Author B. McConachie

Excerpt: Although this chapter focuses on key cognitive systems that facilitated the eventual ability of evolving Homo sapiens to practice and enjoy performances, my inclusion of “evolution” in the title should not suggest that a single chapter will exhaust the importance of species variation and changing ecologies for the overall project of this book. Evolution constituted and continues to facilitate the biological basis of all human action, including the development of myriad human biocultures and their performances; erase evolution and performances simply vanish from the earth. While I will primarily discuss the likely evolution of event perception, conceptual blending, psychological projection, and language in this chapter, evolution must be a recurrent theme throughout the book. Before turning to these matters, however, I want to underline the importance of intentional action for the evolution of life. From an Enaction perspective, all species – before they can flourish, play, and procreate – must survive. The main cognitive implication of this simple but massive truth is that the human brain was primarily built for action, because only action could enable the survival of our own (or any other) animal species.