What is Cognitive History?

Introduction

As we approach our goal of understanding the background of our primary investigation target, distributed cognition, few books are as useful as The Patterning Instinct, by Jeremy Lent. Lent tells the story of the development and continual usage of what he refers to as the patterning instinct at the heart of human cognitive activity. In our grander philosophical framework, we refer back to the Aristotelian doctrine that we study the good not to learn what it is but to become better, and this anchor for our investigation of human cognitive activity provides us with all the context we need to understand that our thinking about thinking can enable us to think in a better way.

The patterning instinct is an attribute of the thinking of humankind that emerges from studying cognitive history. The tendency of thinking to revolve around patterns is ultimately due to its source: the need for people to cooperate to survive. Cooperating with other people and cooperating with nature are similar experiences insofar as they involve taking in information to use in the assembly of a model to then influence by thinking about what to do and doing it. The Patterning Instinct has titular importance for the work because it replaces the Language Instinct first hypothesized by Noam Chomsky as the basis of language and culture.