We propose that the ability of humans to identify and create patterns led to the unique aspects of human cognition and culture as a complex emergent dynamic system consisting of the following human traits: patterning, social organization beyond that of the nuclear family that emerged with the control of fire, rudimentary set theory or categorization and spoken language that co-emerged, the ability to deal with information overload, conceptualization, imagination, abductive reasoning, invention, art, religion, mathematics and science. These traits are interrelated as they all involve the ability to flexibly manipulate information from our environments via pattern restructuring. We argue that the human mind is the emergent product of a shift from external percept-based processing to a concept and language-based form of cognition based on patterning. In this article, we describe the evolution of human cognition and culture, describing the unique patterns of human thought and how we, humans, think in terms of patterns.