Aha, voici des fondements

http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html : Principle 1. The brain is a physical system. It functions as a computer. Its circuits are designed to generate behavior that is appropriate to your environmental circumstances.

Le cerveau fonctionne comme un ordinateur, belle analogie . Et il a été « designed », drôle d'expression pour des évolutionnistes (oui c'est un article de vulgarisation, hm, certes)

Principle 2. Our neural circuits were designed by natural selection to solve problems that our ancestors faced during our species' evolutionary history.[...]In other words, the reason we have one set of circuits rather than another is that the circuits that we have were better at solving problems that our ancestors faced during our species' evolutionary history than alternative circuits were. The brain is a naturally constructed computational system whose function is to solve adaptive information-processing problems (such as face recognition, threat interpretation, language acquisition, or navigation). Over evolutionary time, its circuits were cumulatively added because they "reasoned" or "processed information" in a way that enhanced the adaptive regulation of behavior and physiology

Admettons, c'est un peu simpliste mais bon

Principle 3. Consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg; most of what goes on in your mind is hidden from you. As a result, your conscious experience can mislead you into thinking that our circuitry is simpler that it really is. Most problems that you experience as easy to solve are very difficult to solve -- they require very complicated neural circuitry

Principle 4. Different neural circuits are specialized for solving different adaptive problems. A basic engineering principle is that the same machine is rarely capable of solving two different problems equally well.

Aïe aïe aïe... (tiens ils ont oublié l'analogie de l'ordinateur en passant ?) Les machines polyvalentes n'existent pas, et les organes polyvalents non plus. Par exemple la main n'existe pas, et donc l'homme non plus, CQFD.

Our body is divided into organs, like the heart and the liver, for exactly this reason. [...] For the same reason, our minds consist of a large number of circuits that are functionally specialized. For example, we have some neural circuits whose design is specialized for vision. All they do is help you see. The design of other neural circuits is specialized for hearing. [...] Still other neural circuits are specialized for sexual attraction -- i.e., they govern what you find sexually arousing, what you regard as beautiful, who you'd like to date, and so on.

For example, we all have neural circuitry designed to choose nutritious food on the basis of taste and smell -- circuitry that governs our food choice.

et peut-être un tout petit peu aussi sur la base de l'expérience, mais chut

But imagine a woman who used this same neural circuitry to choose a mate. She would choose a strange mate indeed (perhaps a huge chocolate bar?). To solve the adaptive problem of finding the right mate, our choices must be guided by qualitatively different standards than when choosing the right food, or the right habitat. Consequently, the brain must be composed of a large collection of circuits, with different circuits specialized for solving different problems.

Que j'aime ce « consequently »

You can think of each of these specialized circuits as a mini-computer that is dedicated to solving one problem [...] one can view the brain as a collection of dedicated mini-computers whose operations are functionally integrated to produce behavior.

Ah ben voilà c'est beaucoup plus drôle que l'analogie de l'ordinateur unique

Principle 5. Our modern skulls house a stone age mind.