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Mar 10, 2008 1:58:46 AM
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The evolution of the human brain
The parts of the human brain and their functions evolved from the inside out. The first part of the present human brain is 100’s of millions of years old, an animal brain. It is called the brain stem and it controls involuntarily biological functions such as respiration the heart and other organs.
Next capping the brain stem is the R-complex (reptilian), it is 100’s of millions of years old. It is the seat of aggression ritual, territoriality and social hierarchy. Basically it is the brain of a crocodile.
Surrounding the R-complex is the Limbic system- It is 10’s of millions of years old. This part of your brain is a mammalian brain. Its function is the seat of, emotions moods and the caring for the young. Within it are the emotional feelings of mammals, including feelings of love. It is interesting to note that the Limbic system is basically an animal brain, so you can bet mammalian animals feel love, if you believe in evolution they felt it before we did.
So you have the aggressive reptilian R-complex and the close by Limbic system. Within the R-complex lies aggression. In nature aggression is used only to defend, settle territorial disputes, and to procure a meal. Concerning defense and territorial disputes killing is rare, mostly it's just a show of prowess. The Limbic systems function is the nurturing and caring for the young. These are very different functions, aggression and love. They both have their place in nature, but human nature is different than animal nature due to the cerebral cortex.
The cerebral cortex is the outside area of the brain; it began evolving millions of years ago. Its present size and condition is around a hundred thousand years old. Intuition ideas and critical analysis come from here. It is the seat of higher human consciousness. Science, reading writing, math, art and music come from this part of the brain. It regulates our conscious lives. Although other large mammals may have a cerebral cortex they do not have such large one.
The right hemisphere of the cerebral cortex controls pattern recognition intuition and creativity. The left hemisphere controls rational, analytical and critical thought. They are the two sides, necessary opposites, the means for creating ideas and testing their validity. Their dialogue is channeled through the corpus callosum channel providing the essential means for understanding our world.
The frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex anticipate events, imagine the future and create higher knowledge and wisdom etc. It is the controller of the cerebral cortex, the smartest place in the brain. Within this area located behind the forehead finer thinking begins. It is the seat of higher consciousness and along with the cerebral cortex it has enabled us to do things no ordinary animal could ever do. The time of its evolution to its present state is hard to pinpoint but it has evolved rather recently in perhaps less than a hundred thousand years.
Our brain has 100 billion neurons, 100 trillion neural connections and 100 trillion bits of storage capacity. It can remember a lot of information including past events, experiences, dreams, tastes, feelings, smells and so much more. It is a complex and amazing organ should we choose to use it.
animal and human traits
From accepted scientific information one can see that parts of our brain such as the R-complex and the limbic system are essentially an animal brain. However our whole brain is far different and highly evolved, it is of course a far greater a brain than any animal has.
Our big evolved brains set us apart from the animal kingdom. When we began adapting our environment using our brains and their best helper our hands we left the animals behind and took a different path, a path of learning, knowledge and hopefully wisdom. Certainly wisdom is within our brains capacity.
Why we act like animals is that well, we are animals. The walnut sized section in our brain (the crocodile brain) is the seat of aggression, ritual, territoriality and social hierarchy. Now if you are a crocodile or another animal this is a good thing. It sets the social order in the natural world and fits well within the order of life. But if you are a highly evolved human with the capability to destroy the planet, well it’s not so helpful. We are not the well balanced advanced beings that we think we are. Although we think we know, we don't know what we are doing.
When you see people fighting a war over land such as in the Middle East you can be sure they aren’t using wisdom, love and compassion. They are using the crocodile R-complex in their brains. It is not feasible, intelligent or loving to fight over a small piece of desert land when you have the means to buy fertile land elsewhere, not smart or compassionate is it? Also I would be remiss if I were to not point out that no crocodile would ever fight a war.
When people fight over the control of resources this is another example of aggression, this time involving the social hierarchy of capitalism. This is again reptilian behavior right out of the R-complex. These aggressive people while they are using their intelligence to oppress and build their tyrannical empires they are not using higher thought processes. If they would stop and really use their brains they would see that the end results of their actions foster no sustainable positive life serving results. It only serves the greedy desires of the social elite, a minute portion of the human race. And the rest of us, we let them get away with it because we aren’t using our higher brain processes either. We have the intelligence to stop these tyrants using non aggressive means but we follow like an animal instinctively follows a leader, again not so smart.
So if the R-complex is not serving us well anymore due to our highly evolved outer brains why do we still have it? Operating within the time frame of normal evolution it would take a comparatively long time for unsuitable organs to become obsolete and done away with or replaced. Also there is the fact that the R-complex still functions well, at least for a crocodile that is. If we were still living in nature observing the hierarchy of the jungle it would work well for us too. The limbic system assists us in feeling love and compassion, in the way that all mammals do. Without it love is just a concept to us and feeling it would be very hard to do.
We humans have been developing an alternative to the R-complex involving compassion, love, intelligence and wisdom but so far we haven't implemented it very well. In fact we assassinate leaders who try to institute these ethical alternatives.
The problem is that we have a fast evolving technology, oppressive leaders and a corrupt capitalistic system that is threatening our survival. We can use our technology constructively but the other two need to be drastically changed.
It’s our aggressive leaders and the oppressive corporate world that we have to control, they are the problem. These crocodile leaders are a tough lot however, we will have to out think them. If we don’t it is very possible we won’t have a future.
This is no less than the evolution of the human race to a state compatible to the needs of all life on the planet or our demise. If you don't make a stand against tyranny you have chosen your destiny and you can be sure it is not a good one.
I am not saying that we will evolve to be living in an utopian society in peace and freedom tomorrow. I am saying if we don't wise up we wont have a tomorrow.
by Thai sean
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