INTEGRAL WORLD MAILING LIST http://www.integralworld.net Newsletter Nr. 777 Amsterdam, June 8th, 2019 WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS? - Natural Religion, Part 4 - FEDERICO NICOLA PECCHINI Eventually, only a few hundred thousand years ago (a blink of an eye in the timespan of biological evolution), we get to us humans and to our unique combination of symbolic thought and discursive language—which allowed us to talk about things also if not immediately present as we spoke, by mentally representing them as concepts and ideas within our imagination. Cognitive neuroscientists call this feature Mental Time Travel (MTT), since it involves the capacity to reconstruct events from the past (episodic memory) as well as to imagine possible scenarios in the future. This new outstanding ability—further enhanced by the invention of writing—enabled the creation of that immensely articulated and multi-generational cultural heritage which is the also the most striking and unique characteristic of our species. Read more: http://www.integralworld.net/pecchini5.html