Bednarik The Human Condition

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4419-9353-3
Verlag: Springer US
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 220 Seiten

Reihe: Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects

This book summarizes the work of several decades, culminating in a revolutionary model of recent human evolution. It challenges current consensus views fundamentally, presenting in its support a mass of evidence, much of which has never been assembled before. This evidence derives primarily from archaeology, paleoanthropology, genetics, clinical psychology, neurosciences, linguistics and cognitive sciences. No even remotely similar thesis of recent human origins has ever been published, but some of the key elements of this book have been published by the author in major refereed journals in the last two years. Its implications are far-reaching and profoundly affect the way we perceive ourselves as a species. This book about what it means to be human is heavily referenced, with a bibliography of many hundreds of scientific entries.

Robert G. Bednarik, born in Vienna but an Australian since 1970, contradicts norms. He has undertaken numerous expeditions crossing the sea on rafts built with stone tools, but he cannot swim; he has produced 1165 academic publications, including many books, but has no formal education; he edits three scientific journals and two series of monographs, but not in his native language. As a complete autodidact, he regards himself as ignorant as did Socrates. Consequently his principal interest is the origin of the human ability to create constructs of reality, and in a wide variety of fields providing supplementary information in that quest.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bednarik, Robert G.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Foreword;6
2;Preface;10
3;Acknowledgments;15
4;Contents;16
5;1 A Little Epistemology;18
5.1; Prolegomenon;18
5.2; Anthropocentric Realities;22
5.3; The Role of Archaeology;25
5.4; The "Mother of All Modern Humans";28
5.5; Archaeological Fetishes;33
5.6;References;37
6;2 The Expulsion of Eve;41
6.1; Reviewing the Corpus in Question;41
6.2; The African Exodus;50
6.3; Tools and Cultures;56
6.4;References;61
7;3 The Hard Evidence;72
7.1; Investigating Iconicity;72
7.2; Paleoart of the Lower Paleolithic;77
7.2.1; Pigment;77
7.2.2; Petroglyphs;79
7.2.3; Proto-figurines;82
7.2.4; Portable Engravings;85
7.2.5; Beads and Pendants;88
7.3; Two Incommensurable Models;90
7.4; Toward a Universal Theory;95
7.5;References;100
8;4 Seafaring, Beads and External Hard Drives;106
8.1; Heroes of the Dreamtime;106
8.2; The First Mariners Project;110
8.3; Bringing Beads to the Natives;118
8.4; Academic Tyranny;122
8.5; The Big Bang of Consciousness;127
8.6;References;130
9;5 An Alternative Paradigm;135
9.1; A Sense of Perfection;135
9.2; The Domestication of Humans;141
9.3; The Fetalization of Humans;147
9.4; The Pain of a New Idea;151
9.5;References;155
10;6 The Big Picture;159
10.1; A Preamble;159
10.2; The Human Ascent;162
10.3; Theory of Mind, Language, and Exograms;168
10.4; Ontogenic Plasticity and Neoteny;173
10.5;References;178
11;7 Advanced Human Cognition: A Faustian Deal;184
11.1; A Little Neuroscience;184
11.2; The Susceptibility of the Human Brain to Illness;188
11.3; The Great Paradox of Recent Human Evolution;193
11.4; Assembling the Puzzle Correctly;197
11.5; Becoming Human;201
11.6; The Human Condition;204
11.7;References;206
12;Index;214