Abstract
Taking advantage of Denis Noble’s description, in “The Illusions of the Modern Synthesis” of the first illusion, related to the concept of natural selection itself, I will further strengthen the criticism by adding three groups of considerations mainly concerning human cognition: 1) how semiotic brains build cognitive niches; 2) the role of abduction – and in particular of manipulative abduction – in building a semiotic artificial world; 3) the biosemiotics of the so-called disembodiment of the mind. Human semiotic brains are engaged in a continuous process of delegation and distribution of cognitive functions to the environment to lessen cognitive limitations, also and especially taking advantage of what I have called “manipulative abduction”. These design semiotic activities are closely related to the process of cognitive niche construction, which should be regarded as the second major participant, after natural selection, in evolution. An important effect of this semiotic brain activity is a continuous process of disembodiment of the mind that exhibits a new cognitive perspective on the mechanisms underlying the semiotic emergence of meaning processes.
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Notes
I have to note that in this commentary the word “extragenetic” does not include epigenetic elements.
In my studies I always stressed the role played by abductive reasoning in human and non-human animal cognition (Magnani 2001, 2009, 2017). Conjectures can be either the result of an abductive selection in a set of pre-stored hypotheses (selective abduction, for example in medical diagnosis) or the creation of new ones (creative abduction) such as in the case of scientific discovery.
Cf. Laland and Brown (2006).
I have fully analyzed this issue in (Magnani 2007c).
On this interplay and the role of external representations as material anchors in the light of the so-called conceptual blends see the classical (Hutchins 2005).
A detailed description of the example regarding the building of the carving of a supernatural being is illustrated in Magnani (2009).
On this issue cf. (Magnani 2018).
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Magnani, L. Semiotic Brains Build Cognitive Niches. Biosemiotics 14, 41–48 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-021-09416-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-021-09416-0