Prace komisji nauk.pdf - Instytut Filologii Angielskiej Uniwersytetu ...

y starting and by performing a suitable abductive process of generation or
selection of hypotheses.
In one of the following sections I will describe how manipulative abduction
can nicely account for the relationship between meaningful behavior and dynamical
interactions with the environment. The following sections illustrate that at the roots
of the creation of new meanings there is a process of disembodiment of mind that
exhibits a new cognitive description of the mechanisms underling the emergence of
meaning processes through semiotic delegations to the environment.
3. Prehistoric Brains and Universal Machines
I have said that what I call semiotic brains are brains that make up a series of signs
and that are engaged in making or manifesting or reacting to a series of signs:
through this semiotic activity they are at the same time engaged in “being minds”
and so in thinking intelligently. In this section I will illustrate the process of
“disembodiment of mind” as an important aspect of this semiotic activity of brains.
Following Turing’s point of view (Turing 1949) a big cortex can provide an
evolutionary advantage only in presence of a massive storage of meaningful
information and knowledge on external supports that only an already developed
small community of human beings can possess. Evidence from paleoanthropology
seems to support this perspective. Some research (Mithen 1996, 1999; Humphrey,
2002; Lewis-Williams 2002) in cognitive paleoanthropology – even if rather
speculative - teaches us that high level and reflective consciousness in terms of
thoughts about our own thoughts and about our feelings (that is consciousness not
merely considered as raw sensation) is intertwined with the development of modern
language (speech) and material culture. After 250 000 years ago several hominid
species had brains as large as ours today, but their behavior lacked any sign of art
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