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viernes, 14 de agosto de 2026

The Three Revolutions of the Mind: Our Species' Cognitive Journey According to Merlin Donald

Bernabé Mallo

Doctor en Filosofía por la Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU)
Investigador en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte. / PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
Researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origins of art.

A review of Merlin Donald's book (1991): Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition

Introduction: the definitive question

How did the human mind acquire its incomparable power? This question, which Merlin Donald considers the "definitive question" of the life sciences, runs through his work Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition, published in 1991 . Donald, professor of psychology and cognitive neuroscience at Queen's University (Canada) and later at Case Western Reserve University, proposes in this book an original theory of the evolution of human cognition that has profoundly influenced neuroanthropology and evolutionary psychology.

Donald's central thesis is that the human mind is not the product of a single evolutionary leap, but of three radical cognitive transitions that have taken place over the last two million years . Each of these transitions has endowed our species with a new system for representing reality and a new form of culture. The result is a hybrid mental architecture, composed of vestiges of earlier biological stages and new external symbolic devices that have radically altered its organisation.

Donald's proposal sits at the intersection of palaeontology, linguistics, anthropology, cognitive science, and, most relevantly, neuropsychology. His approach emphasises cognition as the mediator between brain and culture, in an iterative loop in which changes at one level reverberate through the others. This perspective connects directly with the interests of our research, which seeks to understand art as an emergent phenomenon of the interaction between biology, cognition, and social environment.

The first transition: mimetic culture

The first great cognitive transition, according to Donald, took place with the appearance of Homo erectus, approximately two million years ago . At this time, our ancestors acquired mimetic skill: the capacity to represent knowledge through voluntary motor acts, deliberately and systematically.

Mimesis is, in Donald's words, the "key adaptation" that initiated the human journey . It is not the simple imitation that we also find in other primates, but a much more sophisticated capacity: that of rehearsing and refining body movements, remembering those rehearsals, and reproducing them on demand . This ability allowed early hominins to create pre-linguistic representations of reality through gestures, rituals, dances, and crafts.

Evidence for this capacity is found in the very existence of very ancient stone tools, which cannot be manufactured without the capacity for systematic rehearsal and without the ability to imagine an idealised execution. As Donald notes, Palaeolithic toolmakers learned their skills in the same way modern humans do: by imagining their executions in a social context and representing them as dramatic scenarios.

Mimetic culture has several crucial consequences. First, it profoundly modifies the primate mind, giving rise to what Donald calls "mimetic imagination": the capacity to imagine and modify one's own actions . Second, it transforms culture, creating a shared performance space where roles can be enacted and rehearsed . This culture of performance and stagecraft remains alive today in sport, ritual, and the performing arts.

The second transition: mythic culture

The second cognitive transition coincides with the development of spoken language, probably in the early populations of Homo sapiens . Mimetic capacity served as a preadaptation for this development, providing the foundation for symbolic communication.

With language, humans acquired the capacity to represent reality through words, to construct narratives, to transmit complex knowledge from generation to generation. This transition gave rise to "mythic" culture, characterised by storytelling, the creation of myths, and the construction of shared cosmologies. Mythic culture enabled our species to develop complex pre-literate societies, which still survive in many parts of the world.

The importance of language in this process cannot be overstated. As Donald notes, the properties of brain, culture, and cognition have co-evolved in a "tight iterative loop", where the main event of human evolution has occurred at the cognitive level, mediating change at the anatomical and cultural levels. Language, by enabling the transmission of symbolic information, accelerated this co-evolutionary process.

The third transition: symbolic and technological culture

The third and final transition, which Donald places at the development of writing and external symbolic systems (cuneiform, hieroglyphics, alphabets, mathematics), represented an even more radical change than the previous ones . With the invention of these systems, human biological memory became an inadequate vehicle for storing and processing collective knowledge.

This is the moment when our species began to externalise its memory. External symbols —engraved in stone, written on papyri, printed in books— became a new type of "storage device" that exponentially expanded the mind's capacity to retain and manipulate information . Symbolic literacy, according to Donald, consists of the complex set of skills necessary to interact with this external memory system.

The most profound consequence of this transition is that the architecture of human memory has been altered. We no longer need to store all information in our biological memory; we can delegate part of that load to the external system. This has changed the way the human brain deploys its resources and, with it, the shape of modern culture.

Donald notes that this transition is far from complete. Computer technology intensifies the changes initiated by writing, offering even more extensive capacities for external storage and retrieval of information . His observation, formulated in 1991, is even more relevant in the age of artificial intelligence and virtual reality.

The hybrid mind: vestiges and new devices

One of Donald's most original contributions is his conception of the modern mind as a hybrid structure. We have not abandoned the capacities of earlier stages; we have integrated them. The modern mind contains vestiges of mimetic cognition (in dance, ritual, sport), of linguistic cognition (in language and narrative), and of external symbolic cognition (in reading, writing, and mathematical thinking).

This hybrid architecture is revealed, according to Donald, in the way the mind breaks down after brain injury. The independence of the three representational systems —mimetic, linguistic, and external symbolic— suggests that they are supported by distinct, though interconnected, neural mechanisms.

Furthermore, Donald notes that humans are "symbol-using creatures", but that the symbol is not a fixed mental module. It is the product of an inventive capacity that unfolds in the social sphere . Each of the three systems is based on an inventive capacity, and the products of those capacities —languages, symbols, gestures, rituals, images— continue to be invented and evaluated on the social stage.

Parallels with the S/Y/C model: an integrative reading

Donald's theory and the S/Y/C model of neuronal functioning that forms the core of our research (Mallo, 2023, 2025, 2026a, 2026b) converge on several fundamental points, despite starting from different disciplines and levels of analysis. While Donald traces cognitive evolution through cultural transitions, our proposal focuses on the single function of the nervous system. This convergence is not coincidental: both perspectives point to the same reality, that of a species that has been weaving its mind over time, integrating successive layers of capacities.

The S (Survival) dimension finds its evolutionary correlate in Donald's mimetic culture. The capacity to rehearse and refine actions, to imagine idealised executions, is a tool of adaptation that improves the ability of human groups to obtain resources, process food, make tools, and ultimately survive. Mimetic culture, as Donald notes, is the platform on which all complex performance, including language, has been built . Palaeolithic stone tools, which cannot be manufactured without the capacity for systematic rehearsal, are a testament to this adaptation . The neuronal function we call S is not an abstraction: it is the biological basis that made possible the development of mimetic capacity.

