Understanding Our Evolutionary Constraints: Introduction to the Human Brain’s Evolutionary Cage

Human evolution has shaped not only our physical traits but also our cognitive abilities. While we’ve made significant strides as a species, many of the traits that helped our ancestors survive still constrain us today. This blog post, the first in our series on the Human Brain’s Evolutionary Cage, explores these constraints and sets the stage for understanding why our brains struggle to keep up with the modern world.

Recap of the Previous Series: The Human Evolutionary Cage

In our earlier series, we explored the concept of the Human Evolutionary Cage by focusing on the physical traits humans have inherited from our ancestors. Let’s quickly recap the key ideas:

• Part 1: We introduced the ‘Evolutionary Cage’ and the idea that humans, like all species, are shaped by evolutionary forces that limit our ability to change.
• Part 2: We explored Dollo’s Law, which says that once evolutionary traits are lost, they cannot be regained. This law applies to both physical and cognitive traits.
• Part 3: We examined population and evolution, noting how population size and dynamics play a role in slowing down our species’ evolution.

Key Insights:

Dollo’s Law emphasizes evolutionary stasis—we keep traits that once served our ancestors but may no longer be necessary today. For example:

• Our ability to throw objects with precision and velocity is a skill honed for hunting, but it’s rarely needed today.
• We can outrun most animals over long distances, a trait evolved for persistence hunting.
• Our stomach acid is still highly acidic, a trait suited for digesting meat and fat, yet we now rely more heavily on plant-based diets.

These traits are evolutionary remnants—once vital, but now often unnecessary in modern life. Yet they persist due to the constraints imposed by our evolutionary history.

Introducing the Human Brain’s Evolutionary Cage (HEBC)

While much of our focus has been on physical evolution, it’s equally important to recognize the constraints placed on our cognitive abilities by the Human Brain’s Evolutionary Cage (HEBC).

• The HEBC refers to the evolutionary limits on our cognitive and social abilities. While our brains have adapted to manage complex tasks and social interactions, they are still bound by evolutionary forces that shaped them over millennia.
• These constraints manifest as evolutionary mismatches—where our brains, fine-tuned for survival in ancient environments, now struggle to cope with the demands of the modern world.

Overview of Evolutionary Constraints

The Human Brain’s Evolutionary Cage presents us with significant evolutionary constraints that influence our behaviour and societal dynamics. These include:

• Cognitive shortcuts: Our reliance on heuristics—mental shortcuts—was vital for quick decision-making in life-or-death situations. However, in the modern world, this can lead to cognitive biases and errors in judgment.
• In-group and out-group dynamics: Tribalism helped our ancestors form close-knit social groups for survival, but in modern society, it contributes to political polarization and conflict.

These constraints not only affect individual behaviour but also shape the societal structures we build. Our inability to fully overcome these evolutionary limits leaves us grappling with modern challenges, including the ever-present information overload we now face.

Outlook: Neurodiversity and Executive Dysfunction

Neurodiversity in an Evolutionary Context

As we continue exploring the Human Brain’s Evolutionary Cage, it’s essential to consider the concept of neurodiversity. Neurodiversity proposes that cognitive differences like ADHD, ADD, and Autism are not merely dysfunctions but may have evolutionary roots.

Teaser for Future Content:

In the next blog post, we will explore the Hunter versus Farmer Hypothesis proposed by Thom Hartmann. This theory suggests that ADHD traits may have evolved to suit the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, where quick decision-making, heightened alertness, and an exploratory nature were helpful. These traits, still present in around 80% of people with ADHD, may be genetic remnants of a time when such cognitive styles were crucial for survival.

We will also touch on Autism and how its traits might have evolutionary significance, particularly in terms of focused, repetitive behaviours and pattern recognition—skills that may have been crucial in earlier human societies for tasks requiring deep concentration.

Genetic Insights:

Research has shown that ADHD has a strong genetic basis, with about 80% heritability, reinforcing the idea that these traits have been passed down through generations and have deep evolutionary significance.

The Bottleneck of the Human Brain: Information Overload

Introduction to Information Overload

While our ancestors lived in environments where information was limited and often critical to immediate survival (e.g., tracking prey or finding safe food), modern humans are faced with an overwhelming influx of information. Our brains, which evolved to oversee far less data, are now bombarded by an unmanageable flood of information from multiple sources.

• Beyond platforms like Wikipedia, the overwhelming volume of information produced daily spans books, magazines, newspapers, TV, radio, YouTube, and social media, not to mention the constant flow of new scientific research and publications.

Example of Scale:

To illustrate this, imagine if a person tried to read and learn the entire content of Wikipedia, dedicating a normal workday to it. They would likely spend half of their lifetime just reading without ever fully retaining or understanding everything they encountered. And by the end, much of what they learned at the start would already be forgotten.

• Now, imagine a stack of A4 pages standing for all the new information created in a single day across print, digital media, social platforms, and scientific research. If you stacked these pages one on top of the other, the pile would stretch from the Earth to the Sun hundreds of times over.

