Completely Random Thought for the day...
Nature always builds just to capacity... She doesn't build for "Future expansion"...
Our brains have been the same size (roughly) for many thousands of years... And it grew to this current size for a reason.
Ergo "caveman" (Prehistoric Man) would have had to have had a life (roughly) as complex as ours today...
I wonder what the Prehistoric equivalent of computers, finance, automotive engineering and surgery were... I guess one could say "hunting mammoth"... but really... since many people manage to perform even more complex versions of the "Classic vision" of hunting mammoth (like, say, martial arts or... well, hunting. Though gunpowder did make that markedly easier), while still managing to work on cars, or balance billions of dollars/yen/pounds, or manage microprocessors that are half again the size of the previous microprocessor... I can't imagine our historians are fully comprehending the complexity of whatever it was that Prehistoric man was doing...
Maia commented that perhaps the complexity of our brains was developed to accommodate the construction of language... and I was satisfied with that...
Until I realized that we master language before our brains finish the growing cycle... We even have managed to circumvent natural process to accommodate this massive gray thinking thingie (Because our heads are now too large to pass through the birth canal fully developed, thus we get to continue to develop outside of the womb... something that isn't very "natural"... so much so, we had to develop culture because our young are completely incapable of surviving without assistance during that multi-year development time)....
Also, we can master many different languages before that cycle is complete... and still have the brain capacity to perform Brain Surgery (Ahem, Mal :D)... Which again brings me back to "What was Nature building this massive brain for"?
What was prehistoric man doing? Now aren't you curious? I certainly am... :D
---Homo Sapiens-Sapiens.
posted by Aabh @ 2:49 AM
3 Comments:
Jeeze Guy, it should be obvious. Our brains were built this way to understand FOOTBALL!!!!!!
Some good questions, I'll reccomend a couple of books that you can read that posit a similar question. You are indeed onto something with the fact that life in the Neolithic and Paleolithic periods was just as complex for humans in their own way.
Also keep in mind that it is a myth that we only use a fraction of our brains. With actually use the vast majority of our brain.
Up late writing this evening!
Bon soir!!!!
Nick
What a great topic. (Hi everyone !)
There are a number of reasons that we are intellegent beyond the minimum needed for survival. They all come down to one thing...
SEX
Consider the 'cave woman'. Given the choice (and women do get to choose) between 'ugg' the simplton, and 'Charles' the more intelligent cave man, she will likely choose Charles.
While both Ugg and Charles can provide for her, Charles can talk, and create fire, and art, etc, etc. Which means a higher quality of life for her and a higher likelyhood of success for their offspring.
In addition, the simple fact that Charles can afford to spend time making art means he's successful and not just scrapping by. Intellegence becomes a fitness indicator, implying Charles offspring will be fit.
Those offspring will have advantages. Not only are they likely to be fit, but they will be more intelligent. If female, they will prefer smarter males and be more likely to survive, if male they will BE smarter males, and again more likely to survive. This progress takes off in a self-reenforcing cycle until Junior's head is too large...
For other examples, see:
The peacock (tail as fitness indicator)
Any species with males with impractical mating rituals or appendages (big horn sheep, etc)
For futher thoughts on this, I suggest "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, amongst other things.
~James, from Iraq, who loves this topic
Hmmm... good points, but why did women develop the "taste" for intelligence? If it were Darwinistic for the intelligent to survive, then all creatures, including the cockroach that we just found in my apartment (I'm hating Japan at this moment) would be as intelligent as us. There had to be a reason for us to develop this massive brain. After we developed the brain I could see sex being a drive... but what caused the initial push to this big gray thing?
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