A MIND SO RARE
The Evolution of Human Consciousness

Merlin Donald

W.W.Norton, 2001

For centuries philosophers, scientists, and lay people alike have assumed consciousness to be the most distinctive feature of human nature. Despite the power of that assumption, the workings of consciousness continue to elude our understanding. In recent years a number of influential scientists and philosophers have challenged the primacy of consciousness, dismissing it as a superficial by-product of evolution, or even an entirely irrelevant factor in human cognition. A Mind So Rare is a masterful critique of this prevailing view that seeks to explain away consciousness. Drawing on his groundbreaking theory of the origins of the modern mind, Merlin Donald’s persuasive thesis presents the forces, both cultural and neuronal, that power our distinctively human modes of awareness. In this polemical new work, Donald proposes that the human mind is a hybrid product of interweaving a supercomplex form of matter (the brain) with an invisible symbolic web (culture) to form a “distributed” cognitive network. This hybrid mind, Donald suggests, is our main evolutionary advantage, for it allowed humanity as a species to break free of the limitations of the mammalian brain.