Modern man in his development is not far from the monkey, his life is determined by the same laws as tens of millions of years ago, and the future does not bode well for humanity. Evolutionist, paleoneurologist, doctor of biological sciences, professor, head of the laboratory for the development of the nervous system at the Institute of Human Morphology of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Sergei Vyacheslavovich Savelyev talks about the evolution and degradation of the brain and shares his forecasts of human development.
How and why did the human brain develop?
The brain did not evolve so that we can think well, create immortal works, solve mathematical problems, or send people into space. It has evolved to solve biological problems quickly and efficiently. We have bad nails, slow feet, no wings, disgusting anatomy - we walk on two legs like dinosaurs. And our only advantage over other species is brain size.
The brain has been formed under the influence of biological laws for a very long time. Our distant ancestors, like all primates, lived 50 million years in trees. Then, 15 million years ago, they descended from these trees. According to the official version, without any reason, they abandoned the beautiful forests full of food, and went to eat roots in open fields - where predators could easily tear them apart. Of course, this is nonsense. Monkeys from the jungle are not so easy to drive out - they can only be lured by food. This means that they went to the shores of the lakes, of which there were a lot in Africa then, for fish, caviar and eggs of birds nesting there. An overabundance of food rich in protein, lack of competition for it - this is the basis of the happiness of our ancestors. This paradise period lasted for about 10 million years. What were the primates doing when they solved the food problem? Reproduction and dominance issues. Fierce sexual competition began, and our ancestors began to sort things out among themselves. An excess of food gives rise to social problems - this biological law is still valid today. As long as everyone goes to work and makes money, everything is fine in the family. As soon as one goes to work, the others begin to sort things out among themselves.
Was the speech that emerged at that time an instrument of sexual competition? And did it cause brain growth?
Speech and communication emerged as the basis for cooperative action when hunting in the water. But very quickly they began to be used in a different way - for deception. In any world, demonstrating the ability to act is much easier and more profitable than doing something. Just imagine: a male comes to a female and says that he caught a huge fish, but suddenly evil animals appeared, took it away and ate it. An image is already being born in you - but there were no events. He came up with all this in order to achieve a result: to conquer the female and make a descendant for himself. Speech began to evolve because it does not imply any activity. It is energetically more beneficial. Lying is profitable everywhere, and everyone does it. Speech helped in the competition for food, for the female, for the dominant position in the flock. However, speech is not an acquisition that rebuilds or enlarges the brain. Microcephalics, for example, have smaller brains than chimpanzees, but they can speak well.
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When did the brain start growing?
Ten million years ago, at the time of the transition from monkey to man, a system of socialization arose and social selection began to operate. Since a group of primates could solve their problems only in a stable situation, when no one was fighting among themselves, the most aggressive and smartest were either destroyed or expelled from the pack. As a result of this latent form of selection, there was evolution. On the one hand, it was conservative, or stabilizing, selection: due to the rejection of biological individuality, a group with certain averaged properties was created. On the other hand, the expelled individuals migrated, adapted to the new environment, multiplied and again expelled the asocial and the most intelligent. This is how a new migration route appeared. And if we trace the history of the movement of mankind, we will find outthat in each new place the brain increased slightly and in several million years reached its maximum size - 1650 g, which is almost 300 g more than that of modern humans.
How has social selection within a group influenced the formation of the brain?
A million years ago, the social structure of society, thanks to the most severe internal selection, developed the frontal region of the brain. In humans, this area is huge: in other mammals, it is much smaller relative to the entire brain. The frontal region was formed not in order to think, but to force the individual to share food with a neighbor. No animal is capable of sharing food, because food is a source of energy. And people who did not share food were simply destroyed in a social group. By the way, we all know an example of how the frontal area works - this is anorexia. A person who, in order to lose weight, stops eating, cannot be forced later - and in the end he dies. But it turns out that he can be cured: if you cut off his frontal areas, he will start eating. This method was practiced until the 1960s, when psychosurgery was banned.
When and why did the human brain begin to shrink?
The brain grew while there was where to migrate and while people had to solve only biological problems. When humanity faced social problems, the brain began to lose weight. This process began about 100 thousand years ago. Approximately 30 thousand years ago, this led to the extermination of the Neanderthals. They were smarter, stronger than our Cro-Magnon ancestors; they creatively solved all problems, came up with tools, means of making fire, etc. But due to the fact that they lived in small populations, their social selection was less pronounced. And Cro-Magnons took advantage of large populations. As a result of long-term negative social selection, their groups were well integrated. Thanks to population unity, the Cro-Magnons destroyed the Neanderthals. Against a mass of mediocrity, even the most powerful geniuses can do nothing. In the end, we were left alone on this planet.
