Shortcomings of the simian/human brain
We were monkeys for millions of years. It will take a lot to reprogram the bugs of a legacy software, especially when the environment is crashing.
I am stupid. You are stupid. We are all very stupid. And if you think otherwise, you are kidding yourself. Bigtime. Let me tell you why and then perhaps we can look into what we can do about it. Alternatively, you can post your GPA, net worth, titles or IQ scores in the comments and feel good about your sorry self.
For starters, we don’t know much about our brain. A brain scientist in formal academia or profession maybe a neurosurgeon, a psychologist or a shrink and what is worrisome is that they don’t seem to know much about their own fields, leave alone what lies beyond these virtual academic boundaries. Who says so? Charlie (Darwin) says so. Another billionaire Charlie (Munger), concurs. And yet another Charlie shows how in his best selling book. Yuval (a historian) and Ray (another billionaire) also have a thing or two to say about it. But before we get to these dudes, let me pick your brain.
Now while the heart is busy pumping blood and gets all the attention for the ‘aww’ moments in life; As it stars in all the romantic moments, throws a few tantrums, aches, breaks and finds some real estate in the poems of Shakespeare and the prose of E L James, the brain is doing much of the heavy lifting. It keeps the lights on (dims those when you are sleeping. Or not; Turns out we don’t know much about sleep either. Let’s table that for some other day).
If you think about it, the heart takes undue credit. Most of the actions we attribute to the heart are actually driven by our monkey brain. It is the monkey brain that throws the tantrums. It is the monkey brain that yearns or hates. The heart has nothing to do with your desire for ice-cream, shoes, likes, respect, pats or pets. It is all the monkey brain. It is also prone to envy, jealousy, anger and pride.
An average human brain weighs about 2% of the body weight and consumes about 20% of the oxygen. Anatomically, the primary difference between humans and chimpanzees (or rather most mammals) is the prefrontal cortex (read, forehead) of the neo-cortex (loosely translates to new brain). Think about the human brain as an onion, the outermost layer is the most recent addition, it is also the most fragile. All the inner layers evolved over millions of years and these still dominate our thinking. Whenever you say, “This just doesn’t feel right”, probably your monkey brain has taken over.
So, what are the functions of the brain?
Before we get to that. Think about the bees. Let's say you are a bee and you find a nice bunch of honey-worthy flowers. You come back to your comb and do a little dance to tell your pals exactly where the elixir is. Then your peeps join you and you guys head out to collect the raw materials for bee beer (honey, duh). After you have made the brew for the winter festival, the local villagers come, break into your community (beehive) and loot all the beer. Pretty sad. Besides the sorrow of injustice to the beekind, think about the dance you just did, it was genetically coded in your body, not cognitively stored in your bee-brain. A cunning scientist proved this by putting some honey on the top of a bee’s head. Flowers are never vertically above a honeycomb. The bee’s moves, although cool, turned away all the ladies since there was no sign that led to the flowers. And no flowers, means no dates for you, even in the beeworld. Other beings can communicate slightly better, this elegance is attributed to the brain.
This wasn’t always the case though. In the early (million) years of the brain’s development the primary functions included triggering involuntary reflexes, “Too hot! sweat.” “Lion, run!” “Food! Eat all you can!”. All these attribute heavily and subconsciously to your present day actions. Think about your broken AC, a high school bully or a bucket of icecream. Involuntary conditions will take over your actions several times during the day and the cookie dough icecream jar will be soon be empty.
Another key function the brain is processing inputs from different stimuli. If a ligthining strike is followed by thunder, you are not scared by it twice. This is very important for a gazelle drinking water in the forest, because the distinction between the sounds of a waterfall coupled with the gentle ripples in water are different from the hustling noise coupled with a slight movement at the corner of the eye. This distinction could mean life or death. For a modern human flooded with inputs, choosing between a beeping phone and a crying baby can be a mini cognitive challenge.
The list of the known functions of the brain (and the nervous system) is very long (and growing) but other than a few examples elaborated above the brain also controls internal environment (heart rate, temperature, pH levels), helps select conducive external environment (free wifi, food, water, shelter) and programs voluntary and involuntary behavior (through dopamine doses for every like and heart on social media).
What is the monkey brain again?
Leaving the operations that all mammals perform aside, everything you attribute to your ‘gut’ or every time you say something doesn’t ‘feel’ right is attributed to your monkey brain. All your desires, emotions, and drives are managed by this brain. This was necessary when we were chimps, an alpha chimp feels the desire to climb up the social circle, experiences jealousy when he can’t, feels angry when he fails. One of the authors I mentioned above, calls this the ‘experiencing brain’. The way this is accomplished is through a mix of biochemicals such as dopamine (responsible for happiness, specifically reward mechanisms), cortisol (responsible for stress), adrenaline (responsible for triggering action) and many many others like serotonin and oxytocin.
This is a legacy software that came down to you with the bugs and features from over millions of years. Is it perfect? No, not for the bingewatching, collectible hoarding, spam posting, obesity-prone, insecure modern man.
How is the human brain different?
Three key advantages of the human brain include the power of language, the ability to simulate if-then-else scenarios for real life and ability to spin up collective social fictions (countries, corporations, cults, sport clubs, religions. etc.). We can call this the narrating brain. Animals can’t do any of those things and computers will soon be able to do most of it, better than us.
To illustrate the point let us look at this mean experiment that a researcher did on ants. He took an ant from one colony (A) and using a paint brush made it smell like an ant from another colony (B) then went back and dropped the ant back in its ant hill in colony A. His fellow brothers, not recognizing the smell, picked up this sorry antling and threw him out of the anthill several times before he died of exhaustion of trying to escape the grip of his brothers.
Perhaps if he could speak, or simulate the experiment of the scientist or spin up some ant pop band, he could have survived.
What can we do about this?
As long as you keep reminding yourself that you are more of a chimp and very less of a genius that ignorant beings of your kin made you believe, you are off to a good start.
Next, you can identify and study the common errors in human thinking, specifically your thinking. Look up Charlie Munger’s 25 biases in the famous speech at Harvard, Psychology of Human Misjudgement and The Habit Loop and identify the common bugs in your software. (Unless you see or read about the psychology of misjudgment and the habit loop, this piece will add limited value.)
As you depart with the new found bugs, look in the mirror and ask yourself, what brings us to the sixth largest mass extinction, a man’s brain or the monkey’s brain?
Read more from bubbykin here. Read more on actionable ways to address the problem by the author.
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