billyjane m's Profile

American

unidentified food

he Kodak camera was the invention of
an American, George Eastman (1854-1932).
It was a simple, leather-covered wooden
box – small and light enough to be held
in the hands. Taking a photograph with
the Kodak was very easy, requiring only
three simple actions; turning the key
(to wind on the film); pulling the
string (to set the shutter); and
pressing the button (to take the
photograph). There wasn’t even a
viewfinder - the camera was simply
pointed in the direction of the subject
to be photographed. The Kodak produced
circular snapshots, two and a half
inches in diameter.

In other words, evolutionary psychology is a paradigm that will allow us to understand the mind. Moreover, it is a paradigm designed to replace the naive paradigm that has dominated the psychological sciences since the days of William James. The paradigm approaches problems of the mind with 5 principles, which Cosmides and Tooby claim come from biology:

Principle 1. The brain is a physical system. It functions as a computer. Its circuits are designed to generate behavior that is appropriate to your environmental circumstances.

Principle 2. Our neural circuits were designed by natural selection to solve problems that our ancestors faced during our species' evolutionary history.

Principle 3. Consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg; most of what goes on in your mind is hidden from you. As a result, your conscious experience can mislead you into thinking that our circuitry is simpler that it really is. Most problems that you experience as easy to solve are very difficult to solve -- they require very complicated neural circuitry.

Principle 4. Different neural circuits are specialized for solving different adaptive problems.

Principle 5. Our modern skulls house a stone age mind.