The Y (Symbolon) dimension is illuminated by the second transition, that of language and mythic culture. Language is symbolon par excellence: a system of shared codes that enables mutual recognition, the transmission of meaning, and the construction of symbolic worlds. Mythic culture, with its stories and cosmologies, is a manifestation of the human capacity to create symbols that transcend immediate experience. Palaeolithic cave art, which Donald situates within the context of mythic culture, is an expression of this symbolic capacity. Y is not, therefore, a cultural add-on, but the manifestation of a neuronal function that is activated and developed within the context of culture.

The C (Wholeness) dimension manifests in the third transition, that of external symbolic systems. Writing, mathematics, and external storage systems are tools for closing forms, for creating coherent totalities from fragments of information. The drive toward wholeness, which in art manifests as the need to create finished works, extends here to the entire domain of knowledge. External symbolic systems allow us to construct cognitive totalities that transcend the capacities of individual biological memory. C is, in this sense, the impulse that leads us to complete and close circuits of meaning, whether in a work of art or in a system of knowledge.

Donald does not use our language, but his description of the three cognitive transitions points in the same direction. What he describes as the emergence of new capacities for representation —mimetic, linguistic, and external symbolic— is the manifestation, at the level of culture, of a single neuronal function that unfolds in three concatenated dimensions. The hybrid mind that Donald describes is the result of this concatenation, in which each new layer does not replace the previous one, but integrates and transforms it. This is precisely the principle that underlies the Law of Biological Coherence S/Y/C.

Final considerations: the continuing evolution of the mind

Merlin Donald's book reminds us that the evolution of the human mind is not a concluded process. As he notes in his 1993 Précis, "cognitive evolution is not yet complete: the externalisation of memory has altered the actual architecture of memory within which humans think" . We are in the midst of a third transition that has not yet revealed all its consequences.

The question Donald poses at the end of his work —and which we can make our own— is how this externalisation of memory is changing the way humans think and, with it, the shape of our culture. Digital technology, artificial intelligence, and external storage devices are the direct heirs of the earliest symbolic systems. The modern mind, hybrid and constantly evolving, remains an open project.

As Donald notes, when we study literate adults living in technologically advanced societies, we are observing a subtype that is no more typical of the entire human species than, for example, members of a hunter-gatherer group . Our science, our philosophy, and our art would be shaped differently if they had been based on a different type of culture. Understanding this cognitive diversity, and how it has been shaped over the three great transitions, is essential for understanding who we are and where we are going.

References

Donald, M. (1991). Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Harvard University Press.

Donald, M. (1993). Précis of Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16(4), 737–748. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00032647

Mallo, B. (2023). La construcción neuro-simbólica. Una aproximación al funcionamiento del cerebro desde una perspectiva multidisciplinar [Doctoral thesis, University of the Basque Country - Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea]. ADDI Repository. http://hdl.handle.net/10810/62701

Mallo, B. (2025). Arte y biología: Una aproximación neurofilosófica al origen de la experiencia estética. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0E8Y5WZMK

Mallo, B. (2025). Art and biology: A neurophilosophical approach to the origin of aesthetic experience. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0E8Y6C2XN

Mallo, B. (2026a). De la filosofía quirúrgica a la ley de coherencia biológica S/Y/C: Hacia una investigación sobre el origen del arte en la especie Homo. https://isbn.bibna.gub.uy/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=57196

Mallo, B. (2026a). De la filosofía quirúrgica a la ley de coherencia biológica S/Y/C: Hacia una investigación sobre el origen del arte en la especie Homo [Kindle edition]. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYGTJD5C

Mallo, B. (2026b). From surgical philosophy to the law of biological coherence S/Y/C: Toward a study of the origin of art in the Homo lineage. https://isbn.bibna.gub.uy/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=57197

Autor / Author

Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.

Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.

Enlaces / Links

Página de autor Amazon / Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/bernabemallo
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9002-9728
Plataforma EHUenRed / Link EHUenRed: https://www.ehu.eus/es/web/masterrak-eta-graduondokoak/red-latinoamericana-de-posgrados
Canal YouTube / Channel YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@neuroideas815
Canal YouTube / Channel YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBsf6OZ482NjST6QA-hvYtQ
Publicaciones y proyectos en desarrollo / Publications and projects:
https://www.amazon.com/author/bernabemallo
https://ehuenred.theglocal.network/ideas/el-origen-del-arte-en-el-cerebro-de-makapansgat-al-moma-del-primate-al-sapiens

viernes, 24 de julio de 2026

Bones That Speak: The World's Oldest Bone Tool Industry and the Origin of Modern Behavior

Bernabé Mallo

A review of the discovery by Henshilwood and colleagues (2001): An early bone tool industry from the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa: implications for the origins of modern human behaviour, symbolism and language

Introduction: when bone becomes technology

What distinguishes a modern human from their more archaic ancestors? Not only anatomy —the rounded skull, the less prominent jaw— but something more difficult to trace in the fossil record: the capacity to plan, to execute complex technical sequences, to create tools that do not imitate the shape of stone but exploit the properties of other materials. For decades, archaeologists have considered the manufacture of bone tools to be a key marker of modern behavior. And for decades, it was thought that this behavior had emerged in Europe about 40,000 years ago, as part of the "symbolic explosion" of the Upper Paleolithic (Henshilwood et al., 2001).

A discovery published in 2001 in the Journal of Human Evolution by Christopher Henshilwood and an international team of researchers radically changed this narrative (Henshilwood et al., 2001). In Blombos Cave, on the southern coast of South Africa, they recovered 28 bone tools from Middle Stone Age (MSA) levels dating to about 70,000 years ago. This is the largest collection of formal bone tools found at a single African MSA site, and its existence demonstrates that sophisticated bone technology is not a European invention, but a much earlier African innovation (Henshilwood et al., 2001).

These tools, which include awls and projectile points, were manufactured following a sequence of deliberate technical choices: blank selection, shaping using various techniques, and final finishing (Henshilwood et al., 2001). Their presence, together with other finds at the same site —engraved ochre, bifacial stone points, and a diversified subsistence economy— is "turning the tide in favour of models positing behavioural modernity in Africa at a time far earlier than previously accepted" (Henshilwood et al., 2001, p. 631).

The Blombos discovery: 28 tools that rewrite history

Between 1992 and 2000, excavations at Blombos Cave —a rock shelter overlooking the Indian Ocean on the Western Cape of South Africa— brought to light 28 bone tools, recovered in situ from MSA levels dating to about 70,000 years ago (Henshilwood et al., 2001). This is the largest collection of formal bone tools found at a single African MSA site, and its detailed study has revealed a degree of technical sophistication that contradicts traditional models of the origin of modern behavior.

