The Enchanted Staircase - Genesis of the Mind from Animals to Humans

A beautiful name, appropriate to explain the origin and evolution of the mind, that progressive acquisition of faculties that led to us human beings. The aim of this article is to use increasingly complicated neurostructures to interpret the notions provided by nervous and sensory anatomy, ethology, mental development and psychoanalysis. Five levels are identified, the fourth and fifth with two sublevels each, preceded by the zero or abneural level: the paragraphs are numbered progressively, but each paragraph examines the same evolving arguments. 1. Neurostructures, or the typical structures of neurons of each level, acquired gradually, and the areas of the human nervous system in which they are found. 2. Zoology with the forms of the N. S. and the animal groups in which they are present. 3. Perceptiveness. Already at the beginning of the twentieth century, Jakob von Uexkull, following what was reported by Lorenz, supposed the existence of a specific mental environment in which every animal and every human being moves and lives; today it is common to talk about software that circulates in a computer or in the nervous system, and this beautiful intuition is easy to use. We will see how each subject grasps the universe and the consequent Mental Universe that is created in different animals and children, in stages: the mind as a progressive phenomenon from the jellyfish to man, from the newborn to the adult. 4. Memogenesis or genesis of the Mind. The Enchanted Ladder is the ascent of intelligence in the animal kingdom from the lowest species to us, through millions of years (phylogenesis), but traveled in development from newborn to adult (ontogenesis). It is an epigenetic scale that situates and clarifies what the reflex is, what the pre-object is (René Spitz) and what the permanent object is (Jean Piaget), knowledge, thought, rationality, fantasy and creativity. This last faculty distinguishes Homo sapiens from all animals and even from Neanderthals and connotes the overwhelming adventure that distinguishes him: creativity is the matrix of history. Main reference is the cognitive psychology of Jean Piaget. 5. Psychogenesis. Approach to emotionality and the formation of Psyche. A theme that, necessarily, can only be developed later with much broader treatment. Main reference is the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud. In conclusion, from the comparison and synthesis of the different studies, it clearly emerges how the evolution of relational life has occurred.