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The Co-Evolution of Consciousness and Language and the Development of Memetic Equilibrium (by Christopher W. diCarlo)
Abstract: We now have significant evidence indicating many of the evolutionary constraints that contributed to the transitional phases through which hominins evolved cognitively from pre-conscious to gradually increasingly conscious states. With the co-evolution of language and consciousness, our ancestors were able to better understand relationships in terms of causality, morality, and mortality. And this is where we begin to see the incorporation of more and more memes into emerging and developing cultures. I will attempt to demonstrate that the acceptance of memes will deviate from individual, kin or group biological equilibrium if the perceived benefit of the meme(s) is intended to increase S-R value. With the emergence of sophisticated languages and consciousness, there arose an intimate and powerful connection between the memes of any particular individual, kin or group and their biological equilibrium. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/51
The Proclivities of Particularity and Generality (by Stephen P. Smith)
Abstract: The proclivities of particularity and generality describe a polarity, held together by a naked emotionality that signifies a felt middle-term. This polarity indicates a type of circular reasoning, and can endlessly oscillate due to an equivocation that confuses particularity with generality that may block emotional energies and prevent resolution. Deduction and induction represent the same polarity, as does the frequentist and Bayesian interpretations of statistics. Reintroducing emotion back into logic returns an intuitionist logic and grammar, and this permits the resolution of felt tension. This intuitionism is tied to a time-sense that oscillates between foresight (to particularity) and hindsight (to generality). Emotionality is found relating to causation, agreeing with A.N. Whitehead. It is hypothesized that the intuitionist logic provides a universal grammar, or a vitalistic organizing principle, that has impacted on biological evolution. This agrees with panpsychism and panentheism. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/55
From Dust to Descartes: My Thoughts on Various Aspects of Consciousness (by Micul E. Thompson)
Abstract: This short essay attempts to demonstrate how subjective experience, language, and consciousness can be explained in terms of abilities we share with the simplest of creatures, specifically the ability to detect, react to, and associate various aspects of the world. http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/9
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