BIG02.MAKING SENSE OF MIND

BIG02.MAKING SENSE OF MIND

“The human brain provides possibly the only departure, the only possible engine of departure from Darwinian principles.” – Richard Dawkins

Is the human mind a sense?

BIG outline: That’s a quote that really is worth revisiting. We’ve got the evolutionary process lasting billions of years and the human brain is the only possible departure from this. That is huge, it is BIG. Dawkins has also written that humans have the gift of foresight, which natural selection does not have. The human mind does indeed have foresight (imagination), it also has insight (understanding), hindsight (reflection), and oversight (management). It hasn’t always been like this, there was a time when humans didn’t have these capacities, when they had primordial, and proto-awareness, but not mind (proper). For example, if we look at the genus timeline of Homo we can see that the tools made by homo habilis didn’t change over 1 million years. The human mind (proper) of today emerged from the evolutionary process around 50,000-40,000 years ago. Neuroscientist William Calvin has written about “the big bang of human mind”, and anthropologist Richard Klein on “the big bang of human consciousness”, and this is the beginning of the dimension of expression. 

The central question from this BIG is the proposition that the human mind, and its emergent capacity merits ‘sensehood’. That is to say, that humans don’t have 5 senses, they have 6 senses with the human mind the 6^th, or executive sense. Over the course of our evolutionary heritage these senses emerged, and converge in their connection and coordination in what we can think of as a developing brain. There is a very gradual awareness building but not mind (proper). After the big bang of mind we pass a rubicon moment into mind (proper) driven by the interaction of unconscious mind (thank you Sigmund Freud), and the conscious mind. When you talk to yourself, which you do as a human, you’re conversing with your unconscious mind which feeds back/forward to the same conscious. This allows humans to (a) run any number of thoughts and simulations detached from the external world, (b) enables our profound creativity, the engine of expression, (c) enables self-control, and (d) on the down-side opens us up to mental illness. Darwin thought the difference between the animal and human mind was one of degree, not of kind. He was wrong, and in part that’s why we’re still waiting for an accepted neo-Darwinian theory of mind (and culture). The difference is one of dimension. It is beyond the measure of evolutionary theory and the natural sciences. I’ll give you one example. In law courts and legal systems around the world we hold humans to account for their actions. This is because they have mind (proper). We don’t hold any other species to this standard. The presumption that humans have such self-control, coupled with our own deeply personal, rich feeling of inner personhood means that a human mind is at the same time a human ‘mine’. Whatever level of awareness that animals have its not mind, that is only for humankind, the idea of God, and machines that develop mind in science-fiction movies.

BIG outcome: If any of these words, sentences and ideas ‘make sense’ to you, then they make mind. The idea that the mind is our 6^th sense is going to elevate mentality (including mental health) and the importance of personal biography alongside our biology. We’re going to push back somewhat on evolutionary psychology through sociological psychology with this. This is the most effective approach for us to understand the relative concert of mind and culture, of personhood and humankind that drives the social world around us. If the human brain is indeed the most complex thing in the entire universe, and the system of thought (our minds) that emerges from this is indeed a sense enabling insight, foresight, hindsight and oversight then understanding our own understanding engine is crucial in knowing who we are, who we are to each other, and what we are to all other life. Expression demands nothing less. The words on this page will go through your mind. They will be on your mind. Keep that in mind when you are reading this, and you might get your head around what the mind is.