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About this quote

What does it mean?
Brain hardware and the virtual mental worlds it creates may have co-evolved together.
In plain terms
Our brains and the mental worlds they make evolved together.
What can you take from it?
Consider brains and mental software as co-evolved.

Where it applies

  • cognitive science
  • brain research
  • mental simulation

Putting it to work

  • modeling cognition
  • studying brain development
  • exploring mental worlds

Questions to consider

  • How does hardware shape software?
  • What is the virtual world of the brain?

Another view

Co-evolution between hardware and software is a metaphor that may oversimplify biology.

More from Richard Dawkins

  1. Another force driving progressive evolution is the so-called 'arms-race.' Prey animals evolve faster running speeds because predators do. Consequently predator…

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  2. It is an article of passionate faith among 'politically correct' biologists and anthropologists that brain size has no connection with intelligence; that intel…

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  3. There is no general reason to expect evolution to be progressive - even in the weak, value-neutral sense. There will be times when increased size of some organ…

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