Why does the human brain suck so much

[Darkover]

I know a lot of people will say it's the most powerful part of a human and such but to me it's the most fragile, easily tainted, self detrimental things.

The brain seems to work against you, more than for you. It's prone to anxiety, make you unfocused or easily distracted, negative thinking or ultimately suicidal. Etc.

Why is it like this? Isn't every organ supposed to aide in you survival and progress? Even though in modern society we've abandoned a good portion of our animistic ways in some respects, it just seems like human beings and especially the brain are insanely flawed.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

I have a theory about that. Our brains are not yet evolutionary adapted to the environment we're living in and how we behave in our modern world - or let's say how we are forced to behave. This is totally against how we would live naturally.

Depression is sth that protects us when we're overwhelmed but in the modern world it causes us even more problems - e.g. we're overwhelmed, too stressed and we can't do our job anymore. As follows are even more problems and the depression often gets worse.

We've not yet adapted to the artificial world we have created. Human evolution is very slow - our technical development has never been so fast like in the past 50-100 years since there are humans on earth.

 

[Darkover]

I have a theory about that. Our brains are not yet evolutionary adapted to the environment we're living in and how we behave in our modern world - or let's say how we are forced to behave. This is totally against how we would live naturally.

Depression is sth that protects us when we're overwhelmed but in the modern world it causes us even more problems - e.g. we're overwhelmed, too stressed and we can't do our job anymore. As follows are even more problems and the depression often gets worse.

We've not yet adapted to the artificial world we have created. Human evolution is very slow - our technical development has never been so fast like in the past 50-100 years since there are humans on earth.

Because our current brain is optimized for an hunter-gatherer lifestyle where you would live in small community of max 300-400 people you knew well and often less and then generally die in your late forties if you were lucky and now we live often alone among in a community of millions stranger and need to subject yourself to a gruelling wage-slavery lifestyle.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Because our current brain is optimized for an hunter-gatherer lifestyle where you would live in small community of max 300-400 people you knew well and often less and then generally die in your late forties if you were lucky and now we live often alone among in a community of millions stranger and need to subject yourself to a gruelling wage-slavery lifestyle.

Yeah, true. Very well said.

We humans are social creatures yet we often live alone in concrete deserts on a few m², with no nature surrounding us and millions of strangers surrounding us that give a fuck about each other.

 

[Cruelhearted]

It doesn't help if the influences around you are emotionally abusive POS either.

 

[BardBarrie]

I have a theory about that. Our brains are not yet evolutionary adapted to the environment we're living in and how we behave in our modern world - or let's say how we are forced to behave. This is totally against how we would live naturally.

Depression is sth that protects us when we're overwhelmed but in the modern world it causes us even more problems - e.g. we're overwhelmed, too stressed and we can't do our job anymore. As follows are even more problems and the depression often gets worse.

We've not yet adapted to the artificial world we have created. Human evolution is very slow - our technical development has never been so fast like in the past 50-100 years since there are humans on earth.

Aye but life before the — and during the earlier periods of the — Industrial Revolution were even more dogshit, by pretty much all objective measures.

Life just sucks for a lot of people.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Aye but life before the — and during the earlier periods of the — Industrial Revolution were even more dogshit, by pretty much all objective measures.

Life just sucks for a lot of people.

You are right but there's still a difference, the whole world was much slower and people were still more connected to nature than we are now. Have you ever seen the night sky from a place without any light pollution? This can be quite relaxing. I think those people were generally happier than we are now. But that's just my opinion.

 

[Jack_Nimble]

As many of you stated in your own words already. My turn lol. It's cause we dramatically changed our lifestyles in an incredible short period of time. We did this far faster than our brains could even consider evolving. Our brains just aren't evolved to our current lifestyle. There are still tribes of people who live similar to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. When studied, it is found that individuals in these tribes rarely suffer depression. Though we suffer less disease and violence than they do. My question would be, how do we combine the best of both?

 

[EvisceratedJester]

I have a theory about that. Our brains are not yet evolutionary adapted to the environment we're living in and how we behave in our modern world

That is actually what is going on. Our world has advanced faster than our bodies can keep up with and this has resulted in many issues. Certain adaptations that would have been useful in the past may now be detrimental.

