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The famous evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould once aptly remarked: “If you could rewind the film of life under the same conditions, evolution would take a completely different course, and the human mind would not re-emerge, even if you could play this film of life a thousand times.” In contrast, his contemporary colleague Simon Conway Morris wrote: “Convergence points to the existence of a deeper structure of biology ... Evolutionary paths are diverse, but the goals are limited.” Decades after this controversy, we are increasingly discovering that evolution does indeed have serious limitations in its degrees of freedom. At least when it comes to the brain and cognition. Take the following example: Great apes such as chimpanzees have complex cognitive abilities and a brain weighing approximately 400 g, which includes a large neocortex. In comparison, birds such as corvids and parrots have a brain weighing between 3 and 25 g and no neocortex. This should make it impossible for birds to develop high cognitive abilities. However, studies over the past two decades have shown that there is not a single cognitive ability in chimpanzees that has not also been demonstrated in corvids and parrots. And not only that, but the mechanisms of thought are absolutely the same. How is this possible? This question keeps me awake at night because it challenges fundamental assumptions about evolution of the neural basis of complex cognition. I have come to realize that I must travel back to the depths of vertebrate evolution to find answers. This lecture is about that journey.
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