As this story shows, you don't need a large brain to socialize. A perfectly socialized blunt individual will integrate into any community much better than an individualist. Over the course of evolution, personal talents and traits have been sacrificed for biological benefits: food, reproduction, dominance. This is the price humanity has paid!
That is, the weight of the brain speaks of a person's abilities?
Yes, about its potential. In 75% of cases, a person with a large brain is four times more likely to become a genius or have a talent than a person with a small brain. This is a fact, statistics.
Why is mental work difficult for us? Is this also the result of brain shrinkage?
The brain is a strange structure.
On the one hand, it allows us to think, on the other, it does not. How does it work? In a relaxed state, when you are resting, say, watching TV, the brain consumes 9% of the body's total energy. And if you start thinking, then the consumption rises to 25%. But we have 65 million years of struggle for food and energy behind us. The brain is used to this and does not believe that tomorrow it will have something to eat. Therefore, he categorically does not want to think. (For the same reason, by the way, people tend to overeat.) In the course of evolution, special defense mechanisms have even arisen: when you start to work intensively, to think, you immediately develop special compounds that cause irritation: you want to eat, to the toilet, you have there are a million things to do - whatever you want, just not to think. And if you lie down on the sofa with delicious food, the body is delighted. Serotonin immediately begins to be produced - it differs only by the position of one molecule from LSD. Or dopamine, or endorphins - hormones of happiness. Intellectual costs are not supported this way, and the body resists them. The brain is big, not to work all the time, but to solve the energy problem. You have a biological task, you turned on and worked hard. And as soon as they solved the problem, they immediately turned off and on the sofa. It is more profitable to have a huge powerful computer, run it for three minutes, solve the problem and turn it off immediately. You have a biological task, you turned on and worked hard. And as soon as they solved the problem, they immediately turned off and on the sofa. It is more profitable to have a huge powerful computer, run it for three minutes, solve the problem and turn it off immediately. You have a biological task, you turned on and worked hard. And as soon as they solved the problem, they immediately turned off and on the sofa. It is more profitable to have a huge powerful computer, run it for three minutes, solve the problem and turn it off immediately.
Does the brain always work entirely?
No, he is not adapted to this. When you watch a movie, the occipital regions work, when you listen to music - the temporal regions. And even the blood supply changes - now to the auditory region, then to the visual, then to the motor. Therefore, if you want to keep the brain intact, you cannot do, for example, one physical education. If at the same time you do not give yourself intellectual loads, and various, then the blood supply will take place mainly in the motor areas, and not in the intellectual, that is, associative, and sclerosis will begin there earlier. The old woman will be mobile, slender, but in complete insanity.
Is it difficult for us to do several things at the same time because of this feature of the brain?
Yes, of course, many tasks require increased concentration, and energy costs increase dramatically. The flow of blood goes to several areas at once, the resistance of the brain increases: the more you turn on neurons, the more the brain does not want to work.
How to make a lazy brain work?
This is very difficult to do. Of course, some kind of delayed results can be promised to the brain, but biological organisms require only immediate results: after all, you may not live to see tomorrow. So this method is suitable for units. But you can deceive the brain. There are two ways to do this. The first is through fraudulent promises, the second is through so-called biased activity. Let me give you an example. The dog sits near the table, you are at the table, on the table is a sandwich. The dog wants to steal a sandwich and realizes that he will be punished. And here she sits, sits between two fires and suddenly begins to scratch furiously behind her ear. She can neither remain indifferent, nor react - and chooses the third path. This is biased activity - doing something that is not directly related to what you really need. It `s that,what is driven into the gap between biological ("want") and social ("need") motivation. Writers, for example, start to write something completely different from what they should, photographers - to shoot something not related to the order - and the results are often brilliant. Someone calls it inspiration, someone calls it inspiration. It is very difficult to achieve this state.
Can we say that a person's abilities are inherent in his brain?
Yes, and they can neither be expanded nor increased - only implemented. For example, an artist has huge occipital fields - five to six times more (in weight, size, number of neurons) than an ordinary person. This determines his abilities. He has more processing resource, he will see more colors and details, so you can never agree with him about the visual assessment. It is difficult for people with different abilities to understand each other. And the stronger their abilities are expressed, the worse.
How to identify human abilities?
Unfortunately, psychology cannot do this. And the technical means are not yet very developed. However, I am sure that in five to ten years the technologies will be improved, high-resolution tomographs will appear (now their resolution is 25 microns, but 4-5 microns are needed), and then using a special algorithm it will be possible to sort people according to their abilities and select geniuses in different fields …
Sounds intimidating. Where it leads?