Also, it's important to note that evolution doesn't strive for perfection. What matters is that a species is able to survive and reproduce. Things, from trade-offs to shortcuts, do happen. Our perception, for example, isn't one-to-one with our environment because it doesn't have to be. It just needed to be good enough to aid in our survival so the fact that our brains use shortcuts when interpreting external stimuli isn't a big enough drawback to warrant the selection of one-to-one perception.

Another example of this is back in the late 1960s up into the 1970s, when the French government hired people to regularly spray insecticide along this coastal beach in France to kill off all the mosquitoes. The mosquitoes who survived the insecticide had a mutation (Ester1) that caused them to produce larger amounts of an enzyme called A1 esterase, which breaks down a wide range of toxins. This mutation was less common amongst inland mosquitoes. Researchers found that while the mutation did allow for these mosquitoes to handle insecticide better than their inland counterparts, it also seemed to impact their ability to get away from predators (it was an antagonistic pleiotropy). This was a result of the increased production of A1 esterase interfering with the cholinergic synapses of the CNS. This mutation, at the time (before the rise of Ester4), had become more common amongst the coastal mosquito population because for the coastal mosquitoes, the pros would have outweighed the cons. Thus, the mutation would have been selected for despite it meaning less fitness in other areas.

Certain flaws with our brain, and by extension our bodies as a whole, also may result from certain shortcuts and tradeoffs made throughout the evolution of our species. Despite what some people think, evolution doesn't strive for perfection. There is no particular endpoint to it. What matters is that a population is able to stay alive long enough and spread their genes and so on and so forth.

 

[BardBarrie]

You are right but there's still a difference, the whole world was much slower and people were still more connected to nature than we are now. Have you ever seen the night sky from a place without any light pollution? This can be quite relaxing. I think those people were generally happier than we are now. But that's just my opinion.

To be honest as far as I can see, nearly everything (that I can think of) that makes modern life "somewhat bearable" is because humans have been able to *fight* nature.

Nature seems to want organisms to die just as much as thrive, it's all just a giant competition.

Medicine, high-yield agriculture, technology etc is all available because humans saw our natural world and decided to *fight* it.

Clear starry nights may look pretty, but what use are they if one is super short-sighted and has no glasses, or are too cold to appreciate the view due to having no (or inadequate) clothing, or dead at 25 due to their wisdom teeth or whatever ailments that prematurely killed-off so many people pre-Industrial Era?

Nature — and reality itself — appears to not be made for the benefit and fulfilment of humans nor any other sentient life forms.

For the record I'm not trying to have a go at you personally or anything, I'm more just arguing against the idea of "getting back to nature", because I find nature to be hostile, deadly and brutal etc.

Certain adaptations that would have been useful in the past are now detrimental.

Like our preference for high fatty foods: great when we had little food security, terrible now that we have abundance.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

For the record I'm not trying to have a go at you personally or anything

Don't worry! You're expressing your opinion in a vivid discussion! :-)

I see your POV here. All the safety, luxury, better general health and medicine and many more things are positive developments that help us to survive and live longer. But it also comes at a price - we are exposed to a lot more and different stress factors.

We are forced to work (keyword: wage-slavery) to only be able to barely survive (there are certainly jobs that pay good wages but the higher the wages the rarer the jobs that pay those wages so that in the end our lives really would be "good").

It's like with everything - there're pros and cons.

It's like @EvisceratedJester said, we're not yet adapted to our new environment and this probably takes several hundred if not thousands of years. We mix genes only every 20-30 years - insects often mix their genes several times a year.

 

[JustA_LittlePerson]

I have a theory about that. Our brains are not yet evolutionary adapted to the environment we're living in and how we behave in our modern world - or let's say how we are forced to behave. This is totally against how we would live naturally.

Depression is sth that protects us when we're overwhelmed but in the modern world it causes us even more problems - e.g. we're overwhelmed, too stressed and we can't do our job anymore. As follows are even more problems and the depression often gets worse.