Microscopic and morphometric analyses show that these tools were not manufactured casually or improvisationally. They follow a structured production sequence that includes: (1) the production of a rough blank; (2) the application of various shaping methods; and (3) the final finishing of the artifact to produce awls and projectile points (Henshilwood et al., 2001). The manufacturing techniques are comparable to those described for "formal" bone tools from other contexts, and their planning and execution are consistent with those of the late Holocene, indicating a continuity in cognitive and technical capacity over tens of thousands of years (Henshilwood et al., 2001).

The assemblage includes tools that were probably used for working hides (the awls) and others that may have served as hunting weapons (the projectile points). The presence of these tools in the MSA is particularly notable because, as the authors note, "bone tools are rarely found in African Middle or Later Stone Age sites before ca. 25 ka" (Henshilwood et al., 2001, p. 631). Their scarcity had been cited as evidence of a lack of modern technological or cognitive capacities before ca. 50 ka. The Blombos discovery demonstrates that this scarcity is not due to an incapacity, but probably to preservation biases and limited archaeological research in Africa (Henshilwood et al., 2001).

The context: more than tools, symbolic behavior

The Blombos bone tools do not appear in isolation. They are part of a body of evidence pointing to fully modern behavior in the African MSA. Alongside the bone tools, researchers have documented:

Deliberate engravings on ochre, with abstract geometric patterns, demonstrating the capacity to create and share symbols (Henshilwood et al., 2002).
Bifacial stone points crafted with great skill, suggesting a high degree of planning and technical expertise.
Sophisticated subsistence strategies, including the hunting of terrestrial and marine animals, fishing, and shellfish collection, indicating a diversified exploitation of the environment and a deep knowledge of available resources.

This combination of evidence —advanced bone technology, symbolism, complex lithic artifacts, and an adaptive economy— is exactly the kind of "package" of behaviors that archaeologists have traditionally used to identify "modernity" in the archaeological record. And at Blombos, it appears 35,000 years earlier than it is documented in Europe (Henshilwood et al., 2001).

As Henshilwood himself noted in an interview at the time, "the real implications are that there was modern human behavior in Africa about 35,000 years before Europe" . Or, as another team member, Curtis Marean, put it: "Once again, in terms of human evolution, we're seeing that Africa was precocious: bipedal hominids evolved in Africa; the first real increase in brain size happened in Africa; and now, we're beginning to see that the last great advance, the development of modern behavior, also happened in Africa" .

Why are these tools important?

The importance of the Blombos discovery transcends the antiquity of the tools. Its significance lies in what it reveals about the human mind and the origin of technical and symbolic capacity.

1. They dismantle the myth of the European "symbolic explosion"

For a long time, archaeologists argued that modern behavior emerged suddenly and explosively in Europe about 40,000 years ago, in what was called the "symbolic explosion" of the Upper Paleolithic (Henshilwood et al., 2001). The Blombos bone tools, together with the ochre engravings and other finds, demonstrate that this narrative is wrong. Advanced bone technology and symbolic behavior did not suddenly emerge in Eurasia; they have much deeper roots in Africa, where anatomically modern humans had existed for tens of thousands of years.

2. They evidence the presence of syntactic language

The manufacture of formal bone tools —which require a sequence of technical decisions, long-term planning, and the transmission of knowledge— is indirect evidence for the existence of fully syntactic language (Henshilwood et al., 2001). To transmit manufacturing techniques from one generation to the next, and to coordinate hunting and resource processing activities, MSA human groups needed a complex communication system, comparable to our own.

3. They demonstrate a cultural tradition

The presence of 28 bone tools at the same site, manufactured following the same technical sequences and for the same purposes, suggests that we are not dealing with isolated acts, but with an established cultural tradition. Technical knowledge was transmitted and refined over generations. This cultural continuity, together with the evidence of symbolism, indicates that MSA groups already possessed a social and cognitive complexity comparable to that of modern populations.

4. They broaden our understanding of the origin of art and technology

The Blombos bone tools are not "art" in the sense of a painting or a sculpture. But they are a manifestation of the same technical and symbolic capacity that would later give rise to figurative art. The manufacture of specialized tools from materials other than stone requires an understanding of material properties, forward planning, and precise hand control. These same capacities would, later, allow humans to engrave symbols on ochre or paint figures on cave walls.

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

The Blombos discovery resonates deeply with the research we have been developing on the S/Y/C model of neuronal functioning and the Law of Biological Coherence (Mallo, 2023, 2025, 2026a, 2026b). These tools, made by anatomically modern humans 70,000 years ago, are an early manifestation of the technical and symbolic capacity that defines our species, and can be understood in light of our three dimensions.

The S (Survival) dimension manifests in the practical function of these tools: awls for working hides, projectile points for hunting. Bone technology is not a disinterested luxury; it is a tool of adaptation that improves the ability of human groups to obtain resources, process food, make clothing, and ultimately survive. The planning and execution of these tools reflects an investment of time and effort that only makes sense within a long-term survival strategy.

The Y (Symbolon) dimension emerges in the context of these tools. They are not merely useful objects; their manufacture following standardized sequences, their transmission as cultural knowledge, and their association with other symbolic artifacts (such as the ochre engravings) indicate that they were part of a system of shared meanings. Symbolon —the act of recognition through shared codes— is not limited to language or art; it also manifests in technology, in the transmission of technical knowledge, in the group identity constructed around shared practices.

The C (Wholeness) dimension manifests in the very structure of the tools: they are finished objects, which have passed through a complete production sequence to reach their final form. This drive toward totality —the need to complete a process, to achieve a result— is the same that guides the artist when finishing a work. Technology and art share, in this sense, a common root: the need to close forms, to give coherence to matter.

Surgical Philosophy invites us to make a precise analytical cut in these findings. It is not about seeing Blombos as the "origin" of modern technology and stopping there. It is about understanding that these tools are part of a continuous process that extends to the present day. What we see at Blombos is the emergence of a capacity —the technical and symbolic capacity— that will later develop, diversify, and become more complex over tens of thousands of years.

Implications for future research

The discovery by Henshilwood and colleagues, together with other discoveries at Blombos and at other African sites (such as the bone tools from Katanda, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or the bone points from Sibudu, in South Africa), has transformed our understanding of the origin of modern behavior. But it also opens new questions:

What other technological and symbolic innovations existed in the MSA? The presence of formal bone tools at Blombos suggests that MSA human groups already possessed a much wider technical repertoire than previously thought. What other materials did they use? What other techniques had they developed?
Why are bone tools so rare in the MSA record? If MSA humans already had the capacity to manufacture them, why do they appear in so few sites? Is it due to preservation biases (bone preserves less well than stone), to lower intensity of use, or to cultural factors?
What is the relationship between bone technology and art? The bone tools and ochre engravings appear at the same site and in the same levels. Did they share the same creators? Were they part of the same "package" of innovations? Are technical capacity and symbolic capacity related, or are they independent?
What role did these innovations play in the expansion of modern humans out of Africa? The accumulation of technological and symbolic innovations in the African MSA may have provided modern humans with an adaptive advantage that allowed them to successfully expand to other continents. But when exactly did this expansion occur, and what role did these innovations play?

