this paper will be on the evolution of the human language faculty, and not on the evolution of particular languages. 2 Explaining a unique phenomenon

The central thesis of

© This paper is not for reproduction without permission of the author. The immune system has a complexity sometimes compared to that of the brain. The vast and diverse number of molecules, cells and tissues, and their complicated pathways of communication (with each other and other bodily systems), endow the immune system with cognitive abilities capable of complementing nervous cognition. In addition, there are several processes and theories used to explain the immune functioning that bring to discussion several key aspects of biology and biologically-inspired computing. This paper thus provides two forms of studying the immune system. The first is more of an analytical approach; it presents some cognitive views of the immune system, the intrinsic evolutionary nature of an adaptive immune response, and how immunity influences the evolution of species. The second study is of a synthetic nature; it describes the immune engineering concept as a meta-synthetic process used for the design of computational intelligence approaches by borrowing inspiration from the immune systems. The latter discussion is a personal account, describing how I used ideas from the immune system to solve complex engineering problems. But these are supposed to provide the reader with some insights about the development of biologically-inspired systems. 1