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These are excerpts and elaborations from my book "The Nature of Consciousness"
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Mental Darwinism These ideas all point in the
same direction, towards a Darwinian picture of consciousness. The US neurophysiologist William
Calvinhas put forth a theory called "mental Darwinism" that
neatly abstracts this view. Just like the immune system
and the evolution of species are driven by natural selection, mental life too
is driven by natural selection. A Darwinian process in the brain finds the best
thought from the many that are produced continuously. Thoughts evolve
subconsciously. As Carl Jungsaid, dreaming occurs all the
time but we can't see them when we are awake. Calvin's emphasis is on
movement: ultimately, what we think is for the sake of action. We need to move
in the world and the mind is one tool to determine the most efficient way to do
that. Far from being merely combinations of sensations and memories, thoughts
are movements that haven't happened yet. To explain how this works,
Calvin has introduced the concept of a "cerebral code". Cerebral code
is the equivalent of the genetic code: it allows for reproduction and selection
of thoughts. A cerebral code copies itself repeatedly around a region of the
brain, in a manner similar to DonaldHebb's cell assemblies. Thought arises from the copying and competition of
cerebral codes. Our actual thought is simply the dominant pattern in the copying
competition. The brain is an evolutionary system. The brain is what Calvin
calls a "DarwinMachine". He has shown that circuits
in the cerebral cortex act as copying machines, but they copy in a Darwinian
fashion, introducing mistakes that continuously create variants. Such variants
then compete for cortex space. Calvin claims to have found in the brain all
Darwinian algorithms for evolution, and even the catalysts that speed up
evolution, i.e. the equivalents of sex, island settings and climate change. Back to the beginning of the chapter "Consciousness: the Factory of Illusions" | Back to the index of all chapters |
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