In the Light of Evolution VII: The Human Mental Machinery
Organized by Camilo J. Cela-Conde, Raúl Gutiérrez Lombardo, John C. Avise and Francisco J. Ayala
Co-sponsored by Centro de Estudios Filosóficos Políticos y Sociales Vicente Lombardo Toledano
This meeting was held January 10-12, 2013 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, CA.
Overview
Scholars consider a comment in Charles Darwin’s Notebook C to be one of his first insights into human nature. As Darwin noted, our mental machinery makes us different. For instance, it allows us to ask about ourselves, about what a human is. It allows us to question what we are and the meaning of the way we are. One thing we have discovered is that humans possess certain unique mental traits. Ethic and aesthetic values are among them, and they constitute an essential part of what we call the human condition. This Colloquium brought together leading scientists who have worked on several aspects of human morals and aesthetics considered as mental traits, their evolution, and their relationship with related behaviors in other primates.
Agenda
Talks were recorded and links will be updated here as videos become approved and available.
Friday, January 11
I. Theory of Mind
Theory of Mind: Darwin’s legacy, John Searle, University of California, Berkeley
Human mind and brain – pathological evidence, Robert E. Clark, University of California, San Diego
Theory of Mind in Other Primates, Robert M. Seyfarth, University of Pennsylvania
II. Cognition
Evolution of Working Memory, Peter Carruthers, University of Maryland
The evolution of episodic memory, Norbert Fortin, University of California, Irvine
Natural Basis of Cognition, Terrence J. Sejnowski, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Human and Animal Consciousness, Michael T. Alkire, University of California, Irvine
Co-Evolution: Culture, mind and brain, Chet C. Sherwood, George Washington University
Keynote Address
Unusual and Exceptional Capacities of the Human Mind, James L. McGaugh, University of California, Irvine
Saturday, January 12
III. Evolving Piece by Piece: Levels of Modularity in Neurobiology
Neuronal Networks of the Moral Judgment, Patricia Churchland, University of California, San Diego
Pathological Altruism, Barbara A. Oakley, Oakland University
Theory of Justice in Non-Human Primates, Sarah F. Brosnan, Georgia State University
Evolutionary Dynamics of Altruism, Martin Nowak, Harvard University
Human and Animal Neuroeconomics, Michael Platt, Duke University
IV. Aesthetics
Music and the Brain, Robert Zatorre, Montreal Neurological Institute
Aesthetic and Ethnic Emotions, Oshin Vartanian, University of Toronto, Scarborough
Aesthetic Perception: Mind and Brain , Camilo J. Cela-Conde, University of the Baleares Islands, Spain
