Afleveringen
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Sometime I smile because I am happy, other times I am happy because I smile.
Fell free to contact me at : [email protected]
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The oldest fossil records of Homo sapiens where found in JebelIrhoud, Moroco; they date 300 thousand years. In only the last iota of itsexistence as distinct species – starting 3.5 thousand years ago, with theMesopotamian civilization – humans changed their physical and socialenvironments. The most drastic transformations correspond to the dawning of theindustrial revolution, 250 years ago, culminating to the ubiquitous use of the Internet,social media and smartphones over the past 20 years. The outcome is that certainof the then adaptive traits have become recently rapidly maladaptive. In theprevious part, we just touched upon the hypothesis that wining an argumentmight have been more important than using logical explanations based on hardfacts. Here, I would like to expand on how the maladaptation of our senses inthe world we are altering, is affecting us.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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“Nothing is more terrible than tosee ignorance in action”. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“If youthink education is expensive, try ignorance”. DerekBok
“We do not err because truth is difficult to see. Itis visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable”. Alexander Solzhenitzyn
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At various instances in this podcast,I mentioned, "breathe". My rationale was that paying attention toyour breath connects you directly to your senses, allowing your thoughts tolive their own life, accepting that thoughts are not entities, recognising thatthey captured your attention away from your breath and patiently reconnectingto the sensation of your breath, again and again, a thousand times. In thismanner you develop a new relationship with your thoughts, you let them be, youacknowledge rumination without reacting, you are not intimidated by yourthoughts, no matter how rebarbative they might be. In the fourth part, I spenttime establishing that thoughts are incidental to the evolution of interneuronsthat build predictive mental models.
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You ask,what is the meaning of life? You do so because you can. Your inclination andability to ask this question are incidental to the evolution of predictivemental models. These models emulate and predict the specific physical aspects ofreality that have determined survival and passage of genetic information fromand between species over 3.8 billion of years.
The factthat you can ask this question is an offshoot of your brain's ability to model andpredict a reality without requiring sensory input or motor output. Your braincan now ruminate freely and endlessly. The urge we have to ask, "what isthe meaning of life", is linked with our nature of being threat detectors.We have evolved because we detect threats and respond to them, all species do.The lack of sensory awareness to the neuronal activity that generates predictivemental models, creates a void, and becomes a threat in itself. Where are theseendless thoughts coming from?
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“When we look at a rock what we areseeing is not the rock, but the effect of the rock upon us.”Bertrand Russell
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Betweensensors and effectors, the in-between becomes sense, trying to make sense,compelled to make sense. Let go, breathe, and come back to your senses.
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We are now at 1 billion years ago, unicellular algae thrive,forming complex structures, some of which will fossilize as multicellular andmorphologically differentiated macrofossils.
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“Nothing in Biology Makes Any Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.” Theodosius Dobzhansky
According to Hoffman and Singh (2012), evolution “shapes perceptual systems to guide fitter behaviour, not to estimate truth”. They statethat vision “rather favours fitness of the organism with the external world”.
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Continuation and end of episode 1 on vision.
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Our brain constructs the visual reality we experience.
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How the evolution of the senses led humans to ask the question "what is the meaning of life"?Dr. Yves Sauvé approaches a fundamental question in a thought provoking, compassionate and poetic fashion, based on scientific facts. What is the meaning of life? He invites us to ponder why we can actually ask this very question. We are taken on a journey of how our brain creates the reality we experience, and how our senses evolved from single cells. Between sensing (input) and acting (motor output), neurons interposed themselves to ultimately generate predictive mental models of the physical aspects of reality, which determined species survival and passage of genetic information over 3.8 billion years. We are here because our ancestors were threat detectors, allowing them to survive until being able to pass on genetic information.Brains, such as ours, evolved to a point at which mental models could be generated without any sensory input and motor outputs. Humans can model a reality and fear threats without any sensory inputs and motor outputs. We can ruminate endlessly.Dr. Sauvé puts forward that the lack of sensory awareness of the cellular activity that generates predictive mental models creates a void, and becomes a threat itself. Where do our thoughts come from, we cannot feel them being generated?He proposes that our potential to experience happiness is as infinite as our willingness to connect with our senses mindfully, letting thoughts be thoughts.Between sensors and effectors, the in-between becomes sense, trying to make sense, compelled to make sense. Let go, breathe, come back to your senses.
