I like how this builds from handedness to the capacity to imagine other minds…
Beneficent spiral
Research at Newcastle University points to a possible source for a particular recursive ability in the human mind: our skill at conceiving of the minds of others.
“What we suggest is that the hemispheres of the brain, as they become very different from one another in function, and take on different jobs … in a sense, we get the hemispheres acting as parallel mirrors,” says Rachael Bailes, a cognitive scientist who studies evolutionary linguistics.
“If my left hemisphere can represent my right hemisphere, it can also represent yours,” Bailes adds. “That’s when things take off in this beneficent spiral of representing others.”
Rachael Bailes featured on the CBC Ideas program
The Recurring Case of ‘Recursion’: a pattern for making sense of the world
And so for day 2469
16.09.2013