The Cambrian Explosion and the Origins of Embodied Cognition

Trestman, Michael

doi:10.1007/s13752-013-0102-6

Cited by 48 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(28 reference statements)

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“…Cambrian fossil faunas are famous for their arthropod diversity, many of which had complex jointed limbs and bodies, sensory appendages, and well-developed image-forming compound eyes (130)(131)(132)(133). These have been reconstructed as having active lifestyles, and arthropods were the top predators of the period (130)(131)(132)(133). At least some of these arthropods had well-developed cephalic ganglia with structural similarities to extant crustacean and insect brains (134).…”

Section: Beyond Insectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although there is some variation in the structure of the CX between insect orders, this structure features in all insects and crustaceans and is likely homologous to the arcuate body of arachnids (87,135,136), suggesting a form of the CX evolved before the radiation of insects, crustaceans, and spiders. Trestman (130) has argued that the spatial awareness and agentive behavior enabled by arthropod neural and sensory systems may have contributed to the arthropod radiation in the Cambrian as a consequence of the emergence of new forms of behavior such as hunting. It is plausible that some of the Cambrian fauna within both the basal vertebrate and arthropod groups had a capacity for subjective experience.…”

Section: Beyond Insectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What insects can tell us about the origins of consciousness

Barron

Klein

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

222

183

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How, why, and when consciousness evolved remain hotly debated topics. Addressing these issues requires considering the distribution of consciousness across the animal phylogenetic tree. Here we propose that at least one invertebrate clade, the insects, has a capacity for the most basic aspect of consciousness: subjective experience. In vertebrates the capacity for subjective experience is supported by integrated structures in the midbrain that create a neural simulation of the state of the mobile animal in space. This integrated and egocentric representation of the world from the animal's perspective is sufficient for subjective experience. Structures in the insect brain perform analogous functions. Therefore, we argue the insect brain also supports a capacity for subjective experience. In both vertebrates and insects this form of behavioral control system evolved as an efficient solution to basic problems of sensory reafference and true navigation. The brain structures that support subjective experience in vertebrates and insects are very different from each other, but in both cases they are basal to each clade. Hence we propose the origins of subjective experience can be traced to the Cambrian. subjective experience | primary consciousness | vertebrate midbrain | central complex

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Section: Beyond Insectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Beyond Insectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What insects can tell us about the origins of consciousness

Barron

Klein

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

222

183

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show abstract

“…A second is a preference for a hypothesis that depends on a mechanism for whose existence and capacity we have independent evidence, over a hypothesis that invokes a mechanism whose existence has not been independently established. Associationist explanations that depend on an agent's capacity to, say, associate an act with its consequences, positive and negative, are credible not because they are simple, but because across a huge range of taxa and forms of behaviour we have robust evidence that animals are capable of such learning [35]. Likewise, if, for example, false-belief experiments did provide independent evidence that chimps possess a concept of belief and that they use that concept to guide their expectations of other agents' behaviour, then there is no violation of an appropriately formulated Morgan's canon in explaining tactical deception as the manipulation of belief: in such a case, we would have independent evidence that chimps have that capacity.…”

Section: Humans As Cognitive Models: Anthropomorphism and Morgan's Canonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans as model organisms

Sterelny¹

2017

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Like every other species, our species is the result of descent with modification under the influence of natural selection; a tip in an increasingly large and deep series of nested clades, as we trace its ancestry back to increasingly remote antecedents. As a consequence of shared history, our species has much in common with many others; as a consequence of its production by the general mechanisms of evolution, our species carries information about the mechanisms that shaped other species as well. For reasons unconnected to biological theory, we have far more information about humans than we do about other species. So in principle and in practice, humans should be usable as model organisms, and no one denies the truth of this for mundane physical traits, though harnessing human data for more general questions proves to be quite challenging. However, it is also true that human cognitive and behavioural characteristics, and human social groups, are apparently radically unlike those of other animals. Humans are exceptional products of evolution and perhaps that makes them an unsuitable model system for those interested in the evolution of cooperation, complex cognition, group formation, family structure, communication, cultural learning and the like. In all these respects, we are complex and extreme cases, perhaps shaped by mechanisms (like cultural evolution or group selection) that play little role in other lineages. Most of the papers in this special issue respond by rejecting or downplaying exceptionalism. I argue that it can be an advantage: understanding the human exception reveals constraints that have restricted evolutionary options in many lineages.

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“…Many of these issues are helpfully canvassed in a recent collection on Millikan, (Ryder et al 2012). 6 For an important and innovative idea on how to distinguish between these very simple systems and qualitatively more complex ones, see (Trestman 2013). 7 That said, there are many controversies about both the nature of cognitive maps and their empirical signature: see (Shettleworth 2009) for a recent survey of the ways animals come by and use spatial information.…”

Section: Representational Control Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Content, Control and Display: The Natural Origins of Content

Sterelny

2015

Philosophia

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Hutto and Satne identify three research traditions attempting to explain the place of intentional agency in a wholly natural world: naturalistic reduction; sophisticated behaviourism, and pragmatism, and suggest that insights from all three are necessary. While agreeing with that general approach, I develop a somewhat different package, offering an outline of a vindicating genealogy of our interpretative practices. I suggest that these practices had their original foundation in the elaboration of much more complex representation-guided control structures in our lineage and the support and amplification of those control structures through external resources. Cranes (as Dennett calls them) became increasingly important in the explanation of systematically successful action. These more complex representational engines coevolved with selection to detect and respond to the control structures of others. Since much of that selection was driven by the advantages of cooperation and coordination, in part these control structures were co-opted as external signals and guarantees, in cooperation and coordination. As the time depth of cooperation and co-ordination extended, these public signals of belief and intent acquired secondary functions, as mechanisms to stabilise and structure control systems, making humans not just more transparent to one another at a time, but more predictable over time. Mindshaping, not just mindreading, became increasingly important in our lineage.

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The Cambrian Explosion and the Origins of Embodied Cognition

Cited by 48 publications

References 39 publications

What insects can tell us about the origins of consciousness

What insects can tell us about the origins of consciousness

Humans as model organisms

Content, Control and Display: The Natural Origins of Content

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