Evolution of the brain

[trippy star]

I was thinking today about the human brain; more specifically, I was debating (with myself) whether or not the brain is as idyllic as it is made out to be. This naturally led to the debate concerning brain throughout history, and whether antique brains were more or less complex. At this point I wondered whether or not the human brain was originally conceived (not the religious sense of the word) at the level it is now, or whether it has evolved over time.
The brain evolving. Sounds logical enough. This led me to wonder whether or not we are the epitome of evolution, or whether we could still evolve more. Perhaps smarter people have a more evolved brain? And what spawns this neurological evolution? fraternity? circumstance?
With all these thoughts swimming about in my brain I was desperately trying to stop thinking, for fear of an implosion, but I came across one more profound (I think so anyhow) idea: if we are but an evolution (neurologically), then are we a fluke? Or, after our extinction, will another species rise up and above our acheivments because they have a more advanced brain?
On this note I started to question the nature of our inventions, and whether they were really that inventive, or whether our possibly simple, shackled, brains simply interperet them so.
And on that note, discuss. This thread is for people who support the evolution theory, so minimal creationist rabble would be appreciated.

[Auriga]

Well, to begin, the human brain, along with every other physical aspect of our species, evolved throughout history. It has progessively gotten bigger and more complex, according to archeological anthropologists who study the origins of the human species back to its ancestral beginnings.

Now, about the concept that we may or may not be the epitome of human advancement.. If we are, I fear for the future, to be quite honest.

If we look at the development of the human species on a linear scale, in comparision with the rest of the world and the origins of life, we see that humans are an inredibly young species. To give you a visual representation of just how young we are, picture this. Richard Dawkins once explained it this way during a book reading for his book "The God Delusion". If we take the whole of the evolution of the world, it would extend from the tip of our left hand, stretched out, to the tip if our right hand. If we take the development of human civilization (he said), it would be but only the equivalent of the shaving of a single nail file at the tip of our finger. Such a minute measurement, not even recognizeable without the help of a microscope, would be the visual display of just how young of a species we are.

So.. I find it particularly hard to believe that in that incredibly short period of time, we have reached the epitome of what it means to be a fully evolved species. I mean.. the nature of evolution suggests that there never really is a pre-determined end point (until the Earth crashes into the sun, that is).

[Midas]

Is the computer the same today, as it was just a few years ago? Will it be the same in five years as today's state of the art model? Of course not, we know there will be an improved change, even if we don't know just what that change will be - precisely.

But computers are not human, some will say. True, but there are strong similarities in many aspects to the human brain, and mind.

The computer, perhaps more than anything else is changing life quicker than anything before it. Having said that, there have been developments in humans that had they not occurred, the computer would never have been invented.

I refer to organised speech to develop more sophisticated communication, and then writing to record it. Then, from these human developments, followed the printing press that permitted ideas to circulate more quickly and cheaply.

Bill Gates, whose ideas developed a system, and software to go with it, that expanded the use of the computer, wrote a book - 'Business at the speed of thought'.

Man has been, and still is, limited only by his ability to think, and to think constructively. It is one thing inventing something for a specific end, and then
thinking of all the potential uses to which it can be put, and developed further.

What the computer is doing is two fold. It is relieving the brain from a lot of mundane thought, but at the same time pushing the brain, and helping it to leap forward, a sort of leap frogging over the mundane that absorbed much time.

Life is one of constant change. The only thing that does not change is change. And the speed of change changes.

Be assured, the brain will evolve, but it will not be noticed because it is constant, and gradual, and, unlike a computer, we are not called upon to change it. (but who knows, one day that might change)

[Auriga]

I'm not too sure just how good the computer is for our brains, though, to be quite honest. Like you said, it takes away from having to do mundane tasks, but those mundane tasks are pretty simple. Once we, as humans, stop having to do them, our brains begin to forget how they're done. We live in a society where children as young as 7-8 are forced to use calculators to perform simple addition and substraction because they haven't been forced to train their brains to do it automatically. Granted, some may argue that this allows our brain to focus on more intellectual tasks, like "philosophy", literature, etc. However, many of the great philosophers, in fact most, were sound believers in the importance that mathematics plays in the development of a rational mind. Aristotles claims that the most rational mind in the universe contemplates its existence through the art of mathematics.

I think computers may, in a sense, be liberating our brains from a lot of drone type work, but that may not necessarily be a positive thing. Just a little thought when the next time you're asked to substract 35 from 100.. try using your head and not think to automatically pull out your phone/camera/mp3player/calculator.

