Imagining the self: An evolutionary excursion

Abstract

Organisms increase adaptive efficiency - and reduce entropy - by extracting information from the environment. In addition to relying on direct sensory information, humans have developed the ability to form images based on sensory input, thereby extending their capacity to model external conditions. A further advance is reached when images become detached from their sources in direct experience, and are created and manipulated internally in the mind - at which point we enter the realm of imagination. Imagination expands the open systemic dimension of the organism enormously, by allowing the mind to operate on data that need not be materially available. The ‘evolutionary explosion’ of the Upper Paleolithic seems to have been a high point in the transfer of information, mediated by visual images, that provided the basis for the development of writing and other forms of extra-somatic memory. One of the most important and interesting classes of data represents images of human beings and their inner states. Hunters, warriors, priests, rulers and saints have been depicted or described in song and verse as models for humanity to fear or to aspire to. The idealized portraits of women and children have served to instill meekness and obedience. The present study will focus on images of the optimally functioning human organism as represented in various media and in different cultures. This image seems to describe a negentropic state of involvement, control of mental and physical states, yet unselfconscious participation in systems of greater complexity. The evolutionary implications of this image will be explored.