Final considerations: bone as testimony to the modern mind

The discovery of the Blombos bone tools is much more than an archaeological news item. It is a window into the minds of our ancestors. It shows that, 70,000 years ago, in a cave by the sea, groups of anatomically modern humans already possessed the capacity to plan, to execute complex technical sequences, to transmit knowledge over generations, and to create artifacts that went beyond immediate need.

These tools are the testimony of a modern mind, a mind that could already think abstractly, that could already coordinate complex actions, that could already transform the world through technology. And that capacity, which is still alive today in every technology, in every work of art, in every tool we make, was not born in the caves of Eurasia 40,000 years ago. It was born in Africa, much earlier, and has been with us ever since.

As Henshilwood's team wrote in their 2001 article, the Blombos evidence, "taken together with recent finds from Klasies River, Katanda and other African Middle Stone Age sites [...] is turning the tide in favour of models positing behavioural modernity in Africa at a time far earlier than previously accepted" (Henshilwood et al., 2001, p. 631). Today we can add: and that modernity, which already existed 70,000 years ago, continues to define who we are.

References

Henshilwood, C. S., d'Errico, F., Marean, C. W., Milo, R. G., & Yates, R. (2001). An early bone tool industry from the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa: Implications for the origins of modern human behaviour, symbolism and language. Journal of Human Evolution, 41(6), 631–678. https://doi.org/10.1006/jhev.2001.0515

Henshilwood, C. S., d'Errico, F., Yates, R., Jacobs, Z., Tribolo, C., Duller, G. A. T., Mercier, N., Sealy, J. C., Valladas, H., Watts, I., & Wintle, A. G. (2002). Emergence of modern human behavior: Middle Stone Age engravings from South Africa. Science, 295(5558), 1278–1280. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1067575

Mallo, B. (2025). Arte y biología: Una aproximación neurofilosófica al origen de la experiencia estética. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0E8Y5WZMK

Mallo, B. (2025). Art and biology: A neurophilosophical approach to the origin of aesthetic experience. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0E8Y6C2XN

Autor / Author

Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.

Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.

Enlaces / Links

domingo, 19 de julio de 2026

The World's Oldest Art: When Symbolism Was Born in Africa

Bernabé Mallo

A review of the discovery by Henshilwood and colleagues (2002): Emergence of modern human behavior: Middle Stone Age engravings from South Africa

Introduction: the enigma of the modern mind

When did humans begin to behave like humans? I do not mean anatomy —walking upright or having large brains— but something more elusive: the capacity to create symbols, to communicate abstract meanings, to express something beyond immediate need. For decades, the answer seemed clear: modern behavior, including art, emerged in Eurasia some 40,000 years ago, with the splendor of the Upper Paleolithic and the paintings of Chauvet or Lascaux.

But a discovery published in the journal Science in 2002 by Christopher Henshilwood and an international team of researchers radically changed this narrative (Henshilwood et al., 2002). In Blombos Cave, on the southern coast of South Africa, they found two pieces of red ochre engraved with abstract geometric patterns. Their age: 77,000 years. That is 35,000 years before the groups of Homo sapiens that had migrated to Eurasia began to paint their caves, and 40,000 years before what many researchers considered the beginning of human art (Henshilwood et al., 2002).

The discovery, reinforced by subsequent finds —including a 73,000-year-old drawing in the same cave and engravings over 100,000 years old— forces us to rethink where and when the symbolic mind emerged. For our research on the origin of art in the Homo species, it offers crucial evidence: the artistic capacity is not a late invention of Eurasian populations, but a trait deeply rooted in our biology and cognition, already present in Africa long before modern humans dispersed to other continents.

The Blombos discovery: two engraved ochre pieces

In 1999 and 2000, excavations at Blombos Cave, a rock shelter overlooking the Indian Ocean on the Western Cape of South Africa, brought to light two pieces of red ochre that would change archaeology (Henshilwood et al., 2002).

The first piece (SAM-AA 8937), about 53 millimeters long, features a series of cross-hatched lines, with a lozenge or diagonal design, crossed by a horizontal line. The second (SAM-AA 8938), about 76 millimeters long, shows a more complex motif: a row of lozenges, bounded by parallel lines at the top and bottom, and divided by a central line that turns the lozenges into triangles (Henshilwood et al., 2002).

What makes these engravings extraordinary is not only their age, but their intentionality. Microscopic analysis revealed that the surfaces of the pieces were prepared by scraping and polishing before being engraved. The lines are not accidental marks, but deliberate incisions, made with a sharp stone tool and with precise hand control (Henshilwood et al., 2002). Moreover, the patterns are not disconnected scribbles: they show a complex geometric structure, with lines crossing at specific angles, overlapping in an orderly manner, and forming a coherent visual unit.

The study authors, led by Christopher Henshilwood (then at the South African Museum in Cape Town), argued that these motifs "suggest arbitrary conventions unrelated to reality-based cognition" (Henshilwood et al., 2002, p. 1279). That is, they do not represent animals, people, or landscapes; they are abstract symbols, whose meaning is lost to us, but which undoubtedly had meaning for those who created them.

Dating: 77,000 years of antiquity

One of the most robust aspects of the Henshilwood study is the rigorous dating of the engravings. To determine their age, the team applied two luminescence dating methods, which measure the last time minerals were exposed to heat or light (Henshilwood et al., 2002).

Thermoluminescence (TL) applied to five burnt stone pieces from the layers where the ochres were found gave a mean age of 77,000 ± 6,000 years. To confirm stratigraphic integrity, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) was applied to quartz grains from an aeolian dune covering the site, yielding an age of 69,000 to 70,000 years (Henshilwood et al., 2002). The fact that both techniques produced consistent ages, and that the upper dune was clearly younger than the layers with the engravings, confirmed the antiquity of the pieces and ruled out the possibility of contamination by more recent materials.

These dates placed the Blombos engravings in the Middle Stone Age (MSA), a period of African prehistory spanning from about 250,000 to about 40,000 years ago. Until then, evidence of symbolic behavior in the MSA had been scarce and often ambiguous (Henshilwood et al., 2002). The Henshilwood discovery demonstrated that, at least in southern Africa, modern humans were already behaving as such 77,000 years ago.

Why are these engravings important?

The importance of the Blombos engravings transcends their antiquity. Their significance lies in what they reveal about the human mind and the origin of symbolic capacity, a capacity that, as we have seen in other reviews on this blog, is the foundation of art and culture.

