Excess Intelligence

As the story goes, we humans evolved out of the large ape family because of our unique environment on the African savanna. We eventually left the Dark Continent and started migrating around Europe and elsewhere. Around 10,000 BCE we started farming in the Fertile Crescent.

What puzzles me is that the human brain became far more powerful than what was needed to survive on the African plains. We became VERY smart.

Over the past 30,000 years or so we haven't changed much -- we just somehow got these powerful, big brains and have spent thousands of years growing into them. Just look at the progress we've made in ten millenniums, and imagine where we'll be in another ten millenniums. It seems that there is so limit to what our brain can learn and empower us to do.

One hundred thousand years ago we only needed enough brain power to escape predators and to hunt. Now, these basically same brains are allowing us to travel through space.

I recently brought this point up in an evolution discussion list and received many responses, although no one could really answer the question.

I will say that there is MASSIVELY more information to prove evolution than there is to prove the Abrahamic religions, but there are still some puzzling gaps.

There is no doubt that evolution exists, no matter how desperately the creationists try to debunk it. The evidence is everywhere and overwhelming.

But why are we so freakin' smart? This leads me to believe that there IS a higher power in the Universe and that humans have a mission. My gut feeling is that humanity is destined to populate the Universe, but who made us so smart and why?

Since humans started sitting around campfires thousands of years ago they began conjuring up stories about their existence. These same stories morphed into the wacky religions we have today. Modern religions are simply variations of ancient beliefs. Even in the earliest times it appears that humans had a "hunch" that there were supernatural forces at play.

Having read some articles on the origins of life I was beginning to think that creating a living thing is no big deal in the Universe. After all, the Universe has massive amounts of time and millions of chemical experiments taking place, so it's no surprise that life will pop up on occasion.

Creationists say that creating a molecule would be like throwing the contents of a scrapyard into the air and letting it fall into place as a 747. That is silly because we now know that lifeforms slowly transition from primitive forms to the more complex. In fact, as life evolves it continually increases in complexity, and there's no turning back. I read a book on this once called The Myth of Progress.

So, maybe there is NOT any higher intelligence at all, but, rather, only a set of laws in play. Maybe as we evolve, our brains keep evolving, and we just keep getting smarter because, maybe, there's an evolutionary advantage to that.

As we evolve mentally, look how we are also evolving socially and technologically. Just a century ago our children would be working 12-hour days in factories. And if we had just one abscessed tooth in the 1800s we'd probably die.

So, we are evolving in many ways, and, again, we are growing into our brains. Just how much are we capable of learning? Can we one day know ALL there is to know about the Universe? And, if so, then what do we do?

And won't the Universe run out of fuel one day anyway? When the last star burns out the Universe is going to be a really cold and dark as hell place. Then what do we do? Will we stockpile enough uranium from planets to keep us warm and cozy in our pitch black, expanding Universe?

This gets us back to the very core question: What is the meaning of life? I don't know, and I'm very perplexed by it. Maybe it would be better if there's no meaning at all. We just live, consume some resources, and return to space dust. End of story. It's certainly an easier story to comprehend.

The Goose