This ocean of information is what modern humans must navigate, but our brains evolved to process only a limited amount of vital information at any given time.

Explaining the Bottleneck:

The human brain’s working memory can only oversee a small amount of information at a time (around 7 ± 2 items), creating a cognitive bottleneck. This was helpful in our ancestral environment, where survival depended on focusing on a few key pieces of information. However, in today’s world, this limitation results in cognitive overload.

Transition to Future Posts:

This information overload and its impact on our ability to process, keep, and understand information will be explored further in future posts. We’ll delve deeper into the challenges posed by the Fragmented Specialist Division of Knowledge, examine how cognitive biases affect our decision-making, and explore how AI might help us manage this flood of information.

Consequences of Ignoring the Human Evolutionary Cage

One of the critical takeaways from understanding the Human Evolutionary Cage is that modern humans often ignore the evolutionary traits that still shape us. Our evolution over 1.5 million years versus the mere 8,000 to 10,000 years since the advent of agriculture shows just how ill-suited our bodies and minds can be for the modern world. In evolutionary terms, agriculture and the later dietary and lifestyle changes are just a blink of an eye.

Physical Activity and Nutrition

• Physical Activity: Throughout most of our evolution, humans were hunters and gatherers, spending much of their time engaged in physical activity—whether chasing prey, foraging, or simply moving through vast landscapes. Today, many of us lead sedentary lives, neglecting the physical activity our bodies still need to stay healthy.
• Nutritional Needs: Similarly, our nutritional needs were shaped over millions of years, during which humans consumed a diet rich in animal protein, fat, and foraged plants. The rise of agriculture, with its reliance on grains and plant-based foods, is a relatively new development in evolutionary terms. This shift may not meet the nutritional requirements our bodies evolved to rely on, particularly the high protein and fat intake that our hunter-gatherer ancestors consumed.

In fact, our highly acidic stomachs are a clear sign of this evolution, as they are better suited for digesting meat and fat rather than a plant-based diet.

The Human Evolutionary Cage suggests that returning to more natural physical activities and understanding our dietary needs in the context of evolution can help modern humans lead healthier lives. It serves as a reminder that just because our environment has rapidly changed doesn’t mean our bodies have evolved to fully adapt to it.

Cognitive Evolution and the Brain

The same can be said for our brains. As we have discussed, the modern world presents us with information overload, and our brains—perfected for survival in environments with limited and critical information—are ill-equipped to process the vast volumes of data we meet today.

• Cognitive Mismatch: Just as with physical needs, our cognitive limitations are shaped by evolution. While our brains excel at quick decision-making in life-or-death situations, they struggle with abstract, long-term planning and managing fragmented knowledge. This is particularly true when dealing with new forms of media like the internet, social platforms, and even the overwhelming complexity of modern science.

Conclusion

To fully understand the challenges, we face today—both in terms of physical health and cognitive well-being—we must recognize the constraints imposed by our evolutionary past. The Human Evolutionary Cage isn’t just a metaphor; it’s a reality that affects how we live, think, and thrive in the modern world.

• We need to engage in more physical activity, align our diets with our evolutionary history, and be mindful of the cognitive bottlenecks that result from our brain’s inability to process today’s information overload.

By understanding these constraints, we can make more informed decisions about our health, well-being, and how we interact with the world around us.

Stay tuned for the next post: “The Fragmented Specialist Division of Knowledge”!

Further Reading

For those interested in exploring more about how the brain struggles with modern information overload and the history of information itself, I recommend the following books on Amazon:

1. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (Amazon)
   This book delves into how the internet is reshaping the way we think, remember, and focus, offering insights into the impact of information overload on our cognitive abilities.
2. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick (Amazone)
   A fascinating exploration of the history and significance of information, from the development of language to the rise of modern technology, and how humans have grappled with the flood of information throughout history.

Blog Post Series: “The Human Brain’s Evolutionary Cage”

1. Introduction to the Human Brain’s Evolutionary Cage
2. Fragmented Specialist Division of Knowledge
3. Resistance to Learning and Change Management
4. The Persistence of Conspiracy Theories
5. Political Polarization and its Evolutionary Underpinnings
6. Cognitive Psychology and Memory
7. Heuristics and Decision-Making: Lessons from Kahneman and Shiffrar
8. Confirmation Bias: Belief Over Reason
9. Group Polarization and Attitude Polarization
10. Executive Dysfunction and Neurodiversity
11. The Ratchet Effect and Collective Knowledge
12. The Human Brain: The Most Complex Object Known
13. Timespans of Information Processing in the Human Brain
14. The Role of AI in Navigating Human Knowledge
15. Personal Change: Navigating Your Path Through Knowledge
16. Building a Cooperative Future: Lessons from Evolution
17. Conclusion: Embracing Our Evolutionary Legacy
Additional Blog Post: Navigating the Complexities of Human Information Processing with Flowchart