1. They dismantle the "Big Bang" myth

For a long time, archaeology held that modern behavior emerged suddenly and explosively in Eurasia about 40,000 years ago, in what was called the "Upper Paleolithic revolution" (Henshilwood et al., 2002). The Blombos engravings, along with subsequent finds at the same site —including a 73,000-year-old drawing and engravings over 100,000 years old— prove this narrative wrong. Symbolic capacity did not suddenly emerge in Eurasia; it has much deeper roots in Africa, where anatomically modern humans had existed for tens of thousands of years.

2. They evidence the presence of syntactic language

One of the most powerful arguments of Henshilwood and his colleagues is that the transmission and shared meaning of these engravings "required fully syntactic language" (Henshilwood et al., 2002, p. 1280). That is, for an abstract symbol such as a geometric pattern to be understood by other members of a group, a communication system is needed that allows conventions to be agreed upon and transmitted. The Blombos engravings are therefore indirect proof that their creators possessed language as complex as our own.

3. They demonstrate a cultural tradition

The presence of multiple engraved pieces at Blombos —two in 2002, thirteen more in 2009, and a drawing in 2018— suggests that we are not dealing with isolated acts, but with a cultural tradition that extended over at least 25,000 years (Henshilwood et al., 2009). The engraving techniques, geometric patterns, and surface preparation are repeated over time, indicating that knowledge was transmitted from generation to generation.

4. They broaden our understanding of the origin of art

The Blombos engravings are not "art" in the sense of figurative painting or sculpture. But they are the oldest evidence of intentional abstract representation found to date. They represent a crucial moment in the evolution of the human mind: the moment when a useful object —ochre, perhaps used for dyeing or protection— also became a support for the symbol. A moment when someone decided to engrave a pattern that did not represent anything in the real world, but which undoubtedly meant something to them or their community.

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

The Blombos discovery resonates deeply with the research we have been developing on the S/Y/C model of neuronal functioning and the Law of Biological Coherence (Mallo, 2023, 2025, 2026a, 2026b). These engravings, made by anatomically modern humans, are an early manifestation of the symbolic capacity that defines our species, and can be understood in light of our three dimensions.

The S (Survival) dimension reminds us that ochre, the support for these engravings, likely had a practical function: skin protection, hide preservation, adhesive ingredient (Henshilwood et al., 2002). But the engravings go beyond that utility. They are an extension of the homeostatic function: they not only helped to survive, but allowed people to process and share experiences, regulate emotions, build group identity. Art, from its origins, was a technology of survival not only physical, but also psychological and social.

The Y (Symbolon) dimension is the one that emerges most clearly at Blombos. The geometric patterns are not representations of reality, but symbols: acts of recognition through shared codes. Whoever engraved those lines was not copying nature, but creating a new language, a new form of communication. Symbolon is the bridge between the internal world and the social world, and Blombos is one of the earliest pieces of evidence of that bridge.

The C (Wholeness) dimension manifests in the structure of the engravings themselves. They are not scattered lines, but organized patterns, with symmetry and repetition. They reflect a drive toward totality: the need to close a form, to create a coherent unit from individual lines. This drive is the same that guides the artist when composing a painting or sculpting a statue. Art, from its beginnings, has been a response to the need for order, coherence, and wholeness.

Surgical Philosophy invites us to make a precise analytical cut in these findings. It is not about seeing Blombos as the "first art" and stopping there. It is about understanding that these engravings are part of a continuous process that extends to the present day. What we see at Blombos is the emergence of a function —the symbolic function— that will later develop, diversify, and become more complex over tens of thousands of years.

Implications for future research

The Henshilwood discovery, together with subsequent discoveries at Blombos and other African sites (such as the ostrich eggshell engravings at Diepkloof, over 55,000 years old), has transformed our understanding of the origin of art and symbolic behavior. But it also opens new questions:

What exactly did these patterns mean? Henshilwood and his colleagues acknowledge that we will probably never know (Henshilwood et al., 2002). But their existence demonstrates that MSA humans already had the capacity to create and share abstract symbols.
Was there a broader tradition? The presence of similar engravings at different sites suggests that these patterns were part of a shared symbolic repertoire in southern Africa. How far did this tradition extend? Did it reach other regions?
What is the relationship between these engravings and later figurative art? The Blombos engravings are abstract. Figurative art —the representation of animals and people— does not appear in Africa until much later. Why that leap? What happened in between?
What role did these symbols play in cognition and social evolution? The creation of shared symbols not only allows communication, but also coordination of actions, formation of larger groups, and development of more complex social structures. The Blombos engravings could be one of the first tools of this social transformation.

Final considerations: the echo of an ancient mind

The discovery of the Blombos engravings is much more than an archaeological news item. It is a window into the minds of our ancestors. It shows that, 77,000 years ago, in a cave by the sea, someone took a piece of ochre and, with a stone tool, traced lines that did not represent anything in the outside world, but meant something in their inner world.

Those lines are the echo of a symbolic mind, a mind that could already think abstractly, that could already create shared meanings, that could already express something beyond immediate need. And that capacity, which is still alive today in every work of art, every poem, every song, was not born in the caves of Eurasia 40,000 years ago. It was born in Africa, much earlier, and has been with us ever since.

As Henshilwood's team wrote in their 2002 article, "in the light of this evidence, it seems that, at least in southern Africa, Homo sapiens was behaviorally modern about 77,000 years ago" (Henshilwood et al., 2002, p. 1280). Today we can add: and it still is.

References

Henshilwood, C. S., d'Errico, F., & Watts, I. (2009). Engraved ochres from the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution, 57(1), 27–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.02.006

Mallo, B. (2025). Arte y biología: Una aproximación neurofilosófica al origen de la experiencia estética. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0E8Y5WZMK

Mallo, B. (2025). Art and biology: A neurophilosophical approach to the origin of aesthetic experience. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0E8Y6C2XN

Autor / Author

Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.

Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.

Enlaces / Links

viernes, 17 de julio de 2026

Art After Darwin: Multiple Origins and Functions of a Human Need

Bernabé Mallo

A review of Winfried Menninghaus' book (2019): Aesthetics after Darwin: The Multiple Origins and Functions of the Arts

Introduction: beyond "singing for sex"

Why do human beings devote time and energy to activities that do not appear to have any immediate utilitarian value? Why do we paint, sing, dance, or tell stories? The question of the origin and function of art has been one of the great questions of philosophy and, more recently, of evolutionary science.