We've not yet adapted to the artificial world we have created. Human evolution is very slow - our technical development has never been so fast like in the past 50-100 years since there are humans on earth.

It's the classic science before wisdom thingy

 

[BardBarrie]

We are forced to work (keyword: wage-slavery) to only be able to barely survive (there are certainly jobs that pay good wages but the higher the wages the rarer the jobs that pay those wages so that in the end our lives really would be "good").

True.
But at the same time humans have always had to work for peanuts under unfair hierachies.

Surely when balanced, modern life is better than pre-modern? Otherwise humans wouldn't keep gravitating towards technological development.

I like the *idea* that nature is good for us and we just need to go back to it; that More Nature = better — I just don't believe it to be true.

I'd much prefer a loving, healing Mother Nature, not this cruel dog-eat-dog one we actually have.

I'd hate life even more if I had to live like pre-industrial times.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

But at the same time humans have always had to work for peanuts under unfair hierachies.

That's true since humans started to settle in villages and cities. Probably since round about 10000 BC.

Nature provides everything a living creature needs in the natural habitat for free. We humans wouldn't need anything else - food, water and a place to sleep - like all other living creatures on Earth.

Sure we don't want to live like humans in the past anymore bc our lives are often more comfortable than they would have been in the past.

In modern society we don't get anything for free rather there is "money" - actually life depends on money now - sth that we can neither eat nor drink and if we don't have the ability to generate money we will suffer hunger, no housing, no health care (depending on where we live) and so on - the list is long what's not possible if there is no money available to us.

 

[BardBarrie]

Nature provides everything a living creature needs in the natural habitat for free. We humans wouldn't need anything else - food, water and a place to sleep - like all other living creatures on Earth.

Medicine, Water purification and distribution systems, shelter, agriculture for actual food security etc.
Nature provides us none of this in any meaningful way, otherwise we wouldn't have bothered to develope anything.

Hell even just walking outside in the sun gives us cancer.
We can't just go back to nature and thrive. Certainly not with modern population levels either, there'd be mass famine.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

We can't just go back to nature and thrive.

Yeah, we've lost connection with nature. No doubt, we wouldn't be able to survive there anymore.

 

[BardBarrie]

Yeah, we've lost connection with nature. No doubt, we wouldn't be able to survive there anymore.

Wasn't there a period in our very ancient history where humanity nearly went extinct where like only a few thousand of us left?

I'll have to look into where I heard that.

Also is life really worth it if one is just "surviving"?

 

[Praestat_Mori]

Wasn't there a period in our very ancient history where humanity nearly went extinct where like only a few thousand of us left?

Not sure rn but maybe there was.

Also is life really worth it if one is just "surviving"?

That raises the question of why life came into existence at all. We don't know.

I don't see much difference in "just surviving" whether we'd still live in nature like many thousands of years ago and barely surviving in our modern world where the vast majority of people live in poverty and, if it's a bit better, only from paycheck to paycheck. In both cases, it's just surviving. That's pretty subjective whether someone sees such a life worth living or not.

Imo good health, social contacts and enough money are the keys to a good life in our modern society.

We humans are questioning everything, We've developed so much more consciousness than all other creatures, but why and what for? This can make life also difficult.

 

[BardBarrie]

Not sure rn but maybe there was.


That raises the question of why life came into existence at all. We don't know.

I don't see much difference in "just surviving" whether we'd still live in nature like many thousands of years ago and barely surviving in our modern world where the vast majority of people live in poverty and, if it's a bit better, only from paycheck to paycheck. In both cases, it's just surviving. That's pretty subjective whether someone sees such a life worth living or not.

Imo good health, social contacts and enough money are the keys to a good life in our modern society.

We humans are questioning everything, We've developed so much more consciousness than all other creatures, but why and what for? This can make life also difficult.

Yeah I personally don't see why creatures are given sentience just to suffer.

It may sound daft but I believe if a reality is going to have sentient participants in it, then said reality should be tailored to their thriving rather than pointless suffering.
That's not to say it should be like Heaven/constant pleasure, but rather that it shouldn't include stuff like diseases, premature death, famine etc.