Evolutionary psychologists claim that the mind contains “hundreds or thousands” of “genetically specified” modules, which are evolutionary adaptations for their cognitive functions. We argue that, while the adult human mind/brain typically contains a degree of modularization, its “modules” are neither genetically specified nor evolutionary adaptations. Rather, they result from the brain’s developmental plasticity, which allows environmental task demands a large role in shaping the brain’s information-processing structures. The brain’s developmental plasticity is our fundamental psychological adaptation, and the “modules” that result (...) from it are adaptive responses to local conditions, not past evolutionary environments. If different individuals share common environ- ments, however, they may develop similar “modules,” and this process can mimic the development of genetically specified modules in the evolutionary psychologist’s sense. (shrink)

The need for representations and computations over their contents in psychological explanations is often cited as both the mark of the genuinely cognitive and a source of skepticism about the reducibility of cognitive theories to neuroscience. A generic version of this anti-reductionist argument is rejected in this paper as unsound, since (i) current thinking about associative learning emphasizes the need for cognitivist resources in theories adequate to explain even the simplest form of this phenomena (Pavlovian conditioning), and yet (ii) the (...) most widely accepted recent theory of associative learning, which utilizes cognitivist resources, has already been reduced to a purely neurophysiological account. Psychoneural reduction of genuinely cognitivist theories is thus already an accomplished scientific fact, despite pronouncements by anti-reductionists about its conceptual impossibility or empirical implausibility. In addition, the specific form of reduction involved in this case (“combinatorial” reduction) provides a promising model for further cognitivist-to-neuroscience theory reductions. (shrink)

Pains that persist long after damaged tissue hasrecovered remain a perplexing phenomenon. Theseso-called chronic pains serve no useful function foran organism and, given its disabling effects, mighteven be considered maladaptive. However, a remarkablesimilarity exists between the neural bases thatunderlie the hallmark symptoms of chronic pain andthose that subserve learning and memory. Bothphenomena, wind-up in the pain literature andlong-term potentiation (LTP) in the learning andmemory literature, are forms of neuroplasticity inwhich increased neural activity leads to a longlasting increase in the excitability (...) of neuronsthrough structural modifications at pre- andpost-synaptic sites. Moreover, the synapticmodifications of wind-up and LTP share a commonmechanism: a glutamate N -methyl-D-aspartate(NMDA) receptor interaction that initiates a calciummediated biochemical cascade that ultimately enhancessignal processing at the -amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazoleproprionic acid (AMPA) receptor. This paper arguesthat chronic pain, which has no adaptive value, canbe accounted for in terms of the highly adaptivephenomenon of activity-dependent neural plasticity;hence, some cases of chronic pain can beconceptualized as a memory trace in spinal neurons. (shrink)

It has been 35 years since the publicationMelzack and Wall's Gate Control Theory whichhypothesized that nociceptive information wassubject to dynamic regulation by mechanismslocated in the spinal cord dorsal horn thatcould ultimately lead to hyperalgesic orhypoalgesic states. This paper examines GateControl Theory in light of our currentunderstanding of the neuroanatomical,neurophysiological and neurochemical substratesof nociception and antinociception. Despiteits initial controversies, no one has proposeda more comprehensive overall theory of painmodulation or has successfully refuted most ofthe basic tenets of this theory.

A number of philosophers and ‘evolutionary psychologists’ have argued that attacks on adaptationism in contemporary biology are misguided. These thinkers identify anti-adaptationism with advocacy of non-adaptive modes of explanation. They overlook the influence of anti-adaptationism in the development of more rigorous forms of adaptive explanation. Many biologists who reject adaptationism do not reject Darwinism. Instead, they have pioneered the contemporary historical turn in the study of adaptation. One real issue which remains unresolved amongst these methodological advances is the nature of (...) ‘phylogenetic inertia’. To what extent is an adaptive explanation needed for the persistence of a trait as well as its origin? (shrink)

Owen Flanagan argues that we are on the way to understanding consciousness and its place in the natural order.

This book asks whether evolution can help us to understand human behaviour and explores diverse evolutionary methods and arguments. It provides a short, readable introduction to the science behind the works of Dawkins, Dennett, Wilson and Pinker. It is widely used in undergraduate courses around the world.

A provocative assessment of human thought and behavior, reissued with a new afterword, explores a range of conundrums from the ability of the mind to perceive three dimensions to the nature of consciousness, in an account that draws on ...

(From the Press's Website) -/- Winner of the 2004 Lakatos Prize, Thought in a Hostile World is an exploration of the evolution of cognition, especially human cognition, by one of today's foremost philosophers of biology and of mind. Features an exploration of the evolution of human cognition. Written by one of today’s foremost philosophers of mind and language. Presents a set of analytic tools for thinking about cognition and its evolution. Offers a critique of nativist, modular versions of evolutionary psychology, (...) rejecting the example of language as a model for thinking about human cognitive capacities. Applies to the areas of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and evolutionary psychology. -/- . (shrink)

This book is perhaps the first to open a dialogue between the two disciplines.

Jerry Fodor argues against the widely held view that mental processes are largely computations, that the architecture of cognition is massively modular, and...

Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors-...