Sunday, May 15, 2005

Human Evolution
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The course of human evolution is as follows:

macromolecules combine to form prokarytotic cells.
prokaryotes develop into eukaryotes
individual eukaryotic cells combine to form individual members of a population. Cells are no longer independent; they work in concert with other cells to promote the well-being of the individual through "division of labor". individual wellfare now supersedes the population wellfare. sun energy is utilized to fuel the processes required in order to sustain this highly-complex form of life.
organisms develop moblitiy organs. Mobility greatly increases chances of survival. for the first time, life is manifested in the form of animals as opposed to just plants. (plants are not mobile).
organisms utilize "ready-to-go" sources of energy instead of having to sythesize their energy from the sun; they consume lower, less powerful species of life. division of labor now includes a mouth to consume food and other sensory organs designed to facilitate detection of food. the brain allows the organsim to "process" sensory input and accordingly issue commands to other body organs to.
organisms emigrate from sea to land. No longer restricted to the sea, they can now look for food sources on land. Warm-blooded animals develop.
mammals are distinguished by their mammary glands designed to nourish their young while they experience a highly complex learning process required in order to reach full mammal capacity. The learning process is sort of a mini-evolution during which the child briefly experiences all primitive stages of the organism's evolution. Mammals require a longer developing period and so the young are highly dependent on their parents. They are able to climb trees and/or fly to reach food inaccessible to lower organisms and to avoid danger.

Australopithecus (a hominid species) walks upright. This frees the hands to utilize tools and to carry food for long distances.

Homo features an enlarged brain. Being able to process more complex sensory input quickly and to retain this info in long term memmory is a significant enhancement to survival. Humans have sacrificed other characteristics essential for success such as a strong sense of smell and wings to fly or swim in favor of the increased ability to process information and devise highly complex solutions accordingly, a feature commonly called "intelligence". Homo Sapiens is the most adaptive living species in our solar system and from our observation (that life evolves from the primitive to the more advanced) we can safely infer that we are the most advanced species ever to live in our solar system.

What is our next evolutionary stage and why is it important for us to try to predict it? Having an idead of what the next evolutionary stage will be allows us to prepare and facilitate its realization. The more prepared we are for it mentally the easier it is for us to accept it and move on to the next level of existence.

* enlargement of the brain. There are plenty of resources out there that we can use to enhance our survival but we must be able to figure out how to best utilize those resources and the brain allows us to do just that. Future humans will therefore have a bigger brain relative to the rest of their body.
* bigger body. Hominids have been growing in size ever since and is therefore assumed that this trend will continue.
* ability to walk and run quicker and possibly the adaptation of our hands for flight or other activities. It is remarkable that we are quite a slow-moving species. It seems that we have forgone the development of our legs in favor of brain development. Eventually leg development will catch up.
* ability to read, write and talk faster. There is no question that future humans will be able to perform all three of these vital human tasks more efficiently and that includes doing it faster while expending less energy.
* longevity. We have seen that human life expectancy has increased over the centuries and we therefore assume that this trend will continue.
* longer childhood and adolescence. a longer developmental period by definition means that once we complete the development process we are more adaptive to our environment and it is therefore directly correlated with an enhanced existence, expected in future humans.
* ability to stay awake longer and to eat less frequently. We see that current human infants lack of these abilities but acquire them later in life as they grow up. We therefore assume that we will increase these abilities on the species level as time rolls on.
* visual acuity and versatility. Vision, more than our other senses has recently emerged as a much more important sense relative to other senses. Imagine a person living in the industrial age when physical activity was most important. Given the right technology it is relatively easy to develop work procedures that allow a blind person to perform just as well on the job as the sighted person. Now, in the information age, it all depends on information and since 98% of the information we gather and store in our brain is based on eyesight, it is therefore crucial that we develop better eysight. Better eyesight includes the ability to see in the dark, the ability to see from far away and the ability to read for an extended period of time without tiring the eyes.
*better math skills. Unlike other scientific aptitudes, math is abstract and hypothetical and therefore more distinctly human than other disciplines. As humans we therefore expect to develop this ability further.

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