothing more had been claimed I would have no qualms, but Mithen insists that he has used archaeology to further understanding of how the mind works and I do not find this a sustainable argument.

It remains early days for cognitive archaeology; we know some 'whats' and 'whens', but few 'whys'. With The Prehistory of the Mind Mithen has put steven mithen cognitive fluidity firmly on the cognitive agenda, but we have a long way to go before we will know 'what was going on in their minds'. References Barkow, J. The Adapted Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

Boden, M. Fodor, J. The Modularity of Mind. Fullagar, R. Early human occupation of northern Australia: archaeology and thermoluminescence dating of Jinmium rock-shelter, Northern Territory. Antiquity Gardner, H. New York: Basic Books. Karmiloff-Smith, A. Koestler, A. The Act of Creation. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version.

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Steven mithen cognitive fluidity

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