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comparatively, very powerful in terms of long-term. The latter feature could and did
support traditions but no substantial philosophy, science, technology or history. The
creation of WHuLa resolves both the ephemeral and extremely limited range of short-
term memory and the restricted and potentially distorted permanence of long-term.
Consider, for instance how oral tradition while extending ontogenetic durability at the
same time eventually distorts the transmitted information (for better or worse).
WHuLA enables deeper understanding of a phenomenon, claim, or description
by enabling one to juxtapose and scrutinize ideas independently of the time and place
of their production. Such a technology allows then the transition from speech (a
capability enabling the transfer of ‘useful’ traditional knowledge among generations)
to the stage of knowledge accumulation. Finally, WHuLa enabled tool-based
reasoning in the form of mathematics and eventually KR schemes.
When skepseis are written, they can act as an Sc to any person who may read
them at any point in time. In particular, of course, they act as a stimulus to their
creator. Therefore, a feedback loop is originated that becomes a system of feedback
loops if related skepseis and the their written expressions are further created, or if the
person has ‘second thoughts’ on the precision of her translation. I call such
interactions hybrid ontogenetic loops (HOLs).
A remark concerning hybrid ontogenetic loop systems should be made here.
Clark (2008 p. xxviii), building on Clark & Chalmers (1998), claims that such
systems “are not all in the head”. He is partly right and partly wrong. He is obviously
right when he claims that human technology is enhancing human thinking. This is
indeed the case and happens through HOLs. This is a rather well known view (e.g.,
Ong 1982; Gardenfors 2003*2006). He is wrong nevertheless, in claiming that
thinking itself is literally realised externally in the form of symbolic or material re-
arrangements.46 For, the external parts of HOLs are fossilized skepseis. Without a
person to interpret and think about them, they will forever remain inert. Clark &
Chalmers (1998*2008 p. 222) write that: “If we remove the external component the
system’s behavioural competence will drop, just as it would if we removed part of its
brain.” This is true but beside the issue in hand. The question is what does happen
when there is no brain at all. And the answer is nothing at all. In HOLS, persons are
necessary for the loop to be operational; the external parts of HOLs, on their own, do
not realise any thinking at all. They exclusively record some aspects of the skepseis
of an individual.
Less general than WHuLa, but at the same time much more powerful in their
predictive and design capabilities, are the various KR schemes that modern Homo
sapiens has developed. Their invention/discovery and their further creative use by
very modern humans brought us straight into the era of the cumulatively artificial.
The era of computational systems, electron microscopes, implants, world-wide web,
and robot scientists. Still, their extreme significance and novel consequences should
not disguise the fact that, on their own, they are useless.
It follows that the structural complexity of the modern Homo sapiens is not
going to be found materialised in human brains. Not because the human mind is
immaterial -which is not. Not because part of human thinking is realised outside an
individual’s brain -which as we saw it is not. But because the development of H7kya is
causally shaped by the development of WHuLa and the associated development of
science and technology. They provide the artificial component of the nature of human
mind. Of course there large dissimilarities between human and animal cognition (e.g.,
Premack 2007), my claim is that they are due to WHuLa.