Rewiring Our Brains for the Future?
When we think about physical evolution, we think about Darwinism and somatic adaptions that have occurred through thousands of years of existence. But we don’t give much thought to brain evolution in the larger sense. We know that our brain adapts. We know that we generate new connections on a daily basis, and we learn new things constantly. But do we really think about brain evolution for our species, other than the jump from Neanderthals to humans?
As a civilization, we have gone from pondering about the meaning of life in a toga (ancient Greece, ya'll) to technological revolutions by replicating the biological computer in our head to perfunctory computers outside of us. We are evolving from within ourselves outward into the world. And the people who are advancing our society at the greatest speed? Those who are less relational than us (think Musk, Gates, Jobs).
What if our brain is adapting to a world where understanding emotions and social cues aren’t as necessary as before?
Emotions were necessary for survival in a land of threats: we needed the fear of predators, and love to create alliances – but today, these threats are almost non-existent. Therefore, emotional bonds and interactions are not as necessary as they used to be. Our society is reflecting this evolution.
We see this in the changing communication norms: people would rather message each other than talk face to face. We see it in the seeming lack of respect for human life with senseless crime and entrenchment in media and video games. We have a preference for internet life versus intimate social interaction.
When I finished reading “Confessions of a Sociopath” a few years ago, I found the book both fascinating and a bit repugnant. But I couldn’t discount the fact that in some cases a lack of cumbersome emotions could be advantageous – especially in progress and evolution.
There is no denying the fact that our society at large is displaying more sociopathic tendencies.
Again – is it because of the floundering of family structure, where both parents work and kids raise themselves on smartphones and media? Or is it because brains are rewiring themselves to be less emotionally entangled?
I love that that our current society is entrenched in symbols, lyricism, relationships and subjective meaning. Personally, the thought of a purely mechanistic creature driven by neurotransmitters and electrical impulses alone doesn’t seem as enriching as my current spiritual and technological mix of existence.
But perhaps that is what is happening, and evolution will leave the dinosaurs like me behind who thrive in a tactile world of semantics and nuance, in favor of an impersonal technological utopia where everyone is connected on a completely different level.