Winfried Menninghaus, Director of the Department of Language and Literature at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, published in 2019 Aesthetics after Darwin: The Multiple Origins and Functions of the Arts (translated into English by Alexandra Berlina), a work that critically reviews evolutionary hypotheses about art . The book, which updates its original German version of 2011, offers a lucid synthesis of current debates and proposes a novel model for understanding the emergence of the arts in our species .

Menninghaus' central thesis is that art has neither a single origin nor an exclusive function. In contrast to theories that privilege one explanation over others —whether sexual selection, social cooperation, or self-formation— the author argues that the human arts emerged as the result of the confluence of several independent evolutionary factors that combined and transformed each other. The metaphor of the "peacock's tale" used by a reviewer is apt: art is a phenomenon as complex as the plumage of this bird, and cannot be reduced to a single narrative .

From the perspective of our research on the S/Y/C model and Surgical Philosophy, Menninghaus' work offers valuable conceptual tools for understanding art as a biological and symbolic phenomenon, without reducing it either to a mere instinct or to an arbitrary cultural construction (Mallo, 2023, 2025, 2026a, 2026b). His pluralistic approach resonates with our thesis that art is an expression of the single function of the nervous system in its three dimensions: survival, symbol, and wholeness.

The three functions of art according to the evolutionary debate

Menninghaus identifies three major functional hypotheses about art that have dominated the evolutionary debate and which, far from being mutually exclusive, can be conceived as different aspects of the same process . Let us examine each one.

1. Sexual selection: competition and aesthetic choice

Menninghaus' starting point is, naturally, Charles Darwin. In The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin proposed that artistic production —particularly singing, dancing, and poetry— was a product of sexual selection, similar to the showy plumage of peacocks or the song of songbirds . Individuals who developed more striking artistic skills would have greater success in courtship and, therefore, leave more offspring.

Menninghaus devotes the first chapter to analysing this model, showing that Darwinian theory is much richer and more nuanced than is often believed . Darwin did not reduce art to mere sexual display; he also recognised the role of the "sense of beauty" as a fundamental human capacity, and drew inspiration from the tradition of classical rhetoric and philosophical aesthetics (especially German and English) to formulate his ideas . "Singing for sex," in Darwin's hands, was not a simplistic explanation, but a complex hypothesis that connected biology with culture.

2. Social cooperation: art as community bond

The second major hypothesis that Menninghaus examines is that which situates the origin of art in the need for social cooperation . In contrast to Darwin's competitive model, authors such as John R. Krebs and Richard Dawkins have proposed that art —or at least its precursors— might have evolved as a signal of cooperation and group cohesion .

The argument is as follows: human beings are social animals that depend on collaboration to survive. Art, by creating shared experiences, collective rituals, and common narratives, would strengthen group bonds, increase trust, and facilitate coordination. This social function of art is perhaps the one that has received the most attention in anthropology and archaeology, and connects with the role of art in the formation of group identities and the transmission of cultural values .

Menninghaus does not exclusively endorse this hypothesis, but values it as a legitimate and complementary alternative to sexual selection. His analysis reveals that the two functions —competitive and cooperative— can coexist in different contexts and are often intertwined in concrete artistic practices.

3. Ontogenetic self-formation: art as personal transformation

The third hypothesis that Menninghaus considers is that of art as a tool for ontogenetic self-transformation . This perspective, closer to the tradition of "aesthetic education" or "liberal education," emphasises the role of art in individual development, in the formation of subjectivity, and in the search for meaning.

Art would not only be a means of attracting mates or bonding groups, but also a space for inner exploration, emotional expression, and identity construction. This function, although less explored in the evolutionary framework, is central to understanding why people engage in art throughout their lives, beyond its reproductive or social utility. Menninghaus notes that this dimension is not incompatible with the previous ones; in fact, it could be their subjective correlate: the experience of personal transformation that accompanies artistic creation and contemplation.

The "cooptation" model: an innovative synthesis

Menninghaus' most original contribution is his "cooptation model" to explain the multiple origins of the human arts . In contrast to the idea that art is a specific adaptation for a concrete function, Menninghaus proposes that it emerged as a new behavioural variant when three ancient and largely independent adaptations were brought together and transformed by human capacities for symbolic cognition and language .

These three adaptations would be:

Sensory and sexual selection biases related to visual and auditory beauty (the "sense of beauty" that Darwin mentioned).
Play behaviour, which in many species serves to explore, practise skills, and develop creativity.
Technology, understood as the capacity to make and use tools, which expanded the repertoire of material possibilities for artistic expression.

These three capacities, which evolved for independent reasons (sexual selection, cognitive development, and practical survival), merged in humans thanks to the emergence of language and symbolic thought. The confluence of these factors gave rise to behaviours that did not exist before: painting figures on cave walls, sculpting figurines, composing songs, weaving narratives.

Menninghaus coins the term "cooptation" (rather than "exaptation," the more common term coined by Gould and Vrba) to emphasise that these capacities were not simply "recycled" for a new function, but were radically transformed upon coming into contact with symbolic cognition . Art is not a by-product of sexual selection nor a mere instrument of social cohesion; it is the result of a systemic reconfiguration of several pre-existing capacities.

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

Menninghaus' model resonates deeply with the research we have been developing on the S/Y/C model of neuronal functioning and the Law of Biological Coherence (Mallo, 2023, 2025, 2026a, 2026b). His pluralistic approach and emphasis on the confluence of diverse factors finds an echo in our thesis that art is an expression of the single function of the nervous system, which manifests itself in three inseparable dimensions.

The S (Survival) dimension corresponds to the adaptive function of art that Menninghaus explores through sexual selection and social cooperation. Art, in its origin, is not a disinterested luxury; it is rooted in biological needs: attracting mates, strengthening bonds, improving group cohesion. Even play behaviour and technology, which Menninghaus identifies as precursors of art, ultimately serve survival, skill development, and adaptation to the environment.

The Y (Symbolon) dimension is central to understanding the transformation that Menninghaus describes. Symbolic capacity —language, symbolic cognition— is the catalyst that turns sensory biases, play, and technology into properly human art. Symbolon is not merely a representation, but an act of recognition through shared codes. When art becomes symbol, it transcends its immediate biological function to become a vehicle of meaning, of communication of experiences, of world-building. Menninghaus, although he does not use this term, describes precisely this qualitative leap.

The C (Wholeness) dimension points to the human need for totality, to integrate parts into a coherent whole. Art, in its function of ontogenetic self-formation, satisfies that need: the work of art offers a closed totality, a complete symbolic world that orders experience. This function, which Menninghaus identifies as one of the three functional hypotheses, connects with the deepest drive of the nervous system toward coherence and meaning.

