Mental Darwinism and the Evolution of the Emotion-Processing Mind

The cognitive mental module with which humans process and adapt to emotionally charged environmental or triggering events is identified as the emotion-processing mind. The current architecture of this mental module presents several anomalous features. In an effort to clarify their basis, the evolution of this module is traced for the 6,000,000-year history ofhominid existence. In addition, the nature of its current adaptive resources are explored as a way of introducing mental Darwinism, the concept that the emotion-processing mind is an adaptive entity that operates according to the principles of universal Darwinism.