SCENARIO VISUALIZATION

In order to solve problems, humans are able to synthesize apparentlyunrelated concepts, take advantage of serendipitous opportunities, hypothesize, invent, and engage in other similarly abstract and creative activities, primarilythrough the use of their visual systems. In Scenario Visualization, Robert Arpoffers an evolutionary account of the unique human ability to solve nonroutinevision-related problems. He argues that by the close of the Pleistocene epoch, humans evolved a conscious creative problem-solving capacity, which he termsscenario visualization, that enabled them to outlive other hominid species andpopulate the planet. Arp shows that the evidence for scenario visualization--bywhich images are selected, integrated, and then transformed and projected intovisual scenarios--can be found in the kinds of complex tools our hominid ancestorsinvented in order to survive in the ever-changing environments of the Pleistoceneworld. Arp also argues that this conscious capacity shares an analogous affinitywith neurobiological processes of selectivity and integration in the visual system, and that similar processes can be found in the activities of organisms in general.The evolution of these processes, he writes, helps account for the modern-dayconscious ability of humans to use visual information to solve nonroutine problemscreatively in their environments. Arp's account of scenario visualization and itsemergence in evolutionary history suggests an answer to two basic questions asked byphilosophers and biologists concerning human nature: why we are unique; and how wegot that way.Robert Arp is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Center forBiomedical Ontology. His areas of specialization include philosophy of biology andphilosophy of mind. He is the author of numerous articles and the forthcoming AnIntegrated Approach to the Philosophy of Mind.