Evolution of Basic thinking process in Humans

Look at your life. You get up in the morning. The awakening is possibly assisted by a musical on your smart phone or other digital gadget. Or a typical alarm clock does the work for you. You have a coffee maker to dispense a mug full to add some stamina to your body. The steam geyser ensures hot water for your bath you and iron makes sure you look a perfect man in the navy blue suit.

The automated security system ensures your home safety as you leave in your car, inhaling the freshness of the morning mist. Probably imagining how difficult would life be without these comforts. This thought provokes to another thought and the chain reaction continues till you reach the age of an undeveloped human race.

Welcome to the pre-stone age. This time travel takes you to about 500,000 years back.

Amidst the dense thick African forests, lies the curious animal in the most care free slumber. As he awakes, finds something that hinders his ability to open his eyes. Wait before you jump to a conclusion. He has not defined the sun and the sunlight. He has not been introduced to even light. This is probably the first signal that his primitive brain has recorded. The sense of vision awakens. He looks at the world around him not understanding who he is; neither knowing what is he going to do next. He tries to observe curiously his body parts; strange organs. He tries to crawl and move. He feels himself using what he would later call his hands. It will probably take a long time, may be years to understand that he can walk erect. Till that time, he was going to crawl on four legs. As he tries to accustom to his new environment, he feels some part of body below the top choked. He tries to understand what is wrong. Yes he is thirsty, but does not know what to do. Probably his thirst is increasing only his helplessness. His observation leads to a place where a fluid in ample quantity with few other creatures in it. Now, fear creeps in. He sheepishly goes to the fluid, afraid to even touch it. He puts his finger hesitantly to check whether this could harm him. The fluid is cold, and would be defined in time to come as water. But right now the animal curiously looks at it for hours as how could he use the fluid to his benefit. Remember that the animal has not defined himself as Homo Sapiens, or called himself a man. He is yet to develop that kind of thinking. For the moment, the fluid is his center of interest. He observes other animals using it via a wide opening on the frontal part of top of their bodies. He feels that this could be used to clear his throat. He drinks it.  Feels it quenching his thirst. Above all, his fear that the fluid could harm him is gone. Now he enters the waters. Suddenly his legs get trapped in rocks. Alas! He is in pains. His throat releases his expression of voice, “Aaaah!” This could be the first words that the animal might have spoken. Again the brain takes a note of it. This is recorded as the expression when the animal is in pain. Whenever such painful experience is repeated, brain automatically sends signal to the voice box.

He comes out of the water to find a strange feeling inside his body. The feeling which would in future lead to all the evolution of human race. The one feeling that will lead to discovery of farming, human settlement and even vices like murder, dacoity, wars, loot and exploitation....... the feeling of hunger!!!

For the time being, let’s go back to our animal. He observes into his new environment, how to find a solution to the undefined strange feeling inside his body. He lies down. He sleeps on his stomach. He uses his hands to fill himself with sand, but realizes that this may not help in long run. The point am driving towards is the realization process. The numerous experiments that the earliest human being conducted over decades, centuries, ages to be even civilised and lead a settled life from a nomad.

Our man looks in his surroundings, finding ways to extinguish the fire in his belly. He finds the colourful parts of the foliage interesting. With efforts, he gets them and bites them using his teeth. The weird taste does give displeasure. He spits it out completely. Tries another part, again to his dismay, that weird taste returns. It takes our man quite a few times to realize that the part he is eating is not good and will remain to taste weird. He throws away the parts and moves forward to find something more interesting. He calls that part of foliage as fruit, defines plant, trees, shrubs and herbs. It will take him quite some years and lots of trial and error to understand which fruit to eat and what not to. He continued his experiments with flowers, only to find it bitter in his dismay. Yes he started understanding what tastes pleasant (read sweet, sour) and what tastes rubbish (Bitter, chilly). This was one of the first senses, the sense of taste that man started developing. This was probably the first of the instructions to the brains, this is sweet, that is sour, and the other one is bitter. This can be eaten, the other can’t be. In case any poisonous fruit or vegetative part was eaten, would have resulted in poisoning, or even death. It took millions of such experiences for man to evolve and understand what is usable and what not.

He accidentally puts the fruits & flowers into his nose. This is when he finds pleasant inhaling experiences. The sense of smell awakens. The primitive brain records the first smell as pleasant. This would continue as man encounters various elements that smell pleasant as well as awful. The brain starts sending signals as the pleasant smelling ones are good and the awful ones are to be avoided.

This helps our new man as he smells the food first. He starts taking judgement about what to eat. The cognitive thinking begins!!! I can define this moment as a giant step for mankind, much before Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon.

Historians reckon that vegetation was food for man for about a million years before he turned a hunter and a nomad. Then he transformed into a warrior, a farmer, and settled later.

Coming back to the man, after he fills his stomach, he needs rest. He knows only one place where he can sleep, the place where he woke up to discover himself. The place is under direct sunlight. Our man is yet to discover caves. He does not even have the thinking ability that the shade under the tree can be a good place to protect himself from the harsh heat of the sun. This thought process will come from the experience when he accidentally runs under the shade of a tree and finds it cooler.

His sense of feeling awakens. He starts distinguishing a cooler climate from a hotter one. Another Eureka!!! However it will take centuries for him to understand and migrate to better climates.

The era for the behavioral modernity has just begun.

The problem that arises when our man encounters another man or woman is about how to express the emotions and how to communicate. Our man makes gestures using hands, legs and facial expressions to communicate. The process is intricate and would have required thousands of attempts to communicate a simple thing for the first time. Today when one shows thumbs up, it indicates all is well. A “V” shown using fingers means victory. It is hard to imagine how human would have communicated without the defined and recorded words and terms.

Let’s look at the sense of hearing. Our new man probably would have started to pay attention to the sounds in nature like that of birds, other animals, insects, the flowing sound of water, thundering sound of clouds and alike. Again the brain starts categorizing them as good or dangerous. Probably he might have seen a lion in the African jungle killing other humans or animals. Hence the roar of the lion indicates danger. The brain is busy listening to the music of nature. Logic of what’s good and what’s bad applies here automatically.

The basic senses have started their functioning. Our man is not alone now. He is in the company of thousands of other human beings. His style of communication has changed. He has started naming everything including himself. He is proud to call himself the most developed animal on earth. The evolutionary process continues as he forms clans, hunts, discovers fire and starts eating cooked meat, discovers wheels, migrates to river banks for protection from other animals, discovers farming and settles. He creates villages, makes new discoveries, creates cities, discovers new lands and establishes newer settlements. The settled man now starts facing challenges. He coins money and this becomes the root cause of many evils. He creates societies but this also gives birth to communalism. The world is divided.  Meanwhile on the other side, the human society faces the fury of nature. Quakes, floods, storms, epidemics strike and man is in fire fighting mode using his brains to survive & sustain. The process of evolution is ongoing and the brain is still taking notes as to what is good and what is bad.

For the man whose journey began on the African soil has come a long way.

Suddenly, your mobile beeps and that is the second message from your boss, “Where are you?” that brings you back to the 21^st Century!!!

You open up your laptop to give final touches to the presentation on “Future map for your organization”. And the last slide of the presentation says “Keep Going ... Keep Growing!”