Origins of Mind

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction: Exploring the Origins of Mindedness in Nature

   • Liz Swan

   Pages 1-17

3. Biosemiotics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

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4. BIOSEMIOTICS

   1. Organic Codes and the Natural History of Mind

      • Marcello Barbieri

      Pages 21-52

   2. The Descent of Humanity: The Biological Roots of Human Consciousness, Culture and History

      • Angelo N. M. Recchia-Luciani

      Pages 53-84

   3. From Non-minds to Minds: Biosemantics and the Tertium Quid

      • Crystal L’Hôte

      Pages 85-95

   4. Cybersemiotics: A New Foundation for a Transdisciplinary Theory of Consciousness, Cognition, Meaning and Communication

      • Soren Brier

      Pages 97-126

5. Mental Representation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 127-127

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6. MENTAL REPRESENTATION

   1. The Emergence of Empathy in the Context of Cross-Species Mind Reading

      • John Sarnecki

      Pages 129-142

   2. The Evolution of Scenario Visualization and the Early Hominin Mind

      • Robert Arp

      Pages 143-159

   3. Representation in Biological Systems: Teleofunction, Etiology, and Structural Preservation

      • Michael Nair-Collins

      Pages 161-185

   4. Beyond Embodiment: From Internal Representation of Action to Symbolic Processes

      • Isabel Barahona da Fonseca, Jose Barahona da Fonseca, Vitor Pereira

      Pages 187-199

7. Consciousness

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 201-201

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8. CONSCIOUSNESS

   1. Imitation, Skill Learning, and Conceptual Thought: An Embodied, Developmental Approach

      • Ellen Fridland

      Pages 203-224

   2. Evolving Consciousness: The Very Idea!

      • James H. Fetzer

      Pages 225-242

   3. Mind or Mechanism: Which Came First?

      • Teed Rockwell

      Pages 243-258

   4. Origins of the Qualitative Aspects of Consciousness: Evolutionary Answers to Chalmers’ Hard Problem

      • Jonathan Y. Tsou

      Pages 259-269

9. Philosophy of Mind

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 271-271

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10. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND

    1. Neuropragmatism on the Origins of Conscious Minding

       • Tibor Solymosi

       Pages 273-287

    2. Not So Exceptional: Away from Chomskian Saltationism and Towards a Naturally Gradual Account of Mindfulness

       • Andrew M. Winters, Alex Levine

       Pages 289-299

The big question of how and why mindedness evolved necessitates collaborative, multidisciplinary investigation. Biosemiotics provides a new conceptual space that attracts a multitude of thinkers in the biological and cognitive sciences and the humanities who recognize continuity in the biosphere from the simplest to the most complex organisms, and who are united in the project of trying to account for even language and human consciousness in this comprehensive picture of life. The young interdiscipline of biosemiotics has so far by and large focused on codes, signs and sign processes in the microworld—a fact that reflects the field’s strong representation in microbiology and embryology. What philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists can contribute to the growing interdiscipline are insights into how the biosemiotic weltanschauung applies to complex organisms like humans where such signs and sign processes constitute human society and culture.

• Evolution
• Human
• Mind
• Origins
• Philosophy

From the reviews:

“The chapters provide one of the best explorations of mind-as-process in an age where only empirical phenomena exist, i.e., where there are no extra-empirical things (naturalism). This wide-ranging exploration of an increasingly influential approach to understanding the meaning of ‘mind’ will interest philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and cognitive scientists. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.” (R. Paul Thompson, Choice, Vol. 50 (11), August, 2013)

• Longmont, USA

  Liz Swan

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