Busy brains

There are busy brains all over the planet. Some are tiny as in earthworms some are massive as in whales. They do the thinking that links sensory stimuli to reaction and response. Human brains are  quite advanced. They have evolved from elementary units in the cold blooded reptiles to increasingly complex organs in the hot blooded mammals and on through the primates and hominids and so to us.

For most of our ancestral time we were sparse hunters and gatherers and our impact on the environment was slight. But then, recently, language erupted and gave rise at first to myths and magic and, extremely recently, to evidence-based scientific hypothesis and theory.

Many, some would say most, modern people still navigate their imagined world by means of myth and magic. For example there is thought to be an old, white man with a long beard who lives in the sky and who is omniscient, omnipotent, supernatural and works in mysterious ways. Such a holy ghost is modelled on man the family patriarch. Nietzsche reckoned that such a God is dead; but now Nietzsche is dead and a large chunk of humanity still believe in the inscrutable celestial.

Wearing his psychological hat at the end of the 19th century William James noted that people who believe that God exists behave differently from non-believers.  Anthropologists have shown that there is a religious component to all socio-cultural systems. The myths and magic serve to explain the meaning and purpose of human beings in the cosmos. It seems that people need to tie together the loose ends and thus develop cognitive consonance and peace of mind.

If belief in myth and magic allows individuals and groups to survive and possibly even flourish then so much the better. They escape the existentialist’s ennuie and dread of inauthenticity.

The modern, scientific point of view is cosmic in scope. Onwards from the big bang to the eventual heat death of everything that evolves. The good news is that the end is a very long way off and we are presently moving into a period where planned, cultural evolution is taking over from the serendipitous, biological variety.

SO – many brains are busy most of the time. They tell stories that ensure that we interact in useful ways with changes in our physical and cultural environments. I am not yet clear about why some brains are occupied with thoughts about evolutionary psychology, neurology and the big bang. Might it just be collateral damage. Subjectively I get a good feeling from the science associated with the new thinking. It keeps my brain busy