About the Origins of the Human Ability to Create Constructs of Reality
Axiomathes December 1, 2022 Robert G. Bednarik
Humans uniquely create and manipulate models of reality, yet these constructs reflect individual life experiences rather than objective truth. This paper argues that exograms—external memory traces such as marks or objects—are the only tangible link between the brain, sentience, and the external world. Competency in using exograms became a crucial natural selection factor, even overcoming human brain atrophy during the late Pleistocene and Holocene. By tracing exogram use back through deep time, the paper develops a model explaining the evolution of human awareness, self-consciousness, and Theory of Mind, and why humans are as they are.