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A review by miklosha
The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains by Joseph LeDoux
5.0
This book is really two sections, divided in to several essay like chapters that cover first the early evolutionary history of uni and multicellular organisms, leading to primates and humans. The second section covers cognition, emotion, language, consciousness, and other aspects of human behavior that LeDoux compelling argues are specific to human alone. He details his own work in affective systems and emotions, particularly fear, and how it works within the larger cognitive and brain systems.
He ultimately connects the two sections by arguing that what connects humans and other non human primates, mammals, and others in the animal kingdom are not these higher order processes mentioned above, but rather the basic building blocks of our physiology and biology. It may seem commonsensical, but it's crucial, he says, to help us avoid anthropomorphizing our non human kin and to better understand the evolutionary roots of our behavior and selves.
It's an incredible read and offers alot to both lay and more seasoned readers in cognitive and evolutionary science.
He ultimately connects the two sections by arguing that what connects humans and other non human primates, mammals, and others in the animal kingdom are not these higher order processes mentioned above, but rather the basic building blocks of our physiology and biology. It may seem commonsensical, but it's crucial, he says, to help us avoid anthropomorphizing our non human kin and to better understand the evolutionary roots of our behavior and selves.
It's an incredible read and offers alot to both lay and more seasoned readers in cognitive and evolutionary science.