Understand yourself as the product of evolution

A few thoughts about the evolutionary origin of some of our features and how we can take advantage of this knowledge.

When puzzled about human behavior, I think about it in terms of survival. That was how evolution formed us—those features that do not help our species to survive were not retained. 

Take memory, for example. We do not record everything, mostly the first impressions and emotionally charged events. That’s why we remember so much from our childhood. Those were mostly the first impression and often emotionally charged too.  By the way, we recall them also not as the tape recorder does. We reconstruct the memory and often favorably to ourselves. It inspires us more and makes living and related efforts easier. It helps me to understand (and control) myself and, I hope, can help you.

Another example, we understand the space in terms of the relative positions of various objects. I doubt you can imagine a space without any object, can you? We understand time as a rate of change in the objects or their relative (to each other) positions. Can you imagine time without objects? These notions—space and time—were developed in humans during hunting, gathering, and keeping away from danger.

Similarly, the sense of boredom (from getting the same experience again and again) pushed people to look for something new. Those who did, survived better, so the evolution gifted us with not being satisfied with what we have ever. 

Dopamine—a chemical released by neurons to send signals to other neurons—plays a major role in reward-motivated behavior. Its level increases with the anticipation of the reward, not after the reward already received. The pleasure the dopamine triggers makes us want to experience it again and again. Many addictive drugs are based on the dopamine increase. So, we derive pleasure from the anticipation, not after the goal is achieved. 

Next time you think about something very desirable, remember this and do not assume you will be happy forever after you get it. You will definitely be looking for something new again and will not be satisfied with your achievements. It may happen not immediately but will eventually pull you into the game called “pursuit of happiness” again. I wonder if the American founding fathers knew about this human feature and have put it at the foundation of the Declaration of Independence deliberately, thus setting the nation on the endless path of innovation. 

Yet another human feature—the empathy, love to your kin and the babies—was another result of the evolutionary development too. It was necessary for the survival of the tribe and for supporting babies while their brains still grow outside the mother’s womb. A big head (with big brains) would not be able to get out of the mother, or mother would not be able to walk with the ability to carry and deliver a baby with fully developed brains. That was the evolutionary solution: to continue the brain development outside the mother’s body. Besides, it was also very helpful for shaping the baby’s thinking in a social context. So, this context shaped the baby to fit the particular social group it belonged to. Better for survival, isn’t it?

Leo Tolstoy talked about love to others as the way to acquire the sense and purpose of life. It keeps our society together. We despise loneliness, don’t we? That’s how the evolutionary perspective helps to explain human behavior and your own feeling. It helps me, at least.

New technologies enhance our abilities and compensate for our deficiencies. The human-cyborg evolution is already going on and accelerates. Our future is anybody’s guess. But our past helps us to understand what going on inside each of us now. 

Use this knowledge to avoid being just reactive machine driven by the blind forces of nature. Each of us can do much better than that.