- George Holevas
- Oakland Gardens, NY
- United States
Student in Chemical Engineering, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
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Do you believe the human brain will continue to increase its capabilities?
According to neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran's TED talk, "The neurons that shaped civilization", a sudden emergence and rapid spread of a number of skills that are unique to human beings occurred 75k to 100k years ago. These defining skills include the use of tools, fire, shelter, language, and the ability to interpret a person's behavior.
He attributes the rapid development of these skills to a sudden emergence of a sophisticated mirror neuron system. Mirror nuerons are a relatively recent discovered set of neurons that fire when an animal either performs an action or observes that same action performed by another, essentially allowing us to emulate and imitate each other's actions.
Ramachandran speculates that this brain development was incredibly beneficial to the progression of mankind because it allowed an accidental discovery by one member of the group, such as use of fire or a particular kind of tool, to spread horizontally across the population and then transmit vertically down the generations. This temporarily made evolution Lamarckian instead of Darwinian, meaning that acquired traits over a lifetime could be passed down to offspring via emulation instead of relying on Darwinian evolution which could take hundreds of thousands of years.
The question I would like to pose is, might our brains (collectively as a species) soon experience such a new type of development once again? If so, what new skills could this more sophisticated neuron system facilitate our ability to perform, considering trends in globalization, collaboration etc (e.g. collaborative tasks across geographies, learning multiple languages more quickly etc )? Has the brain's full potential already been unleashed? Or will it perpetually continue to develop more complex neural permutations?
FELIPE GOMEZ ORTEGA
Irida Balliu
Hindi Kornbluth
I was actually just having a similar conversation with one of my friends the other week. He claimed that, in the future, humans will evolve to seek fulfillment rather than happiness, allowing humankind to be a more productive species. (I argued that fulfillment and happiness are abstract concepts that don't necessarily exist in mutually exclusive planes, but that's another argument for another time.)
I think that evolution in general is an inevitability. The world around us is constantly changing (Moore's law postulates that technology doubles in power every 18 months), and those that cannot adapt will have a lesser chance of furthering their genes. Our brains are adapting to this new technologically-based world, and we don't yet know the true impact. For example, apparently reading text on a computer screen and reading text on a piece of paper is a completely different experience for a brain (even more so for a developing brain), and we don't yet know the effect that will have on the minds of children that are growing up reading on devices like the Kindle.
(A series of really interesting essays/debates on this concept: http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/does-the-brain-like-e-books/ )
There's obviously no way in knowing with any accuracy how our brains will evolve in the future, but I do believe that the evolution will happen, and that technology will play a role in it in some form.
Scott Bell
Martin Herrigan
Haman Iranian
so if use it more, earn more, if you use it less, you earn nothing also you lose prefer capability.
Obey No1kinobe 50+
This is potentially a greater benefit or change in the medium term than further evolutionary changes.
How we use the brain also reinforces certain neural pathways, so the raw material may not change much, but the wired network and associated behaviours may.
I'm not sure how natural selection is working these days given low mortality rates. Gene frequency may be impacted more by which groups have the higher birth rates and I doubt this has much to do with brain advantages.
Orlando Hawkins 20+
Isn't the existence of mirror-neruon's speculative? I remember reading something that the neurophilosopher Patrica Chruchland said about its possible functions. Being that I am no scientist there is no way for me to articulate this but I found the reading interesting. She states that complex mental activities, such as having intentions, would be hard would have to have the right functionality and be in the right place to produce complex mental thoughts.
As for the this evolution and brain development I would say yes but there is perhaps no way of knowing when. I like to relate evolution and development to sports. You learn from the players before your time and develop your own path. That's how anyone improves and get better. You have to learn from somewhere. I guess its all amazing how our brain does this naturally.
Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+
Moreover, human brain is undergoing a more rapid change in the horizontal direction as we are increasing the sensory inputs to brain aided by technology. Consider how vastly neural networks of human brain will change if we implant a chip inside human brain that can enable us to see in the infrared or ultraviolet.
There is another important development taking place in the realm of human brain capabilities. Just like we can download data in extended hard drives to free up memory for a processor to run better in a computer - we have created huge repositories of information that can be accessed almost instantaneously now relieving the human brain to expend more power in the critical analyses or abstract thinking. So a social brain has certainly increased its capabilities in modern times.
Bushy Van Eck
A man appeared in court facing charges for bicycle theft claiming it to be his own. When asked how long he had the bicycle he replied. “Your honor, I had this bicycle from the days when it was still only a tricycle. Fortunately for him the judge was an avid believer in evolution and the man was set free to go despite the lack of evidence to justify his acquittal.
Bushy Van Eck
The Lost city of Atlantis which I would like to refer to as “The lost civilization of Atlantis” is a perfect example thereof. What is was and will be again, now where did I read that. A tricycle can no more become a bicycle than a bicycle can become a motorcycle. All levels of evolution is just that, being there as the supporting pillars to uphold and sustain the different levels for the manifestation of unified consciousness working its way up through the levels to eventually attain the highest level of consciousness. The only way to escape this eternal loop called humanity is to attain and become part of the unification of a higher level of consciousness. This is only possible through the realization that you have to give up your egocentric individualistic self.
