How did we get to be top of the apex and let's face it we are.
The hominid that came down from the trees was not an animal to
ensue confidence. Weak, not particularly fast or poisonous, an
animal to ensure a very limited hope of success. Like a fox it
learned to live on its wits and be open to change. When it moved
north it came into competition with a similar species that was
stronger and more suited to its environment. There are different
conjectures on why we are where we are but luck must have been one
of them. As we progressed, more available calories through more
advanced hunting techniques, using fire for protection and cooking
food to make more calories available. This encouraged larger
groups and better communication skills. Tools gave us augmented
abilities and also weapons. Like an avalanche our aptitude pulled
in more advantages and our main disadvantage of longer childhood
and low birth number dependencies gave us the chance to train our
young in much deeper beneficial knowledge.
It's the way that that you do it. There are up to 25,000 human
and up to 330,000 genes in wheat. Elephants and whales have larger
brains than us. So it appears that quality not quantity is the
order of the day when it comes to intelligence. The number of
connections and density of neurons are the deciding factor in
increased cognitive powers. The network (the connectome) and
specialisation of neurons and their supporting infrastucture give
us a multi-parellel reasoning system that is unique in the living
world. Most of the action of brain cells are governed by chemical
reactions which includes such pervasive neurotransmitters as
Glutamate. These are slow acting molecules in the world of
physics. The brain's ability to do many tasks at the same time,
make a decion on them and action them, counterbalances its
relative tardiness. The storage of previous actions is known as
Symbolic Reasoning. This allows the brain to short cicuit
recognition and use previous knowledge. The acts of any perception
move along the brain to be intensified and analysed. Constant
feedback checks symbology to see if this 'node' has been
encountered before.
Faster than a speeding train
The amount of resources spent on understanding, mending and
improving us has sky rocketed. Industry has realised that we are
big business and are pumping trillions of dollars [insert own
currency] into this affluent world that offers not only money but
real benefits to humankind and other animals. Nobody has been
castigated for becoming a doctor or a nurse and rightly so. The
money has gradually moved from killing us, to curing us and long
may it last. What has also increased, is not only the speed of
knowledge but what we thought we knew. The World Wide Web is full
of claims that bounce from laughable to dangerous. So called
experts pick up an unproven item to run with it to make money and
fame. A classic is of course immunisation, which some claim is not
a miracle but a government/enemy propoganda exercise. As a
previous UK prime minister once said, 'I can give you the facts
but I can't give you the brains to understand them'. It is also
increasingly becoming apparent that the more we know, the less we
know. All sciences are finding that things are more complex than
we ever thought and theories come and go.
