Chapter Fourteen Evolutionary constraints and the modern mind

The resource limitations that accompany human information processing place significant constraints on the extent to which any particular knowledge base is likely to be modified as a consequence of new learning. Nonetheless, modifications that cannot be done on one pass may be achieved iteratively through our repeated transactions with the physical world. Or, there again, they may be achieved vicariously by adopting them wholesale from the cultural resources that surround us. The individual and the collective aspects of human cognition are intimately and symbiotically related. The aim of this chapter is to seek a deeper understanding of this inter-relationship by bringing evolutionary biology into the discussion.