Reading response- Hauser

In “Origins of the Mind”, Marc Hauser suggests that the human brain posses four traits that separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Hauser postulates that the human brain in uniquely capable of generative computation, promiscuous combination of ideas, use of symbols, and abstract thought.
As I read through the examples that Hauser presented for each trait, it was easy for me to understand the concepts of symbols and abstract thought. However, it was much more difficult to understand recursive thinking, combinatorial thinking, and promiscuous combination of ideas. I understand recursive thinking to be the use sequence and repetition to create new meanings. Quantum Physicists believe that there are an infinite amount of outcomes that can come of something that is performed infinitely. If an action is repeated an infinite amount of times, new meaning may eventually come of it. To me, this is recursive thinking at its best. Combinatorial thinking refers to the combinations of ideas to create new meanings. The German language, for example, uses compound words made up of smaller words that may hold different meanings once taken out of context.
I found Hauser’s paragraph on the promiscuous combination of ideas to be unsatisfactory. The way it was worded was confusing and hard to grasp. However, I understood the concept to be the combination of ideas from different aspects of our culture. Hauser refers to these aspects as “domains of knowledge”. This is easily explained with food culture. We take aspects of art and promiscuously combine artistic beauty with cuisine. We alone create beautiful cakes and artfully arranged platters.
Hauser’s concepts of symbols and abstract thought were mostly self-explanatory. Humans alone use written word, pictures and numbers to create meaning. We also conjure up notions of monsters, deities and myths.
All in all, I agree with many of Hauser’s notions and beliefs. This is not to say that I believe that these four traits are the only traits that separate us from other animals. However, Hauser’s ideas are presented in a way that is mostly understandable and easy to conceptualize. I’d be interested to see what else Mr. Hauser has to say about the individuality of the human mind.

Elena H.