Naturaleza del Impuesto General a las Ventas (IGV)

Montell attributes our ability to distort reality and the evolutionary advantage of this to our need to cope with being conscious and fearful of death. In this scenario, having brought us self-awareness, imagination goes on to support us with the implications of this, acting as a survival mechanism.

‘Individuals encumbered with fears for which precautions could not be taken would be less successful...an individual with such apprehension would be more hesitant in hunting big game, and less willing to take the necessary risks...Via stored images and symbolic expression of thought, apprehension of death could be ameliorated’ (Montell, 2002, p.15)

If we accept this argument, it propels us towards an understanding of the development of early magical or religious artefacts and towards the production of art as part of that.

We might now begin to contextualise art as a significant part of our evolution and a necessity for the survival of our species. Montell’s argument seems fairly speculative, based on a rationalised interpretation of the available archaeological evidence which is (scientifically speaking) scant in comparison to that in other fields. Even if we might doubt the substantiality of the archaeological evidence base for Montell’s suggestion, or indeed the ‘rigour’ of archaeological approaches from the perspective of the field of social science, we can probably accept that imagination is a means by which many modern humans cope with anxiety over death, the awesomeness of existence and our tiny place within the universe. Even the most seemingly simple and oldest found

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examples of cave art, hand stencils in caves in Indonesia, could be interpreted in this way, in that they create a permanence of existence in the face of inevitable death.

Figure 3.1 Hand stencil: Indonesia, approx. 37,000BC

http://www.livescience.com/48199-worlds-oldest-cave-art-photos.html

While Montell’s discussion makes sense to me personally and I accept that anxiety about the unknown workings of the universe might help account at least in some part for the emergence of art as a means of forming and depositing our ideas, I also accept that it leaves much room for doubt and alternate explanations. Mithen’s theory, while still reliant on the interpretation of ancient and relatively scarce evidence, is convincing in that it is perhaps easy to relate to in a practical sense as human beings descended from those he describes. Mithen enables us to consider the usefulness of the act of making art in his discussion of our evolved ability to create fantasy. This pragmatic rationale for evolving imagination is largely associated with the need for understanding of and communication with others in the absence of spoken language. We needed a way to be able to consider what other people might be thinking, for example; in using tool production techniques: ‘imagination of what an observed tool-maker was trying to achieve with each blow seems essential.’ (Mithen, 2001, p.39). In order to collaborate in hunting or in colonisation we would need to envisage what others were thinking.

Initially we may have used mime to communicate in collaborative activities like hunting before eventually progressing to more symbolic ‘mythic’ and then ‘theoretic’ culture (Donald, 1991) but even with mime, we needed to be able to hold images in our minds of how tools were made or of what other people would be likely to be doing as part of a collaborative activity. Without words, imagination (here, the recall and manipulation

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of mental images) would have needed to work harder, contributing to the development of increasingly flexible thought. An implication of this could be that a prominent use of images in learning might nurture more flexible thinking within individual development and we will explore this further in Chapter 5.

So, in practical, collaborative situations, ‘enhanced powers of imagination, especially with regard to future scenarios of behaviour, may have been at a particular selective advantage.’ (Mithen, 2001, p.41). But why would fantasy be an advantage when it seems at odds with the natural laws with which we are ‘pre-programmed’, (for example, we are born with an innate acceptance of the law of gravity). This is ‘... quite logical; because such “rules” are inflexible, it makes little sense to spend time learning them, and doing so would risk fatal injury’ (2001, p.30). Why can we break the rules and why do we often actually enjoy this activity?

‘...ideas about monsters and supernatural beings have no natural home within the mind. The “trick” that humans learned was to create another home for such ideas – one in the physical world, in the form of a carving or a painting. Such images then acted as a cognitive anchor for the concept so that, within the presence of the image, the idea can be recalled, manipulated and shared.’ (Mithen, 2001, p.49-50)

We arrive at the idea that imagination enabled us to create an externalised home for ideas in the form of art and that this supported (and supports) our emotional and practical survival. Donald describes this ability as a key innovation in our development and as a ‘hardware change in human cognitive structure.’ (1991, p.17). In that his discussion focuses on our evolutionary need to counteract awareness of death, Montell provides a convincing, emotive reason for evolving imaginative fantasy while Mithen and Donald provide insight into the cognitive process of this. Our minds are set up to deal with natural laws, fantasy evolves as a by-product of cognitive flexibility which is somehow enabled as ‘domain specific mentality’ (Mithen, 2001, p.42) is over-ridden.

While we can only speculate as to the reason that these ‘adaptively essential’ ways of thinking could be over-ridden, Mithen suspects that the

‘…answer lies with the use of external supports to human thinking – the objects of art, the paintings, the rituals created after 50,000 years ago are not only products of a new way of thinking but also their source.’ (2001, p.49)

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The externalised representations of our thinking play an essential role in formulating, manipulating and sharing our thoughts, also allowing us to over-ride existing categories. A useful metaphor for this process is that of providing a computer with a link to a network:

‘The limitations of an individual computer become an increasingly secondary factor as the knowledge of the network develops...the properties of the network may be more important for understanding what the machine can do than the properties of the machine itself. In a similar way, the structuring effects of culture and technology on the individual human mind need to be taken into account.’ (Donald, 1991, p.17)

Herein lies the evolutionary advantage of ‘external storage’. ‘In a true network the resources of the system are shared, and the system functions as a unit larger than any of its individual components.’ (Donald, 1991, p.310). I wonder if those of us fascinated by fantastical creations and with a delight in playing with or breaking natural laws or ordered systems in the act of making a piece of art, are ancestors of those humans for whom fantastical imagination was of a particular advantage due to the environments they lived in and the challenges they faced? A need to react to change occurs to me as a prime catalytic candidate in this scenario.