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Muscularity of Mind: Towards an Explanation of the Transition from Unconscious to Conscious

G., Nagarjuna (2005) Muscularity of Mind: Towards an Explanation of the Transition from Unconscious to Conscious. [Preprint]

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Abstract

The title “Muscularity of Mind” indicates the point of view that is argued in this essay. I attempt to trace the roots of higher cognitive abilities to the physiological coupling that exists between neuro-sensory and muscular system. Most of the current discourses on the subject base their studies more on the nervous and sensory dimensions, neglecting the most crucial of all, the role of voluntary muscles in shaping the higher cognitive abilities. I make a claim that emancipation of voluntary muscles from the mandatory biological functions to take on the softer habits during the course of evolution played the crucial role in shaping the higher cognitive abilities. I undertake to explain the transition from procedural to declarative representation by hypothesizing that softer operations that are peculiar to higher cognitive agents in the evolutionary order are rooted in the physiological nexus between neuro-sensory and muscular subsystems of the cognitive agent. The objective of this essay is to indicate that the problem cannot be solved without attending to this nexus.

Item Type:Preprint
Keywords:consciousness, cognition, declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, modularity, Piaget, developmental psychology, representational redescription, semantic memory, episodic memory, chunks, generativism, thought, implicit knowledge, explicit knowledge, encephalization, lateralization, serial motor control, softer operations, harder operations, emancipation, symmetry, cerebral hemespheres, neocortex
Subjects:Psychology > Developmental Psychology
Psychology > Cognitive Psychology
Philosophy > Philosophy of Mind
Philosophy > Metaphysics
ID Code:4352
Deposited By:G., Nagarjuna
Deposited On:20 May 2005
Last Modified:12 Sep 2007 17:58

References in Article

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[1] Susan Carey and Rachel Gelman, editors. The Epigenesis of Mind: Essays on Biology and Cognition. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, New Jersey, 1991.

[2] Donald Davidson. Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford University Press, 1980.

[3] Merlin Donald. Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition. Harward University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1991.

[4] Robin I. M. Dunbar. Causal reasoning, mental rehearsal, and the evolution of primate cognition. In Cecelia Heyes and Ludwig Huber, editors, Evolution of Cognition. MIT Press, 2000.

[5] Jerry A. Fodor. Modularity of Mind. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 1983.

[6] Jerry A. Fodor. The Mind Doesn’t Work that Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology. MIT Press, Massachusetts, 2000.

[7] Peter Gärdenfors. How Homo became sapeiens?: On the Evolution of Thinking. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003.

[8] Annette Karmiloff-Smith. Beyond Modularity — A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science. A Bradford Book, MIT Press, England, 1995.

[9] Doreen Kimura. Neuromotor Mechanisms in Human Communication. Oxford University Press, New York, 1993.

[10] Peter F. Macneilage. Evolution of the mechanism of language output: Comparative neurobiology of vocal and manual communication. In James R. Hurford, Michael Studdert-Kennedy, and Chris Knight, editors, Approaches to the Evolution of Language, pages 222-241. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998.

[11] Jean Matter Mandler. The Foundations of Mind: Origins of Conceptual Thought. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004.

[12] Nagarjuna G. Layers in the fabric of mind: A critical review of cognitive ontogeny. In Jayashree Ramadas and Sugra Chunawala, editors, epiSTEME 1: Review of Research on Science, Technology and Mathematics Education. Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, 2005. Forthcoming.

[13] Jean Piaget and Bärbel Inhelder. The Psychology of the Child. Basic Books, 1969. Translated from French by Helen Weaver.

[14] Leo S. Vygotsky. Mind and Society. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1978.

[15] Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigations. New York: The Macmillan Company, New York, 1953.

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