Human brain isn’t so special, neurobiologist says

Mark Changizi says there’s no “special sauce” in the human brain. Instead, he argues that our way of thinking is just the brain’s ability to recognize and mimic visual and sound patterns found in nature.

Changizi, an evolutionary neurobiologist and director of Human Cognition at 2ai Labs, spoke about his research during Duke’s first neurohumanities research group seminar on Sept. 20. The group is co-organized by the Franklin Humanities Institute and the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences.

During his talk, Changizi explored with the audience of both scientists and artists his investigations between shapes and sounds, nature and the fundamental elements of speech, music and writing.

He said that our brains didn’t evolve to have language and music instincts. Instead, language and music shaped themselves to be tailored to our brains. Because our brains were cut for nature, language and music mimicked it to transform ape to man.*

Read the rest here. Some of his claims seem a bit of a stretch, but I can't say with any authority.