57
The convergence of disciplines upon a period some 40,000 years ago in early
human history shows all of the same signs of a genus (Homo) splitting into subgroups, both sociologically and physically, that are apparent today. That differentiation may be minute, something in the gut, or the jaw, or amount of hair; a dietary
shift going into its third sequential generation; even subtle dialect drifts, abbreviations that become normal. Whatever the physical manifestations of a twin human
species, there are moral components that do not fully share an existence until their
convictions are challenged. The Anthropocene is a marathon test like no other.
Terrence W. Deacon, in his vast approach to problems of consciousness, wherein
these tests, proclivities, and their thresholds are borne out, asserts three classic hurdles in the history of (human) philosophy that are germane to both the nature of
language and the quintessential dilemmas confronted by any form of introspection.
Deacon explores “the binding problem,” “the grounding problem,” and “the problem of ‘agency’ ”.
5
Such epical hurdles involve the unlikely emergence of the apperceptive faculties and their compliance with subjective, unified experiences of
consciousness, self-consciousness, and every aspect of evolution as it pushes and
stretches our inner being linguistically, conceptually, and in every other arena
involving efforts to understand what is happening in ourselves, in the worlds around
us, and in their myriad interfaces.
Those transitional zones in which inner and outer natures collide, coalesce, or do
things differently comprise the uncertain weather at the heart of each odyssey of
sentience and, for all we know, other-than-sentience. At once, nothing is as it seems,
and everything is precisely as it seems. Our choices of approbation or resistance are
lodged somewhere between computational ecology, statistics, several pathways of
normative ethics, probability theories within biology, physics, and mathematics.
From Asian palm civets (Paradoxurus) and the Australian water mole
(Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus—the —platypus, one of three “paradoxical” species
painted by the artist Joseph Wolf), to large trilobites of the middle CambrianParadoxidian, of the family Paroxididae, the fossils of the Stockingford Shales in
the UK, being most famed, particularly the Lyell Collection. All are of a paradox
(Fig. 7.2).
And like all paradox, something happens counter-intuitively, ironically, against
the grain. In the case of the mammalian monotremes—like Joseph Wolf’s platypus—lack of teeth as adults, and the development of electrolocation are just a few
of their rare and counter-intuitive physiological qualities. But the root of paradox
isn’t supposed to emerge as the word itself suggests it does; the collapse of a species, for example, that had up until a certain breaking-point, has been fortunate in
finding excess food sources. Or the 73,000-year-old abstraction painted in ochre,
probably with a crayon-like tool, on to a tiny piece of rock and discovered in the
also, “Scientists are reconstructing the relationship between modern humans and Neanderthals,”
by Klaus Wilhelm, Max Planck Society, June 14, 2017, PhysOrg, https://phys.org/news/201706-scientists-reconstructing-relationship-modern-humans.html.
5 The Symbolic Species – The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain, Terrence W. Deacon, W. W.
Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 1997, pp. 438–439.
7.1 Quagmires of Consciousness
The convergence of disciplines upon a period some 40,000 years ago in early
human history shows all of the same signs of a genus (Homo) splitting into subgroups, both sociologically and physically, that are apparent today. That differentiation may be minute, something in the gut, or the jaw, or amount of hair; a dietary
shift going into its third sequential generation; even subtle dialect drifts, abbreviations that become normal. Whatever the physical manifestations of a twin human
species, there are moral components that do not fully share an existence until their
convictions are challenged. The Anthropocene is a marathon test like no other.
Terrence W. Deacon, in his vast approach to problems of consciousness, wherein
these tests, proclivities, and their thresholds are borne out, asserts three classic hurdles in the history of (human) philosophy that are germane to both the nature of
language and the quintessential dilemmas confronted by any form of introspection.
Deacon explores “the binding problem,” “the grounding problem,” and “the problem of ‘agency’ ”.
5
Such epical hurdles involve the unlikely emergence of the apperceptive faculties and their compliance with subjective, unified experiences of
consciousness, self-consciousness, and every aspect of evolution as it pushes and
stretches our inner being linguistically, conceptually, and in every other arena
involving efforts to understand what is happening in ourselves, in the worlds around
us, and in their myriad interfaces.
Those transitional zones in which inner and outer natures collide, coalesce, or do
things differently comprise the uncertain weather at the heart of each odyssey of
sentience and, for all we know, other-than-sentience. At once, nothing is as it seems,
and everything is precisely as it seems. Our choices of approbation or resistance are
lodged somewhere between computational ecology, statistics, several pathways of
normative ethics, probability theories within biology, physics, and mathematics.
From Asian palm civets (Paradoxurus) and the Australian water mole
(Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus—the —platypus, one of three “paradoxical” species
painted by the artist Joseph Wolf), to large trilobites of the middle CambrianParadoxidian, of the family Paroxididae, the fossils of the Stockingford Shales in
the UK, being most famed, particularly the Lyell Collection. All are of a paradox
(Fig. 7.2).
And like all paradox, something happens counter-intuitively, ironically, against
the grain. In the case of the mammalian monotremes—like Joseph Wolf’s platypus—lack of teeth as adults, and the development of electrolocation are just a few
of their rare and counter-intuitive physiological qualities. But the root of paradox
isn’t supposed to emerge as the word itself suggests it does; the collapse of a species, for example, that had up until a certain breaking-point, has been fortunate in
finding excess food sources. Or the 73,000-year-old abstraction painted in ochre,
probably with a crayon-like tool, on to a tiny piece of rock and discovered in the
also, “Scientists are reconstructing the relationship between modern humans and Neanderthals,”
by Klaus Wilhelm, Max Planck Society, June 14, 2017, PhysOrg, https://phys.org/news/201706-scientists-reconstructing-relationship-modern-humans.html.
5 The Symbolic Species – The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain, Terrence W. Deacon, W. W.
Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 1997, pp. 438–439.
7.1 Quagmires of Consciousness