There is an old anecdote. The teacher calls the student to the blackboard:
- Tell us how the human mind appeared on Earth? The student hesitates for a long time, then mumbles:
- Well, I knew, but I forgot …
- So remember! - the teacher thunders. - Wow, one person in the world knew this, and he forgot!
The mystery of human consciousness, its origin, structure, evolution - in other words, the questions of “where it all came from and where it will come” is one of the most exciting mysteries of nature. Of course, in a short article we will not answer such global questions (and who can do it?). I would just like to tell you about some interesting facts and controversial hypotheses related to this topic.
When will the “new man” appear?
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Is the brain still evolving, or has it reached its logical limit? And if it continues, what are its driving forces? Researchers have different points of view. There are two main positions. According to some scientists, human evolution has stopped - they say, there is nowhere further, everyone has arrived. More precisely, biological evolution stopped, but social evolution took its place.
According to others, on the contrary, the development of science and technology should sharply accelerate the biological evolutionary process. Proponents of the second point of view look into the future with interest - after all, the brain, in their opinion, should change dramatically, increase, and other organs will gradually atrophy.
For example, the American scientist D. Holden believes that in 500,000 years there will be a type of person who will be as different from the modern as we are from the Sinanthropists. Galton Darwin (the grandson of Charles Darwin) joins this point of view - although, in his opinion, a “new man” will appear on Earth no earlier than in a million years.
But the most interesting are the statements of Polish anthropologists who are trying to approach the "problem of the future mind" based not on guesswork, but on their own data. Back in 1953, E. Lott's book "The Man of the Future" was published in Warsaw. The author believes that our ancestors constantly underwent a very intensive process of transformation of the skull.
Another Polish anthropologist, A. Wiercinski, measured the cranial indices of the present person and his fossil ancestors. As a result of his studies, he came to the conclusion that the pace of human evolution accelerated in the last segment of history, taken as a whole.
Measuring these indicators (from Pithecanthropus to humans of our days), the scientist identified four points, on the basis of which he drew graphs illustrating the acceleration of evolution. Although Vertsinsky's data (or rather, their starting point) date back to the distant past and provide little basis for confidence in the role of urbanization in changing the brain, nevertheless, the scientist tried to give this recent period on a cosmic scale very important.
Humanity is degenerating …
This work by Vertsinsky, published in 1956, did not meet with the understanding of the scientific community. However, the scientist did not insist, saying that this is not a dogma, but only a program for future research. But later he gave a sensational interview to A. Schwarz-Bronikovsky, editor of the Polish magazine Dookola swiata ("Around the World").
The resulting article was titled Fatal Parabola. In it, readers were assured (on the basis of Vertsinsky's graphs) that humanity, as science and technology develops, is rapidly approaching physiological degeneration. How could it look like? The emergence of creatures with a huge head, the emergence of races of madmen and geniuses.
Morlocks - degraded people of the Future (novel "The Time Machine")
An increase in the brain, according to Vertsinsky, will create an unbearable load on the nerve cells and will cause, on the one hand, an increase in the number of mental illnesses, and on the other, a sharp rise in the number of super-gifted human descendants. And this will happen, according to Vertsinsky, by epoch-making standards very soon than 40,000 years.
Eloi and Morlocks
It is curious to note that HG Wells in his famous novel The War of the Worlds (1897) described his superdeveloped Martians in approximately the same way - a giant brain, under which weak tentacles barely crawl. In the same novel, the author refers to a certain "one scientist inclined to speculative constructions." Here Wells is referring to himself - in his article "The Man of the Millionth Year", published before the "War of the Worlds", this is how the result of human evolution on Earth is described.
However, the same Wells in another book - The Time Machine (1895) - gives a completely different picture of the distant future. Humanity is divided into two races - the beautiful Eloi, living in magnificent palaces among fragrant gardens, and the monstrous Morlocks (something like humanoid spiders) living in underground tunnels, and the latter devour (literally) the former. But in that and in the other races, nothing human was essentially left - they have completely degenerated in the course of the past millennia, turning into miserable feeble-minded creatures.
And Wells is completely pessimistic in perhaps the most terrible of his novels - "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1896). There, a biologist on his island is trying to turn animals into people with the help of the latest scientific achievements, to endow them with intelligence, good aspirations and humanity.
The experiment of Dr. Moreau, personifying in the book science, civilization and progress, ends tragically - the experimenter dies, killed by one of his "creations". And the "creations" themselves immediately return to the bestial state. Of course, I would not like to agree with such views and predictions, imbued with disbelief in the power of reason.
Our brain is an antenna
But if the future is unknown to us, and forecasts are always controversial, let us turn to the past. There, it would seem, a lot has already been clarified thanks to numerous scientific studies? No matter how it is!
In 1960, an article appeared by an anthropologist from the University of Pennsylvania (USA), Professor L. Eisley, entitled "Darwinism Today." In it, the American scientist again returns to the question posed to Charles Darwin by one of his former supporters, Alfred Russell Wallace: where did the brain come from?
Both Wallace and Eisley (almost a century later) ask the same question: how can you be sure of the natural origin of the human brain, the applicability of that blind play of the forces of nature to it, which, according to Darwin, created the world of animals and plants? After all, the human brain historically arose too quickly in comparison with the leisurely course of the rest of evolution lasting millions of years, and the complexity of its development far exceeded the requirements of the struggle for existence.
Eisley leads the reader to the same conclusions that Wallace had earlier reached: "The spiritual factor should guide the development of the brain." Eisley reflects on "the lonely ascent of man to the highest step," and here he is no exception.
The Man of the Future (left) from the sci-fi series Doctor Who
The same trend can be noted in the works of the outstanding English neurophysiologist Charles Scott Sherrington, who argued that human nature is dual and consists of matter and spirit. According to Sherrington, the most complex mechanics of brain activity is set in motion by a special "psychic principle" that exists outside the brain, and the knowledge of its laws is the subject of "natural theology."
A student of Sherrington, the Australian scientist M. Eccles, famous for the finest studies of the brain, in 1951 put forward a hypothesis explaining the connection between the brain and consciousness. No, he did not follow the path of the equally famous anatomist-neurologist K. Kulenbeck, who believed that consciousness was not at all connected with the brain. Eccles viewed the cerebral cortex as a kind of "antenna" that picks up some kind of influence. Such influences Eccles called "spiritual influence", which does not lend itself to any registration.
And then - your sphere …
The complexity and mystery of the processes taking place in the human mind are so great that in the near future it is hardly worth hoping for at least a partial solution to these mysteries. And since we began these notes with an anecdote, let us conclude with one more - about Niels Bohr.
On one occasion, Niels Bohr spoke with the Bishop of Canterbury. The priest was very interested in the work of the scientist, and he asked Bohr about what material bodies are made of.
- From atoms, - answered the great physicist.
- So? the bishop was curious.
- And then from electrons, protons, quarks …
- And further?
Then Niels Bohr smiled and replied:
- And even further, Father, your sphere …
And although this story is about physics, perhaps it is quite applicable to the topic of our short article.
Andrey BYSTROV