Over the millenia our brains have gotten bigger and smarter, building on top of previous, less sophisticated layers.

The “lizard brain” is the base layer and can override our higher purposed, more human layers.

The lizard brain’s main concern is avoiding danger and figuring out if what’s in front of us can be eaten or mated with. I’ll call this the four F’s of the lizard brain : Flee it, fight it, fuck it, or feast on it. And don’t get hurt doing it.

Evolving in environments of scarcity resulted in our brains having a baked-in bias for conserving precious biological resources like our calories, water, body heat, etc. This bias creates a resistance to trying to become the risk taking, wide-ranging, remarkable geniuses we want to be because doing that will possibly use lots of resources our lizard brains want to protect or it feels dangerous.

Given that our brains are hardwired for conserving resources, which used to be hard to come by, we’re predisposed to taking the path of least resistance. Our brains encourage us to sit around, watch TV, and eat lots of sweet and salty food, often all three at once.

Our lizard brain can be tamed. If there’s lots of resistance to attempting something novel that seems ok, that’s probably the agitated lizard brain throwing on the brakes.  Knowing what’s happening, allows you to acknowledge it, and to go on and do what your higher human brain wants to try. Knowledge is power.

It’s Christmas and I went to a party tonight with 19 other folks.

Part of the entertainment was a Yankee swap. Everyone brought one present and put it under the tree. Later, a number between 1 and 20 was randomly assigned to each person.

Starting with 1 and going one person at a time, a gift was selected and opened. When it’s your turn, you can trade for any gift that’s already open – from anyone who’s number is lower than yours and has an open gift.

It’s actually really fun once everyone understands and agrees to the rules. Getting everyone on board is surprisingly tough. There’s drinking, socializing, new people attending, along with different ages and agendas, and not all but mostly Americans I’d say.

Seeing the early stage of explaining the game, I started thinking that it sometimes seems weird that American politics has just two parties. But after seeing how complicated it was getting consensus from lots of parties on the mildly complex scheme of a Yankee swap, I think two parties is the maximum that can get something accomplished.

You’ll need to use your imagination for this.

Start with a postcard sized photo of your dad. Then one of his dad, and his dad, and keep going back for 185 million generations. How long would the shelf holding those millions of postcards be? It’d be about 40 miles long. Your picture would be at the 40 mile mark and your ancestor’s from 185 million generations ago is at the other end, at mile zero. That picture at mile zero would be of a fish!

There isn’t a distinct point when you could say a fish becomes a man. The natural selection process is slow, but steady, with lots of hard-to-notice small changes.

If you looked back 400 generations, about 10,000 years, your ancestor would look like we do now if you dressed them up. You could have kids with someone living around them. But go back 50,000 generations, about a million years, and your ancestor will be different enough to be called homo erectus, instead of sapien, and you wouldn’t be able have kids together, if you were even interested in trying to do that.

So, at what point could you call our ancestral fish’s offspring a man? That depends on how tightly you define man. Compare it to when you were growing up. When was the exact time when you the toddler, became you the child? The distinction is sort of subjective and hard to say exactly. But the thread of you is there. As time goes on you’ll look similar but just a little different, compared to pictures nearby. Each postcard picture will be the same species as relatives on the postcards on either side of the one you’re looking at.

So it’s hard to say when humans became humans. But it’s fun thinking about the long thread that is you and how long you’d be recognizable.

I need to give credit for this story idea to Richard Dawkin’s “The Magic of Reality.”