To answer your question.
The human brain has once again almost reached the limitations it was intended for.
No more than an eagle can become a rabbit, than a rabbit can become a fox will mankind be allowed to become something else. It would defy the whole purpose of upholding the different impassable levels of evolution by means of purposeful creation. No link ever was nor ever will be found to link the different cycles of evolution.
george lockwood 20+
Kyung Lee
You bring up an interesting point, and I also think that with the convenience of technology, the human brain requires less work, and it sees little incentives to evolve. As much as the human brain has come closer to excellence, I feel that the brain evolves less now that the technology allows the brain to work less.
Jonathan Huang
The evolution of technology has been exponentially faster in the recent centuries than it has in the past.. as far as I know. I truly believe that technology has almost replaced the inventive to evolve the human brain when computer brains can evolve at a much faster rate.
However, I think as humans with lifespans that last a short time when compared to time humans have been around, it is hard for us to speculate how and when human brains will evolve. If there really was a huge sudden evolution 75-100k years ago, how do we know how sudden these evolutions actually were? Has the human brain not evolved much since then? I think this is a subject that is truly hard to tell. With technological advancements going at the rate they have been, I think human brain evolution will not come anytime soon.
Raam Anand
To quote an example, when I look at my 12-year old son's school books, they are being taught (and they get to know) way more knowledge, insights and skills than us at the same age. What we were knowing at, probably, 16, they already know at 12.
Technology, communication, language and many other factors are responsible for even more brain development.
Philip Cogswell
We also come to understand more with the machine we have and recognize it as having biological origins from 3 different places. reptile, animal and a modern dual hemisphere structure all doing different things primary tasks are bodily operation. The modern brain will confound us with its own analysis of itself.
walter crockett
Bushy Van Eck
As yet it is also still not clearly understood, if understood at all, why the duration for the development of brains from birth to adulthood differs so vastly amongst all the species of which humans is no exception. The complete development of a human’s brain for example takes much longer than that of animals. By Googeling on the internet you will be inundated with thousands of speculations and well conducted research as to why, but sadly none capable of solving the mystery. I can go into this much more deeply, and there are limits to brain capacity as well as we are headed to a collective change. Feel free to study my website and you will understand in a new way. Bushy
Farrukh Yakubov 50+
Imagine the act of painting for an instance. If a new painting is painted on a canvas with some predrawn image, it would introduce limitations to what the painting could become. On the contrary, if started with a blank canvas, a painting could take any form, without any limitations.
The brain is analogous to a multidimensional bio-chemical canvas that draws on itself continuously. Where every "brush stroke" is a newly formed or destroyed connection/structure, corresponding to a learned skill. Thus, the brain with less embedded knowledge has less restrictions to what it may become and has more potencial to become greater, than a brain that already has a embedded framework of ancestoral knowledge.
Therefore, if a brain was intelligent enough to realize the above, and if its goal was to become more intelligent, it would not chose to evolve into something with restrictons upon its existence.
Tom Eccleston
Jay Dalal
Natural selection only happens if an environment is significantly better for some than others. But humans have made so much progress that we've almost removed ourselves from nature. We have medicine and transportation that enable us to survive harsh conditions. We are supporting each other's survival instead of competing for survival.
An advancement in our brain structure won't spread through future generations unless it were *much* better for survival than what we already have. Maybe there are people alive right now with advanced brain structures, but they're regarded by the people around them as abnormal, and they're discouraged from reproducing.
Like Tom said, natural evolution is such a slow process. We'll probably learn to force evolution sooner than nature can (by learning how to give someone dominant traits that can be passed on?), or we might advance digital technology so much that a development in brain structure is unnecessary.
George Holevas
Vincenzo Sergi
cheers
Teo Teo
Casey Christofaris 10+
Lewis Smart 20+
However, seems to me that we could gain a new part of the brain, maybe something that did something new that the cerebral cortex doesn't do, or it might augment it in some way.
To me the main question is whether it will be an apple device or an android one ;)
Chris Kelly 20+
ahaha! Time to consult Ray Kurtzweil.
Gordon Barker 10+
First of all, the brain is about as big as the human birth canal allows unless there is some evolution in this area.
The complexity in the brain structure (number of folds etc) can probably increase although I expect there is a reciprocity issue here.
The amount of energy the brain takes about 20% of our oxygen and glucose to run
Also, where are the evolutionary pressures that would force the brain to function "better" than it currently does.
Some people say that our exposure to technology and the quick pace of change is changing us.
Other people say that our exposure to technology is giving us shorted attention spans and smaller memories.
It is also not clear that intelligence was the primary goal that evolution had in mind when the brain project was started. Certainly cleverness in dealing with our environment surviving when surrounded by predators but not having much in the way of built in weaponry. Intelligence may just be an emergent behavour.
Is this mirror system unique to mankind or has it been in the brain design for many species?
If there is a jump in neuron evolution, it probably will not be a straight line advancement on the current structure.