Surgical Philosophy invites us to make a precise analytical cut in Menninghaus' model. It is not about choosing between the different functions of art —sexual selection, cooperation, self-formation— but about distinguishing levels. Each of these functions operates at a different level: biological, social, psychological. Art integrates them all because the single function of the nervous system (S/Y/C) unfolds at all these levels simultaneously. Menninghaus is right to reject functional monolithism; our thesis offers a foundation for understanding why the functions are multiple without being contradictory.

Implications for research on the origin of art

Menninghaus' book has profound implications for research on the origin of art in the Homo species. First, it reminds us that art does not have a single starting point. Archaeological evidence suggests that different artistic practices —body adornment, cave painting, music— may have emerged at different times and for different reasons. There is no "zero moment" of art, but a gradual and multiple emergence .

Second, the cooptation model offers a framework for understanding the relationship between continuity and discontinuity in the evolution of art. Human art is not an absolute novelty; it is based on capacities we share with other animals: preferences for certain visual and auditory stimuli, play behaviour, tool use. But the emergence of symbolic cognition and language transforms these capacities into something radically new: a system of meaning production that has no equivalent in the animal world.

Third, the book underscores the importance of interdisciplinarity in addressing the origin of art. Menninghaus integrates evolutionary biology, archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, and literary theory . His approach is an example of how research on art must overcome disciplinary compartments to achieve a richer and more complete understanding. Our own research, which integrates neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and anthropology, is part of this same tradition.

Final considerations: art as an encounter of forces

Winfried Menninghaus' book offers a vision of art that is both humble and ambitious. Humble because it recognises that there is no single answer to the question of the origin and function of art. Ambitious because it proposes a novel synthesis that integrates the different perspectives into a common framework.

Art, according to Menninghaus, is neither a blind instinct nor an arbitrary cultural construction. It is the result of the confluence of several evolutionary forces, which are transformed upon coming into contact with the human capacity to create symbols. Art is, in this sense, an encounter: between biology and culture, between need and desire, between body and mind.

From our research, we add that this encounter is possible because the human nervous system is, in its single function, an integrative device. There is no contradiction between the different functions of art because all of them are expressions of the same S/Y/C dynamic. Art helps us to survive, to symbolise, and to achieve wholeness. And in this triple dimension lies its power, its persistence, and its mystery.

References

Mallo, B. (2025). Arte y biología: Una aproximación neurofilosófica al origen de la experiencia estética. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0E8Y5WZMK

Mallo, B. (2025). Art and biology: A neurophilosophical approach to the origin of aesthetic experience. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0E8Y6C2XN

Menninghaus, W. (2019). Aesthetics after Darwin: The multiple origins and functions of the arts (A. Berlina, Trans.). Academic Studies Press. (Original work published 2011)

Autor / Author

Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.

Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.

Enlaces / Links

miércoles, 3 de junio de 2026

Art as the Mirror of Qualia: David Chalmers and the Origin of Human Expression

Bernabé Mallo

A review of "Facing up to the problem of consciousness" (1995) and its implications for understanding art as the expression of subjective experience

Introduction: What does a bison feel?

Let us imagine for a moment the Palaeolithic artist who, over thirty thousand years ago, painted a bison on the walls of the Altamira cave. They were not photographing an animal. They were not scientifically documenting its anatomy. They were doing something far stranger and, perhaps, far more human: they were trying to communicate what it feels like to see a bison.

This distinction —between registering a fact and expressing an experience— lies at the core of one of the most fascinating philosophical questions of our time. The Australian philosopher David Chalmers articulated it in 1995 with a clarity that has shaped the philosophy of mind for three decades: there is a radical difference between the "easy" problems of consciousness (how the brain processes information, discriminates stimuli, integrates data) and the "Hard Problem" (why and how this physical processing is accompanied by a subjective experience, by something that feels like something from the inside).

Those subjective, incommunicable experiences are called qualia (singular: quale): the "redness" we see, the "pain" we feel, the "melancholy" that washes over us when we hear a song . A machine can detect the wavelength of red light (650 nanometres), but it does not experience redness. A robot can register an impact, but it does not feel pain. And an algorithm can analyse a painting, but it does not live the emotion the artist sought to convey.

The thesis we will explore here is this: the origin of art is intrinsically linked to the human need to express and share qualia. Art was not born as a cultural luxury, but as the first technology we invented to break the isolation of our private minds.

What is the "Hard Problem" of consciousness?

In his influential paper "Facing up to the problem of consciousness" (originally published in 1995 and widely disseminated since then), Chalmers proposes a methodological division that has transformed the study of the mind.

The "easy" problems

There are multiple questions about the mind that can be addressed by the standard methods of cognitive science and neuroscience: how does a subject discriminate sensory stimuli? how does the brain integrate information from different sources? how are internal states verbalised? These are complex problems, but there is no reason in principle to think that science cannot solve them.

Chalmers calls them "easy" not because they are trivial, but because they fit the standard explanatory paradigm: they relate cognitive functions to physical mechanisms. A theory of visual information processing, for example, tells us how the brain transforms light waves into patterns of neural activation.

The Hard Problem

The Hard Problem is of a completely different nature. It does not refer to what the brain does, but to how that doing is accompanied by a subjective experience. Why does the activation of neurons in the visual cortex not only process information but also feel like something to see red? Why are we not all "philosophical zombies" —beings who behave exactly like humans but lack all inner life?

Chalmers argues that reductive methods —those that attempt to explain consciousness in purely physical terms— are doomed to failure because they leave intact the central question: why does subjective experience exist at all. This is not to deny the relevance of neuroscience, but to recognise that, by itself, it cannot close the "explanatory gap" between the brain and lived experience.

What are qualia and why do they matter for art?

Qualia are the building blocks of our inner life. They are the phenomenal qualities of experience: the itchiness of an itch, the warmth of the sun on the skin, the sadness of a minor melody. They are, as the literature notes, "the subjective characteristic of experiences, which are only directly accessible from the subject having the experience" .

Science can describe the physics of colour, the physiology of pain, the acoustics of sound. But there is something about the experience of red that escapes all objective description. That "something" is the quale. And it is, we will argue here, the true object of art.

Art does not communicate objective information about the world —science already does that. Art communicates how it feels to be in the world. A cave painting is not a photograph: it is a projection of the hunter's subjective experience, of their wonder, fear, and admiration before the beast. A symphony is not a treatise on acoustics: it is the transfer of a mood from the composer's mind to the listener's mind.

Art as a bridge between isolated minds

One of the most disturbing philosophical problems is the problem of other minds. I can never know for certain whether you see blue as I see it, or whether your pain feels like mine. We are, as the poet said, "trapped in the prison of our own skulls".

