A Research Of The Natural Origin And Evolution Of Cognition

While concisely reviewing the main achievements that western contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science have achieved,this dissertation analyses the difficulties that they have faced and the causes leading to them.It argues that the main cause leading to the difficulties is from the research way they adopted,i.e.when they tried to solve the problems of cognition and consciousness,they often paid more attention to the "from above to the below" methods than "from below to the above" methods.So they often try to study the working way and the nature of cognition and consciousness only from the basic structures and the working models of the human brain,and despise to start their studies from the basic levels of material word.Directing at this methodological defect in contemporary western philosophy of mind and cognitive science,and according to Engels's instruction——through "dating back to the prehistory of human spirit,to the every development stage of human spirit from simple,non-construction and the lowest stimulation-reaction organism to the human brain which can think" to resolve the marvel of the existence of mankind brain and Lenin's brilliant thesis——"it is logical to suppose every form of matter has the similarly reflective traits to feeling in nature",and based on absorbing the lessons that the contemporary western philosophy of mind and cognitive science have made,the dissertation proposes a new way of thought to study cognition and consciousness:guided by the Marxist philosophy,taking the basic laws of natural science as the main tools,following the direction of the evolution and development in the material world,especially in the life world,mixing the two research ways of "from above to below "and "from below to above" together,seeking all kinds of clues of the natural origin and evolution of primitive cognition and consciousness in every layer in the material world,then to expose gradually the nature of cognition and consciousness and the basic laws of the natural origin and evolution of them.Following this right way of thought the dissertation reaches some clear conclusions from a new viewpoint in the course of the study about the natural origin and evolution of primitive cognition——explicitly dividing the origin and evolution of cognition into four levels and seven stages;pointing out that the action with purpose of the creatures and the original self-consciousness origins from the early third stage,people's language and people's self-consciousness and consciousness which can be represented by language(or symbols)origins from the lately third stage,people's concrete thinking which can not be represented by language origins from the early third stage,people's simple abstract thinking which can be represented by language appears in the lately third stage and the people's complicated abstract thinking which can be represented by language(or symbols)appears in fourth stage.To sum up,the dissertation discusses initially the nature of cognition and the relationship between cognition and consciousness,tries to give a new answer to several important questions which the contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science have faced and tries to supply a new judgment criterion of intelligence which differs from the Turing Test.These conclusions have not only certain enlightenment to the research of contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science,but also have certain significance to the enlargement of the research of the theory of Marxist consciousness,especially to the work of providing more resources in making up for some shortages of the research of the natural origin and evolution of cognition which domestic academia has studied on the theory of Marxist consciousness。...