To the fact that the world will change forever. The best part is that thanks to this sorting, people will be able to do what they really are inclined to do. And it will bring happiness to many. You don't have to gasp HR like in Dead Season to keep everyone dumb and happy. Another consequence is that individual differences will overlap ethnic differences and racial problems will disappear. But new ones will appear - such that humanity has never encountered. Because geniuses, who are selected artificially, will radically and, most importantly, imperceptibly for others, change the world. In the near future, humanity will have a very short but very fierce race. Whoever creates a sorting system first will rule the world. You understand that, first of all, this technology is used not for the good of society, but for military purposes. It will be monstrous. In comparison, World War II will seem like a game of soldiers.
And in what direction is the natural evolutionary process going today?
Negative social selection, which began 10 million years ago, continues to this day. Not only asocial elements, but also the most intelligent ones, are still expelled from society. Look at the destinies of great scientists, thinkers, philosophers - few have had a good life. This is because we, as monkeys, continue to compete. If a dominant individual appears among us, it must be eliminated immediately - it also threatens everyone personally. And since there are more mediocrities, any talent must either be expelled or simply destroyed. That is why at school, excellent students are persecuted, offend, bullied - and so all their lives. Who's left? Mediocre. But perfectly socialized.
That is, we still live according to the same laws as tens of millions of years ago?
Yes, we are the same monkeys as before, and live according to the same monkey laws as 20 million years ago. Basically everyone eats, drinks, reproduces and dominates. This is the basis of the structure of humanity. All other laws and systems only mask this phenomenon. A society in which gifted people appear, no-no, has come up with such a way of disguising our monkey roots and desires in order to protect biological principles from social ones. But today all processes - in the field of politics, business, etc. - are built according to biological laws. Entrepreneurs, for example, seek to save money on everything in order to gain competitive advantages and thus increase their dominance. Social laws, moral and ethical attitudes instilled by parents, on the contrary, hinder business, and everyone tries to bypass them in order to earn more.
Since everything is built on instincts, does it mean that in order to control people, it is necessary to appeal to these instincts?
And everyone does so. After all, what do politicians promise? Every man has a woman, every woman has a man, every man a bottle of vodka. We will change your social sphere - you will live better. We will provide you with affordable medical care - you will save money and keep your health. We will cut your taxes - you will have more food. These are all biological suggestions related to energy and longevity. Where are the social offers? Almost none of the politicians talk about changing the social structure of society, about values. Instead, they say: we will give you money - and you multiply. Or here's another example of an instinctive form of dominance-building behavior brought to the point of absurdity - Bill Gates' smart house. There is an owner in this house - he enters, and the air conditioner is adjusted for him, humidity and light change. Leaves - and everything adjusts to the requests of less than the main boss. That is, in the house, in fact, there is a herd of baboons who, by their appearance in each room, prove to each other who is more important. And this is called a smart home? Yes, this is schizophrenia in the monkey house. Apotheosis of the biological principle. And all this is presented as the structure of the world of the future. What is the structure of the world of the future ?! That and look, the tail will grow to the knee in such a future. All innovations are aimed at the same thing. That and look, the tail will grow to the knee in such a future. All innovations are aimed at the same thing. That and look, the tail will grow to the knee in such a future. All innovations are aimed at the same thing.
It seems that the prospects of our civilization in terms of intelligence cannot be called rosy
If civilization remains in its present form, which I doubt, then our intellectual level will drop dramatically. It's unavoidable. Even now, the educational qualification is significantly reduced, because a great thing has arisen - an information environment that allows people to imitate knowledge and education. For primates, this is a very big temptation - such imitation allows you to do nothing and be successful. Given that intellectual development will decline, the requirements for the level of social adaptation will increase.
For example, Europe was united. Who was the most successful? Smart? Not. The most mobile and socialized, those who are ready to move to other cities and countries and get along well there. Now these people are coming to power, to the management structure. Europe, having united, hastened the degradation of intelligence. A person's ability to maintain relationships goes to the first value level, and everything else goes to the second: professionalism, skills, and abilities. So, we will face intellectual degradation, a decrease in the size of the brain, and partly, perhaps, physical recovery - now a healthy lifestyle is being promoted.
Can't a person have both high mental abilities and developed social skills?
Rarely. If a person thinks about something of his own, looking for solutions that were not in nature and in society before him, this excludes a high level of adaptation. And even if society recognizes him as a genius, he will not fit into it. High socialization, in turn, leaves no time for anything. The mass entertainers are of little use for forced labor. Because they gain dominance, increase their rating with the help of language, not deeds.
Is a woman's brain different from a man's?
The female brain is smaller than the male. The minimum difference on average for the population is 30 g - maximum 250 g. How is it lower? Due to the associative centers responsible for abstract thinking, a woman does not really need them, since her biological task is associated with reproduction. Therefore, women are especially successful in areas related to upbringing, education, and cultural identification - they are good at supporting, preserving, transmitting successive cultural systems - museums, libraries. In addition, they achieve excellent results in stabilized communities, where all the rules are already defined and well known. And, of course, women are geniuses - the brain is a very changeable structure.
Anna Natitnik