The human mind craves pattern. Using examples, briefly describe how our species used its capacity for pattern recognition down through the millennia. Discuss how the use our capacity for pattern recognition is fundamental to human reasoning

Question

What will be an ideal response

Answer 1

Those of our ancient ancestors who learned how to recognize what they could eat and distinguish that from what would eat them had a greater likelihood of survival and with that a higher chance to reproduce. By providing adaptive advantage, the genes for pattern recognition were passed down through the long history of the evolution of our species. Reading the patterns in the movements of the stars and the moon, our ancestors eventually learned to anticipate the changes of the seasons, the migrations of the animals they used for food, and the times for planting and harvesting. Aberrations in the expected patterns, like the emergence of a comet or lunar eclipse, were interpreted as having meaning too. Perhaps the comet foretold a plague, or perhaps a blood moon meant the death of the king. When our species turned its gift of pattern recognition toward social interactions it saw recurring behaviors that led some people to be trusted as friends and others to be vanquished as enemies. In ancient times, different primitive civilizations, trying to understand the patterns that shaped good fortune and misfortune, endowed their pagan gods with the familiar patterns of behavior they saw in human interactions. This god was capricious; that god was vengeful; other gods acted out of courage, or jealousy. Fecund gods made the crops grow; drunken gods encouraged debauchery. Humans squabbled, and so must the gods. But the squabbles of the gods had an impact on human events. Down through the millennia for most members of our species life was harsh, unpredictable and short. Natural dangers, diseases, and predators abounded. If the gods had anything to do with what was happening, then perhaps appeasing them or pandering to them might influence those gods to be a little more generous, or at least a little less hurtful. Working the pagan gods certainly must have seemed worth a try. Pattern recognition is fundamental to human learning. We all try to understand novel experiences by integrating them with what we already know. We notice something that looks familiar about the new experience, something, which we believe we can understand because of its familiarity, and we then try to expand our understanding of the larger new experience from that initial point. And in this stretch, projecting the familiar on to the unfamiliar as a way of seeking understanding, we have comparative reasoning.