Seek comfort and you die ...and condemn your children, and children’s children.... to being turnips....ever downward, ever less alive, ever less human:
Brain over brawn?
Previous research found correlations between large brain size in species and complex social structures, living in challenging environments, and an ability to learn lessons from peers—also described as "culture".
But no studies have been able to conclude whether these factors are the cause of brain expansion, or the result of it.
With colleague Andy Gardner, Gonzalez-Forero developed a mathematical model to measure whether being confronted with ecological and social problems has a measurable impact on brain growth, and if yes, how much.
Model "brains" were presented with ecological challenges—finding prey in bad weather or in tough terrain, for example, preserving food to protect it against mold or heat spoilage, or storing water amid drought.
Social challenges were introduced too, to test the influence on brain growth of cooperation and competition between individuals and groups.
Interestingly, cooperation was associated with a decrease in brain size, the researchers said—probably because it allows individuals to rely on each other’s resources and to save energy by growing smaller brains themselves.
"We find that increasingly difficult ecological problems expand brains, but social demands fail to lead to human sized brains," Gonzalez-Forero told AFP.
But why did human brains grow more than those of other animals living in challenging environments?
Probably because of culture—the ability to learn skills from others rather than having to figure everything out for ourselves.
"So, our results suggest that it is the interaction of hard ecology and culture that produced the human brain size," said Gonzalez-Forero.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-05-human-brains-big.html#jCp
To be comfortable, to seek comforts and be ’happy’ in the middle of the herd and be accepted... is to condemn your own genes (and your own daily expression in motion) and their expression... into the downward spiral of automaton and idiocy.
The action, the future, and the growth of humanity... and most specifically, growth of the individual...is that place where the darkness of the unknown begins..the edges. When one is there, and communicates about it... the condemnation, screeching, ridicule, and rejection from the middle of the herd..becomes the loudest.
One is dumbing on down, the other is -stepping on up.
So what’s it gonna be? Comfort and peace, suckling and quiet, or the future and the growth?
I’ve been on that path of being in constant discomfort, and on the edges of it, reaching into the darkness, since I was 12 ...and realized it was the only way out of ’death by simplicity and comforts’. I will not walk down the road - like everyone else. There’s nothing there.
If you look carefully and wisely enough, everything in this life and world is pointing you right at this understanding. It should not take a scientific article to make it real in your mind. That would not be the correct method and way....as it would be the dead automaton way (life as a spaceholder for inactivated genes?). Making everyone else lift your load, you see... which is exactly the problem the article itself raises.
And much more, of course. It's only a simple post on a forum...