Eukaryotic Minds
Discussion
David Ronfeldt:
"In a way, these primal undifferentiated timn-oriented predispositions indicate the existence of a eukaryotic mind — my proposed coinage in the spirit of biologist Lynn Margulis’s identification of eukaryote cells as having “the earliest cellular architecture to provide the energetic, genomic, and organizational capacity for the subsequent evolution of complex multicellular life” (per ChatGPT). The terms eukaryote and eukaryotic stem from the ancient Greek roots eu (meaning “true” or “good”) and karyon (meaning “nut” or “kernel”), plus the suffix -ote denoting a cellular entity or organism having that characteristic (per Google AI Overview).
It’s not a pretty word, but it has served well to denote the development of an evolutionary entity — in this case, a kind of biological cell — that possesses the right kind of intermediate complexity to serve as an axial turning-point, platform, and springboard for the evolution of entities that possess far greater functionality in the future. So why let organismic cells be the only eukaryotic developments that are commonly mentioned as such? Why not add the “eukaryotic mind” to the lexicon. After all, I’m learning that biology classifies all plants and animals, including humans, as belonging to the Eukaryote Domain since they are all contain eukaryotic cells.
This is the first I’ve come up with the eukaryotic-mind idea, and the hypothesis that people started being born with eukaryotic minds (mentalities, mindsets, psyches, brains) ancient ages ago. I’ve previously proposed that space-time-agency cognitions (STAC) may exist as a module in people’s minds. Now I’m proposing that a social-relational module may also exist — in my TIMN view, a τιµν module.
[Aside: [If you’d rather use the main alternative I know about — psychological anthropologist Alan Page Fiske’s Relational Models Theory (RMT, 1993) — go ahead. But it won’t fit as well. It argues that nearly all social interactions across all cultures are constructed using four basic relational models that amount to a universal “grammar” of social relations: Communal Shareholding, Equality Matching, Authority Ranking, and Market Pricing. I’ve compared RMT to TIMN before; I see no need to rehash here. What I do want to point out is that the overlaps between RMT and TIMN compound my sudden sense that eukaryotic minds (basal social brains) exist, and that they contain a pro-social relational-dispositions module much like TIMN or RMT as one of their components.]
According to googling, no one else has used the term eukaryotic mind, nor come up with an identical idea under another term. It doesn’t appear to fit exactly with what philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists currently call (per Google AI Mode) the Theory of Mind (ToM), Social Brain framework, Social Cognitive model, or Extended Mind Hypothesis — though I see overlaps. I see better overlaps and possible synergies with the so-called Cultural Intelligence Hypotheses favored by evolutionary psychologists like Michael Tomasello — but I’ve yet to take a close look.
If the eukaryotic-mind hypothesis is worth pursuing as I sense it is, I doubt I’ll be able to do much. But I can be a bit clearer. As I see it, in keeping with Lynn Margulis’s take on eukaryotic cells, a eukaryotic mind is a base model mind, a basal pro-social mind, pre-equipped by biological and social evolution with predispositions for engaging in evermore complex social life. It is present the moment a healthy baby is born, and becomes increasingly manifest, capable, and specialized as people grow up — thereby becoming more than a eukaryotic mind. (If valid, this idea may apply not only to humans — there are lots of ancient wild animals who exhibit relational dispositions and behaviors like those I imagined for primitive folks sitting around a campfire. The eukaryotic mind may have evolutionary precedents in the minds of our wild animal ancestors.)
As I see it, a eukaryotic mind consists of modules, and works modularly, partly according to how the modules are networked together. Googling informs me “the idea that the mind is built out of specialized parts is one of the most influential and fiercely debated concepts in cognitive science, philosophy, and evolutionary psychology. This framework is known as the Modularity of Mind.” Googling also informs me that a “Massive Modularity Hypothesis” is favored by evolutionary psychologists who argue that “the entire mind — including high-level thought — is a collection of evolved modules.” Sounds agreeable to me. However, the formidable scientists behind this hypothesis (notably, Leda Cosmides & John Tooby, Stephen Pinker, and Nancy Kanwisher) reportedly favor a “Swiss Army knife” model of the mind and source it in the Stone Age part of the Pleistocene. As I see it, the eukaryotic mind has more advanced modules and better pro-social faculties; and it evolves mainly in the next geological era: the Holocene — it might even be viewed as a holonic mind or holomind."
(https://davidronfeldt.substack.com/p/origins-of-timns-cardinal-forms-in?)