Funktion og udvikling af menneskelig bevidsthed

Abstract

Human consciousness may be described as a representational system consisting of 3 interacting levels: (1) The presentation, which is the part of the physical reality that influences the human senses. (2) The representation, which is defined by; (2a) a selective mental reflection of the presentation; (2b) a mental reflection of stored phenomena
from long term memory; (2c) a selective mental reflection of the presentation in relation to stored phenomena from long term memory. (3) The meta-representation, which is an abstraction and/or an expansion of an original representation. It is argued that the function of the human representational system must be understood in relation to problem solving. New evidence concerning the mental and culturel level of chimpanzees is examined in relation to an understanding of the phylogenetic development of the human representational system. The basic assumption is that the chimpanzees do possess a representational system, which is different in capacity from the human representational
system. Evidence concerning the mental and cultural level of chimpanzees is further extended in the light of archeological findings, which indicate that the development of the capacity of the human representational system is related directly to phylogenetic development of larger brain size.