Dust to Dinosaurs, Myths to Men
Science is our key to understanding reality. Understanding reality is our key to improving life.
The domination of our planet is a conquest shared between us and the great Dinosaurs, our pre-historic relatives, who reigned for a healthy innings of 250 million years. Their demise came to be by suffocation and starvation, from a meteor impact or volcanic eruptions or a combination of the two.
66 million years on; we now dominate the planet. The key to our success? Directing our energy towards growing brains over growing bodies. Evolution guided by our growing awareness of our need to survive, ended up creating a tool so powerful it could rule the world.
The human brain, though supernaturally powerful, offers small advantage to its human unless the human knows how to use it. The skill of learning how to think has enabled our species story of survival thus far. A skill, I worry may be at risk of becoming critically endangered. So I will begin the discussion here - at the fundamental level. How did our ability to think come to exist?
The Earliest ‘Shroom Trip
One theory which may be inaccurate but is definitely amusing; is that a group of our primitive ancestors stumbled upon magic mushrooms and after some glorious trippin-ball-style sessions, the dawn of consciousness arose.
Imagine - you’re a caveman on the plains of the Savannah thousands of years ago. At one point you’re picking ants out of a hole with a stick, you eat some funky looking mushrooms, and a few hours later you’re looking at your hands trying to work out what they are - but hang on, whats even looking at my hands?!
Hello consciousness.
Mushrooms or otherwise, awareness of the caveman’s self, led to the awareness of the cavemen group and in turn; their collective awareness of their reality as cave people. What followed was a curiosity to communicate, problem solve, co-operate, form bigger groups, have ideas, make tools, have better ideas, make better tools.
Our brains grew bigger over time, and our muscles leaner, as strategy replaced brutality. We had the tool to take over the world sitting on our shoulders and we were starting to witness its productive power to make life better - stone tools, fur coverings, fire-roasted antelope. Life certainly improved with good ideas.
Unfortunately, the cavemen’s real discovery was missed. All these developments came about through two simple rules of how to use the human brain:
1: Test all ideas
2: Repeat ideas that work
How did our ability to think change over time?
Two psychological thought patterns in our human story now divert, to give us what I refer to, as our far left and far right polarities of thinking:
Our ancestors groups thrived with storytelling and song. Timeless principles were captured in legends, and passed on through generations. We all have some capacity within our own genetic code, which responds to the world of the non-measurable - beauty, emotion, creativity.
I apply cut-throat logic to most areas of life. But when I’m in my creative thinking mode staring up at the universe through the black sky above my head; I enjoy imagining that we’re living inside a snow globe on the desk of some greater being, more than learning how to calculate the radius of a star by Neil deGrasse Tyson (as great as that is to know).
Storytelling has its place and emotion its merit - but not in all scenarios.
When we are asking questions to solve important practical problems; on which, the very answers mean our survival - it is crucial that our thinking is set to ‘conviction by fact’ rather than ‘conviction by story’.
This principle has been the key to our species survival and improvement from the beginning. A caveman followed a line of logical reasoning to help his chances at hunting. Stone is hard, shape it sharp, tie to stick, pierce skin easier, kill animal quicker. That caveman understood his reality. He tested his hypothesis and this meant our species had access to more meat to grow bigger brains and think of even better ideas.
If, instead, he had chanted to the sky asking for a spirit to bring hunting victory - our story would be much different.
We exist because cavemen had ideas which tested to be good, and those very ideas secured our survival. Humans without tools and fire and covering, would not have made it through the bitter ice ages. Art, song, culture, banding together as a group with irrational hope simply for the uniting strength it brings; all these things have likely improved our chances of survival to an even greater extent - but these very things themselves would not even exist without the advancements from our science-based approach.
Is story or fact being favoured today?
From the time between Galileo to Einstein, it appeared as though our species susceptibility to believe in myth over fact was diminishing. Just as the first fire roaring to life would have been incredible to those average cavemen, light bulbs/telephones/automobiles were incredible to average people.
From the 1980’s onward, our society at large has experienced a growing technological age of prosperity. There is still incredible scientific progress happening, however it’s less tangible to the average person, so sometimes seems to be under-appreciated.
Today, a tidal wave of stories and facts are at our fingertips. In your hands, sits a device which presents you with a collection of stories and facts, personally curated to peak your curiosity, in a package which convinces you the best, and makes you feel the most at peace with your current held beliefs. Bias Confirmed = Dopamine Hit.
Companies use your data to fill your feed with information that makes you feel good so your screen gets more eyeball time. You’re renting out your eyeballs for dopamine, basically, and social media is your dopamine dealer. The consensus is - this is bad, mostly as it digs you deeper into your own argument, and you set up an even bigger camp on your chosen hill. Adding weight to polarising opinions on a massive seesaw.
But, again, similar to my crypto argument - I feel people may be skipping over the first problem, and wasting their time trying to find a solution to the second problem.
2nd problem: Corporations will use your data to fill your feed with junk
1st problem: The raw content of your data is junk, which is why you’ll get more junk, and fail to recognise its all junk
Sure, if we can figure out a way for corporations to ethically censor misinformation, great. Brainstorm away. But in the meantime, why are we putting all the responsibility of our own thinking abilities on our social media content providers. The question should not be - which algorithm tracked what activity to spit out this information? The question should be - do you, as an individual, know how to determine fact from story no matter what is put in front of you? Do you possess the ability to think critically?
If you can control how you think, algorithms can’t control what you think
Unfortunately, fraud by a few has caused hyper-skepticism of all. It’s simply become easier to accept stories and be convinced with emotion, then to determine fact and be convinced by logic. But if we have any hope of competing with our predecessors innings, I don’t believe we can take the easy way out.
Science is our key to understanding reality. Understanding reality is our key to improving life.
Dinosaurs ran out of air to breathe and food to eat, when a meteor smashed into Earth causing volcanoes to erupt and fill the atmosphere with dust. Are we going to allow our story to come to a premature ending, because we filled our brains with nonsense?