The insect-populated mind : how insects have influenced the evolution of consciousness / David Spooner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Spooner, David, 1941-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Insects in literature.

Insects in art.

Entomology.

Consciousness.

Physical Description:

ix, 186 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, Md. : Hamilton Books, 2005.

Summary:

In The Insect-Populated Mind, author David Spooner proposes a close connection between aspects of insect evolution and the human intellect. By examining seemingly disparate subjects, such as entomology, language, theory, genetics, astronomy, literature, and music, Spooner proves that synthesis is indeed possible. Once this fusion is achieved, the human species can be seen as connected not just to the great apes, but also via consciousness to metamorphic insects. While considering Richard Dawkins' and Susan Blackmore's expositions of memes, Spooner suggests that the concept of memes remains a peripheral understanding of religion and the arts. The book also presents arguments on the roots and nature of the mind in the work of Daniel Dennett and Steven Pinker.

Contents:

1 Ape, Insect and Human 3

2 The Cosmic Cultural Faculty in Relation to the Meme Machine 14

3 Shakespeare and the Nature of Verbal and Musical Language 22

4 Schopenhauer, Music and The Order of Things 29

5 From Apuleius to A.R. Wallace: Evolutionary Theory and Some Literary Animals and Insects 37

6 The Greek Supplementals in Their Connection to [Psi]YXH: How Breath, Soul and Butterfly are Linguistically Interconnected 45

7 Coleridge's Tetraktys: Summit of His Metaphysics, Death of His Poetry 51

8 William Blake, Rhapsodist of the Fourfold 56

9 From the Big Bang to Life on Earth 65

10 Insects and Mind: The Poetry of Damaso Alonso 73

11 A.R. Wallace's Swallowtails: Mimicry and Evolution 82

12 Of Cells and Mutation 96

13 Ancient and Medieval Cosmology 103

14 The Spread of the Fourfold Constant into Nineteenth and Twentieth Century American Literature 117

15 Thoreau's Insect Science 130

16 The Scientific Ambiguities of Literary Creation: Nabokov's Art of Evolution 139.

Notes:

Includes bibliography (pages 157-180) and index.

ISBN:

0761831754

OCLC:

62362362