[Midas]

Thanks for your constructive comments, such were not unexpected.
I understand well the point you are making and will address it shortly.
Midas

[Midas]

Auriga, Many will think as you do, and it is understandable.

With practically all change there are positives and negatives. And these are not always accepted as the same by everyone. What some may see as a negative may be seen by another as a positive.

It is my belief that for the first few years of schooling there should be a heavy concentration on the basics that will live with you through life.

My grandmother left school at 12, as that was how it was in her days. However, she never made a spelling mistake, she punctuated accurately, and could do simple arithmetic without fault, and her mental arithmetic was excellent. She was no exception, most of her age in a British school left at this standard. Why? Because they were drilled in what was termed the three 'R's' (Reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic).

This rarely leaves you except perhaps in old age when the brain slows, and memory falters. (let you know when I get there).

We humans have lost many attributes over the years. Our survival senses were much stronger - when you come across remote tribes in the jungles, they don't wear glasses, or hearing aids, and they can hunt and track, and hear sounds well into old age.

But we adjust. And this we will continue to do. There will be no holding back change no matter what we think, and the computer, is here to stay - though probably not in its present form.

I find it develops and stimulates the brain just trying to keep up with the new technology. And it is very humiliating when you have to ask that eight year old, who perhaps hasn't yet mastered her 'eight times table' but texts her eight year old friend with one finger in a written language almost as alien to you as Tibetan (assuming you are not from Tibet), while keeping up a converstion with you, eyeball to eyeball, to tell you, and show you, how.

[Auriga]

Yes, I agree. I don't disagree on any particular point. I agree that the computer is a completely integral part of our culture, and embrass that fact (for one, I guess I would concider myself part of the generation of youth who associates more with the technological age as opposed to the physical age as I'm still only 20 years old).

I just believe that maybe the computer is playing a slightly over-emphasised part in our everyday lives. I'm not one to suggest that this is particularly a fault on the part of society at large, I'm just suggesting that maybe the situation should be brought to the attention of people so that they don't forget that there once existed a time when 8 year olds didn't have bluetooth telephone service attached to their ears.

[mazHur]

Midas, you are very right but those days will never come back.

Everything in the world is changing, becoming sort of 'instant'' and 'disposable'' !

[Midas]

I'm just suggesting that maybe the situation should be brought to the attention of people so that they don't forget that there once existed a time when 8 year olds didn't have bluetooth telephone service attached to their ears.
__________________

I believe many voices (mainly from the older generation) have been raised. But then, there are always some who like fighting lost causes.

I am surprised that a 20 year old thinks your way. Perhaps that is telling me what I suspect, that when you are now 20 you are entering the 'older' generation, well, that is perhaps how the eight year old may see things, and technology moves perceptions.

Maybe I am a little premature there, but down the road..........

[Auriga]

Well, I would probably attribute it to the fact that I'm more or less in the in between generations. On the one hand, I'm still part of the generation where the internet was just comming into existence on a global level, and only got to be really mass distributed 10-12 years ago. And on the other hand, I grow up in the generation where new gadgets (iPods, iMacs and other such computer devices) are targeted towards. So, I feel like I'm more or less torn between the two mind sets. I don't think I'm alone in this way of thinking. I find that most of my friends think along the same lines as I do, in regards to the mass production of electronic gadgets targeted towards 5-7 year olds.

Again, I'm not suggesting that this is a bad thing. It's simply a progression in time; an inevitable outcome of the silicone valley outbreak.

[Midas]

The really scary part is not wrestling with what we have at present, and how life is now, but what is only just a little way down the road. The speed of change (even in the climate) is accelerating fast.

What is really holding much back is market forces. They have to get rid of the
present innovations first and recoup their investment. Otherwise, we could be overwhelmed by what is waiting to come to the market already.

[blazeofglory]

This really interesting to question whether our brains too has undergone evolutions. In point of fact this is something I can not figure out. Indeed human brains have illimitable capacities, and it is stretchable amazingly and how much can it be stretched is something inestimable of course.

One thing I feel is human beings notwithstanding his feeble and fragile physiques have capacities, indeed amazing capacities. And what man can do or cannot is something unimaginable. The internet is something, for example, a very amazingly thing of human inventiveness or its zenith, our ancestors could not even in their wildest dreams, could not think about this thing. Cloning or genetic engineering is meanwhile a great inventiveness.

Do not all these inventive faculties do not validates the fact that human capacities or brains are illimitable potentials?

