The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the BrainThis revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human. |
Contents
THE HUMAN PARADOX | 21 |
Technical Difficulties and Hopeful Monsters | 28 |
The Missing Simple Languages | 39 |
A LOSS FOR WORDS | 47 |
In Other Words | 51 |
The Reference Problem | 59 |
SYMBOLS ARENT SIMPLE | 69 |
The Symbolic Threshold | 79 |
SYMBOL MINDS | 254 |
Making Symbols | 264 |
| 279 | |
The Illuminated Brain | 288 |
Where Symbols Arent | 300 |
Taking Sides | 309 |
III | 319 |
AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH | 321 |
Unlearning an Insight | 92 |
OUTSIDE THE BRAIN | 102 |
The Other Evolution | 110 |
Emerging Universals | 115 |
Better Learning Through Amnesia | 122 |
II | 143 |
THE SIZE OF INTELLIGENCE | 145 |
Brains in Bodies | 153 |
Thinking Your Own Size | 159 |
GROWING APART | 165 |
Using Fly Genes to Make Human Brains | 174 |
The Developmental Clock | 187 |
A DARWINIAN ELECTRICIAN | 193 |
Displacement | 207 |
An Alien Brain Transplant Experiment | 214 |
Beyond Phrenology | 220 |
THE TALKING BRAIN | 225 |
Visceral Sounds | 230 |
Why Dont Mammals Sing Like Birds? | 236 |
A Leveraged Takeover | 247 |
Language Adaptations | 334 |
Homo symbolicus | 340 |
The CoEvolutionary Net | 349 |
The Writing on the Wall | 365 |
SYMBOLIC ORIGINS | 376 |
Why Human Societies Shouldnt Work | 384 |
A Symbolic Solution | 393 |
Ritual Beginnings | 401 |
A SERENDIPITOUS MIND | 411 |
The Sphinx | 416 |
No Mind Is an Island | 423 |
SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON ENDS | 433 |
What Is the Difference? | 438 |
Reinventing the Mind | 455 |
Notes | 465 |
Additional Readings | 485 |
| 489 | |
| 511 | |
Other editions - View all
The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain Terrence W. Deacon Limited preview - 1998 |
The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain Terrence William Deacon No preview available - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
abilities adaptations analysis animal appear areas associations auditory australopithecines autism axons behaviors biases bolic brain evolution brain regions brain stem brain structure Broca's Broca's area calls cells cerebellum cerebral cerebral cortex changes chimpanzees chimps cognitive compared complex connections consciousness context correlated cortical damage demonstrated developmental evolutionary evolved example experience forebrain frontal genes genetic grammatical growth guage homeotic hominid Homo Homo erectus human brain iconic increase indexical innate inputs interpretation involved Kanzi larynx lexigrams linguistic linked logic males mammals mental midbrain mind monkey motor muscles nature Neanderthals neural neurons nonhuman organization output patterns predict predispositions prefrontal cortex primate probably problem processes produce proportions referential relationships relative representation reproductive response result role sensory shift signals social sort sound species speech suggest symbolic communication symbolic reference task tend thalamus theories tion ture vocal Wernicke's area Williams syndrome words