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More Thumbs Than Rules: Is Rationality an Exaptation?

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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Human rationality evolved not through adaptation but exaptation, repurposing ancestral perception-action systems. This embodied rationality highlights how older neural processes were co-opted for complex reasoning in modern environments.

Keywords:
bounded rationalityembodied rationalityexaptationheuristicsneural reusespandrels

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Existing theories of bounded and ecological rationality rely on adaptationism, failing to explain the evolutionary origins of human rationality.
  • The current paradigms lack a comprehensive evolutionary framework for understanding how rationality emerged.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose an evolutionary explanation for the origins of human rationality.
  • To introduce a reconceptualization of rationality as 'embodied rationality'.

Main Methods:

  • Critically analyzing adaptationist and modular, cognitivist, and computational paradigms.
  • Proposing exaptation as a key mechanism in the evolution of rationality.
  • Developing a theoretical framework for embodied rationality based on perception-action system reuse.

Main Results:

  • Human rationality's origins are better explained by exaptation rather than solely adaptation.
  • The perception-action system, crucial in ancestral environments, was co-opted for higher-level reasoning.
  • This reuse of neural processes demonstrates a 'tinkering' evolutionary process.

Conclusions:

  • Embodied rationality, rooted in the reuse of the perception-action system, offers a novel evolutionary perspective.
  • High-level reasoning in civilized niches emerged from neural processes originally serving sensory-motor control.
  • This exaptive origin challenges traditional views and provides a new framework for studying rationality.