[Ludmila607]

Human race (some races at least) have evolutioned on body and mind.As a result of hundred and hundreds of years of adaptation, asimilation and surviving.Some cuasi -human species didnt get through!!They just went extingued ...as the DODO (haha)
But we are here as a product of erected position, member development ,complexitation of the brain.That lead us to intellingence, art, culture, technology, institutions...etc.
All because we re Homo Erectus.We walk on two feet, we use our complicated brain(wich needs good nutrition to work as it must work)Some civilization we re more succesful than others to extract the brain juices...
I think right now that Thought it is being porbiden fruit for millions of people.And that must to construct a world for a few.
The few best!? The few smarter?!The few richer?!
Ask the monkey...his brain so similar than yours.

[Atheorist]

The computer, perhaps more than anything else is changing life quicker than anything before it.

This is a forgivable conceit that time spent reading older literature ought to dispel. Generations born as peasants who found themselves in brand new cities with factory jobs could make a similar claim with far greater justification.

Affordable illumination - whale oil!
From sunup - sundown to living by a clock.
Railroads.
Telephone.
Radio.

All of these and more changed consciousness and how we live and learn as much or more than the computer. It has been a pretty fast ride for 400 years or so now.

[Midas]

'The forgivable conceit' friend is in your court. I am not going to waste my time pointing it out further how the speed of change today is not only bringing in new innovations in technology, sometimes replacing the 'old' in weeks, but also bringing great change to the existing which took not only centuries, but millenniums to be first discovered and introduced by man.

And this is not only directly into lives, but indirectly through political, and economic change. And, it has only just begun. What is already waiting in the wings, and also being brought to life in 'home workshops' and in the bedrooms, or campus rooms, of the young using that which exists to leapfrog into realms as yet undreamed by even the professors who teach them.

At the root of this increasing speed is the computer which is now even incorporated in telephone, and mobile, telephone, technology. But there is much more on the way - much, much, more.

The computer speeds up thought, and it is mind power which is behind every, and I mean every, innovation introduced by man (and woman).


A person either sees it, or they don't. And, for me, it does not take even a high school graduate to see it. Therefore, I would be merely wasting my time, and preaching to far too many who 'pass even that low rung grade' to merely repeat the obvious.

But, as I always maintain, people will believe what they want to believe - mostly because they have an inability to observe, or even accept a change to their own closed mind once they have defined, narrowly, its parameters.


Incidentally, I am now only engaging myself here in defending, or answering questions upon, anything I have written, as I have made it known to the site management I cannot agree with threads being moved (even if they are not mine) to 'backwaters' that, if read in context, qualified to remain where they were. To me, it indicates lack of understanding and concern for the posters who give their time and effort, for free, to make a site interesting, and inviting to others.

[crazefest456]

This naturally led to the debate concerning brain throughout history, and whether antique brains were more or less complex. At this point I wondered whether or not the human brain was originally conceived (not the religious sense of the word) at the level it is now, or whether it has evolved over time.
The brain evolving. Sounds logical enough. This led me to wonder whether or not we are the epitome of evolution, or whether we could still evolve more. Perhaps smarter people have a more evolved brain? And what spawns this neurological evolution? fraternity? circumstance?


The human brain has evolved-- not in the sense of capacity because now we understand that the brain has an infinite capacity; that it merely acts as a hologram-like space. It has evolved in the sense that each succession of generations has a better method of using it to its advantage. What causes us to let our brain evolve is the desire to break free from our physical limitations.

[Shurtugal]

When you speak of evolve, are you meaning it as edapted or become better? i think evolution as something growing from nothing, something becoming bigger and better.

[trippy star]

Yes, that is how I would classify evolution: something growing out of nothing. Anyhow, I've given the subject more thought and concluded that education is the evolution of the brain. Education and aptitude, rather, would be a better description. For example someone who is "good" at something has (I'm assuming) experienced alternative interests, and decided that what they're "good" at. And this, I feel, is natural selection within the brain. The brain, at this point in our species development, subconsciously comprehends that an advanced set of skills in at least one area is crucial to its survival; so the brain finds what it is adept at, and gives the host vocational impulses towards that activity.

Now, what does this have to do with education? Well, to start with, let's look more deeply into opinions. People form opinions based, firstly, upon impulses; then they apply a rational attitude to those impulsive ideas. So, a person’s opinions are based on impulses, originally, and impulses are founded in the subconscious, which in its turn is governed by internal natural selection, and education is the process of forming opinions, then education is an extension of natural selection, or evolution.

A theory, nothing more. Tear it apart, please, it's the only way to discern the truth.