Art, from this perspective, is the primitive technology we invented to escape that prison. It is the attempt to transfer my qualia directly to your brain, bypassing the cold language of science. When an artist paints a sunset, they are not saying "there is a 3000-degree Kelvin light source setting behind the horizon". They are saying: "look, this is what it feels like to me to see the sunset". And when you contemplate that painting and feel something similar, a miracle occurs: two minds have met in a common space, have shared something that is, in principle, unsharable.

Chalmers has explored these ideas also in the context of virtual realities. In his work Reality+ (2022), he argues that virtual worlds can be as real as the physical world, and that immersion in them can generate genuine experiences . We might add that art has always been a virtual reality technology: the painted cave was the first immersive headset, the novel the first simulated world, the symphony the first artificial soundscape. Art is not a substitute for reality: it is an expansion of reality, a new territory for subjective experience.

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

This reflection on qualia and art resonates deeply with the research we have been developing on the S/Y/C model of neuronal functioning and the Law of Biological Coherence.

The Y (Symbolon) dimension of our model finds its deepest foundation here. Symbolon —the capacity to create and share symbols as an act of recognition— is not an abstract cognitive ability. It is, above all, the response to an existential need: sharing the unsharable, communicating qualia, breaking the isolation of consciousness.

Art is symbolon par excellence because it does not merely represent objects, but embodies experiences. When the artist paints, they do not just draw forms: they project their interiority. When the spectator contemplates, they do not just recognise forms: they receive an experience. Art is the bridge that the human brain builds between two subjectivities, using symbols as raw material.

The S (Survival) and C (Wholeness) dimensions are also involved. Art, by allowing us to share qualia, fulfils a crucial homeostatic function: it regulates our collective emotions, helps us process pain and joy in community, and strengthens the social bonds essential for group survival. At the same time, aesthetic experience offers us a sense of wholeness —an achieved totality, an emergent meaning— that satisfies the deepest drive of our nervous system toward coherence and integration.

Final considerations: art as testimony of the living

Chalmers's theory reminds us that consciousness —and with it, qualia— remains one of the great mysteries of science. But perhaps that mystery is not a problem we need to solve, but a reality we must accept and, in the case of art, celebrate.

Art exists because human beings are not content to process information. Human beings feel. And what they feel is as real as what scientific instruments measure, even if it cannot be reduced to equations. The cave painting, the symphony, the novel, the poem: all of them are testimonies that inner life matters, that qualia are the centre of our existence, that sharing what we feel is as important as sharing what we know.

And that, perhaps, is the true origin of art: not the need to represent the world, but the need to express the soul.

References

Chalmers, D. J. (1995). Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2(3), 200–219. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203826430-11

Chalmers, D. J. (2022). Reality+: Virtual worlds and the problems of philosophy. W. W. Norton & Company.

López Mallo, J. B. (2023). La construcción neuro-simbólica. Una aproximación al funcionamiento del cerebro desde una perspectiva multidisciplinar [Doctoral thesis, University of the Basque Country - Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea]. ADDI Repository. http://hdl.handle.net/10810/62701

https://catalogo.sanchoelsabio.eus

López Mallo, J. B. (2026a). De la filosofía quirúrgica a la ley de coherencia biológica S/Y/C: Hacia una investigación sobre el origen del arte en la especie Homo. Lopez Mallo, Javier Bernabé. https://isbn.bibna.gub.uy/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=57196

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYGTJD5C

López Mallo, J. B. (2026b). From surgical philosophy to the law of biological coherence S/Y/C: Toward a study of the origin of art in the Homo lineage. Lopez Mallo, Javier Bernabé. https://isbn.bibna.gub.uy/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=57197

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GY89SZS1

Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, 83(4), 435–450.

Autor / Author

Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.

Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.

viernes, 14 de agosto de 2026

The Three Revolutions of the Mind: Our Species' Cognitive Journey According to Merlin Donald

Bernabé Mallo

A review of Merlin Donald's book (1991): Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition

Introduction: the definitive question

The first transition: mimetic culture

The second transition: mythic culture

The third transition: symbolic and technological culture

The hybrid mind: vestiges and new devices

Parallels with the S/Y/C model: an integrative reading

Final considerations: the continuing evolution of the mind

References

Enlaces / Links

viernes, 24 de julio de 2026

Bones That Speak: The World's Oldest Bone Tool Industry and the Origin of Modern Behavior

Bernabé Mallo

A review of the discovery by Henshilwood and colleagues (2001): An early bone tool industry from the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa: implications for the origins of modern human behaviour, symbolism and language

Introduction: when bone becomes technology

The Blombos discovery: 28 tools that rewrite history

The context: more than tools, symbolic behavior

Why are these tools important?

1. They dismantle the myth of the European "symbolic explosion"

2. They evidence the presence of syntactic language

3. They demonstrate a cultural tradition

4. They broaden our understanding of the origin of art and technology

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

Implications for future research

Final considerations: bone as testimony to the modern mind

References

Enlaces / Links

domingo, 19 de julio de 2026

The World's Oldest Art: When Symbolism Was Born in Africa

Bernabé Mallo

A review of the discovery by Henshilwood and colleagues (2002): Emergence of modern human behavior: Middle Stone Age engravings from South Africa

Introduction: the enigma of the modern mind

The Blombos discovery: two engraved ochre pieces

Dating: 77,000 years of antiquity

Why are these engravings important?

1. They dismantle the "Big Bang" myth

2. They evidence the presence of syntactic language

3. They demonstrate a cultural tradition

4. They broaden our understanding of the origin of art

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

Implications for future research

Final considerations: the echo of an ancient mind

References

Enlaces / Links

viernes, 17 de julio de 2026

Art After Darwin: Multiple Origins and Functions of a Human Need

Bernabé Mallo

A review of Winfried Menninghaus' book (2019): Aesthetics after Darwin: The Multiple Origins and Functions of the Arts

Introduction: beyond "singing for sex"

The three functions of art according to the evolutionary debate

1. Sexual selection: competition and aesthetic choice

2. Social cooperation: art as community bond

3. Ontogenetic self-formation: art as personal transformation

The "cooptation" model: an innovative synthesis

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

Implications for research on the origin of art

Final considerations: art as an encounter of forces

References

Enlaces / Links

miércoles, 3 de junio de 2026

Art as the Mirror of Qualia: David Chalmers and the Origin of Human Expression

Bernabé Mallo

A review of "Facing up to the problem of consciousness" (1995) and its implications for understanding art as the expression of subjective experience

Introduction: What does a bison feel?

What is the "Hard Problem" of consciousness?

The "easy" problems

The Hard Problem

What are qualia and why do they matter for art?

Art as a bridge between isolated minds

Connection with research on the origin of art (S/Y/C)

Final considerations: art as testimony of the living

References

Autor / Author

Enlaces / Links

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