Jonathan Lesser
Science 2012-13
December 17, 2012
Prompt: Is culture to likely be a more important factor than the rest of
nature in the near-future evolution of the human brain? What has been
the role of culture in the development of the human brain?
The human brain has been the beneficiary of millions of years of
evolution, so in some ways the incredible feats that it is able to
accomplish can be rationalized. However, when contextualized with all
the other modern products of evolution, the emergent properties of the
human brain become remarkably rare. Other vertebrates like fish,
reptiles, and birds have had millions of additional years to evolve, and
even other mammals have had much longer than humans to reach
their modern states. There are countless internal and external
influences that have guided human evolution, but our growth as social
beings is an undeniably important one. When humans began to rely on
each other for survival, that is when culture began to develop.
Relationships between humans took on meaning beyond necessity.
Without that social component of our evolution we would not be the
remarkably advanced creatures that we are today.
The ultimate uniting force in early human history was survival,
and the ultimate symbol of survival was fire. The discovery of fire by
humans is a major landmark in the history of our species because it
elevated us above the environment around us. Suddenly humans had a
transportable source of warmth. With fire humans could live almost
anywhere, but the discovery of fire had the unintended consequence,
or emergent property, that is its social component. Fire encourages
humans to congregate in the same location. These gatherings around a
communal fire are what most likely gave rise to language, and from
language came culture. The human brain was expanding, reaching new
heights of intelligence yet to be reached on earth, and this growth was
both caused by and encouraged the growth of culture. New
relationships between humans caused more and more neural
connections to be made, therefore influencing growth, but as the
human brain grew it created more surface area to be filled with
connections concerning human relationships and language.
The beginning of civilization has often been cited as occurring on
the Fertile Crescent in the modern Middle East. Riverine civilizations in
this area were not the first humans to take up permanent residence,
but they were the first to begin using agriculture on a community wide
scale. This development of a system of reliance between members of a
community was an important milestone in human development
because it encouraged the specialization of our brains. Humans have
remarkable brains for specialization because when we are born we
have an immense amount of superfluous neural connections. As we
grow those connections that we use most often get reinforce, and
those that we dont use are pruned for efficiency. This incredible
system for increasing the efficiency of signal sending allows for the
development of extremely fine motor skills and leaves more space in
the brain for new ideas. The added available surface area and
increased refinement of specific skills are necessary components for
the development of culture to such an extent.
We see evidence of neurological development throughout
history, even in the past two or three thousand years. The dramatic
increase in the span of human knowledge in this short time period
cannot be fully explained by evolution. It could be argued that our
brains evolved to a certain point and then after a few thousands years
of reasoning we arrive at our present knowledge, but it is much more
likely to have been caused by culture. The development of an
intellectual culture created a new way for evolution to take place. We
were still evolving in our genes, but we were now also evolving through
cultural patterns known as memes. Memes spread through imitation.
We see other humans performing actions, and through the incredible
mirror neurons and empathic brains we have, we are able to imitate
them to a high degree of accuracy. This skill for imitation comes greatly
from that remarkable amount of spare connections that we have in our
youths. With the emergent property of culture arising from this, so did
memes. However memes do not cause evolution the way genes do.
As stated, memes spread through imitation. Human population
began drastically increasing as our survival skills surpassed those of all
possible predators. As our global population increased so did our
diversity and our range of skills. So we formed communities and
civilizations, each with its own culture that developed through these
memes. Memes allow for the evolution of human civilization and
culture at a much more rapid rate than the evolution of genes would
allow. On a genetic level we are still primal beings with the same
primitive needs and motivations, yet we live in these incredibly
complex societies. The only explanation for this is that there is more
than one type of evolution going on in the human brain. Memes have
the ability to change the architecture of the human brain. Repetition
gives rise to efficiency in our brains, and memes encourage repetition.
In our modern culture, memes are incredibly easy to see. Look at
anything from education to fashion. Countries compete over the best
education system, imitating that of the most successful, and
meanwhile teenagers compete over the best fashion sense, imitating
that of the most successful. This incredible social development
changes our brains, but it also allows us to compete and satisfy that
primal need without killing each other in a war. However, there may be
limitations to how far memes can take our evolution. Memes brought
our intelligence level to the 21st century, and it is extraordinary how far
we have come, but some argue that we may have hit the wall in terms
of brain development. They argue that any way that our brains could
evolve further would overload one part of the nervous system or
another. However, it seems that in terms of our cultural evolution, we
are not slowing down at all.
Culture will play a large role in the future of our brains, but not
just through the memes that have influenced us throughout the last
two or three thousand years. Culture will also influence us through a
more recent development of memes referred to as technological
memes, or temes for short. These temes have an increased ability to
change the structure of our brains just because of how permanent they
have become in our culture. Children are more and more surrounded
by technology from an exceedingly young age than they have ever
been before. This overwhelming quantity of temes will serve to shape
our culture, and through that our brains, into the future. Temes may
not ever make our brains any larger or create a denser array of
neurons in the human brain, but they will shape and refine our brains
as we continue to evolve into the future.
Works Consulted
Blackmore, Susan. (2008, June). Memes and temes.
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Ramachandran, V. S. (2010, January). The neurons that shaped
civilization.
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