Homo insipiens

We humans evolved in a rather simple environment. African grasslands is the current leading hypothesis. Men went hunting everyday, women stayed and took care of the children. They also gathered edible plants, because men couldn't hunt enough. That is very simple compared with the world we're living in right now, although very complicated itself.

That's the sort of world we metaphorically "grew up" in. By growing up I actually mean evolving. Especially our brains, the most complicated system known to us, with a hundred billion neurons each being connected of an average five thousand others. Seems very powerful. It is a very powerful computing engine indeed. We are only approaching to a very weak understanding of what this system is actually capable of, but...

There is no way we could call this complicated brain perfect. It's a work of natural selection, not some intelligent design. That is why we tend to forget things. That is why we don't always behave appropriately. That is why we can't calculate as fast as a computer, although we have the capacity to do so. That is why we can never think perfectly.

It is, in my opinion, the ultimate cause of most human-caused problems. Wars, for instance. Why would we need wars? Kill one another, for what? If we were perfect, if every single of us thought perfectly, we would never have wars. We would never have had any weapons which its purpose would be beyond elimination of predatory animals potentially dangerous to us, or animals that were our prey. Let us face it: we are so imperfect. So imperfect that we forget things. We are illogical. We fight each other, over pointless matters. We might sound wise compared with other animals, but ask me, and based on the definition of wisdom, I will say we are indeed very unwise. Thus, the name given to our species, Homo sapiens, the "Wise man", seems very untrue to me. I'd rather call our species Homo insipiens, the "Unwise man". Yes.

We evolved in the African Savannah. Our brain was nearest-to-the-best apparatus we could have in order to survive and reproduce there. If one could in any way call natural selection purposeful (which is so stupid to say) I'd call the evolution of the human brain the worst, and at the same time, the most intriguing mistake it ever made. It is so intriguing it can analyze itself! That is just marvelous! But that comes from it's ability of abstract thinking, and abstract thinking, along with some other minor abilities it has, leads to philosophy. Philosophy as opposed to plausible logic of "accept something when there's evidence for it". Somewhat opposed to logic itself. The brain obviously puts itself into trouble. Its imperfection confuses itself. But where does the imperfection come from? Natural selection. Nothing can ever be perfect in the process. That is, in my opinion, very self evident because natural selection is a process that works purely based on change in the environment.

So we evolved so to the Pleistocene era. Then our brain somehow stopped evolving. Why did that happen? I think it was probably because a new ability formed in the brain. An ability that helped the humans alter their environment drastically. That would be real trouble! Imagine the process of adaptation to the environment becoming slower than the changes in the environment! That is one of my hypotheses. Another is that memes (ideas, in a sense) began to form in our brains. And these memes were replicators just like genes, with the difference that they replicated themselves way faster. They evolved faster. Culture would be their collection in a certain given human society. Cultural evolution began, being much faster than genetic evolution. Still, we come to the same trouble, the environment (culture) changing so fast the brain itself could not get adapted to it. The apparatus almost perfectly fitted to the African Savannah now finds itself in a human society of hundreds. Thousands. Millions! With an environment way more complicated it is supposed to deal with. Problems arise.

Through cultural evolution and under the heavy effect of natural phenomena, with the basis of the imperfect brain of the Homo insipiens, civilization arises. Wars begin. Countries arise, with people distinguishing themselves from one another through ethnicity, with the irony that races always mixed in the human history. Through language, with the irony that languages blended all the time. Through religion, and that one is the most foolish of them all... why would people distinguish themselves from one another through an ideology that is almost surely false? Cultural evolution, I'd say.

And there we are in the 21st century C.E, with about two hundred countries in the world, most of them relating themselves to certain historical races. That is foolish! Races have mixed enormously during the past few thousand years, the historic time many of these countries attributes their origins to. Very ironic and paradoxical! Very illogical! Why would we humans be so gullible then? Our imperfect brains would be the ultimate answer.

There we are in the 21st century with so many religions one can actually never count. That is even more foolish! How would these illogical ideologies that are based on myths survive to this day, with so many followers devotedly believing them, sometimes willing to give their lives for them? Once again, imperfect, gullible human brains.

But why can't we change this state of the world? Why is it so difficult to make things better for all of us? Simple, because that is not how evolution works, cultural evolution in this sense. What exists today is the cumulative result of what has been yesterday. Every single event in the past counts. Every single event in the past has in its own way contributed to the present. Now is the result of all before. So, in my opinion, it is time to stop being unrealistic about our world. It is time to open our eyes and our minds, and stop wishing things got better on their own, and stop imagining a perfect future, for nothing will ever be perfect in the real world. It is time to wake up and try to make a better future for our human race, by considering our past through educating ourselves, about ourselves. But at the same time, we must not forget that we are still the same imperfect gullible members of the species  Homo insipiens, and that we can never reach imperfection, that even when we think we are doing best, we might be wrong. And that is not something that frightens me, since to me the meaning of life is to strive. I am a Homo insipiens and I accept that.