[baudrunner]

What and who are we? Where did we come from?

As to the true meaning of life, it is the domain of scientists to investigate cause, not to extrapolate intent and determination from reality. Speculations and theories abound but they are invariably without solutions and so the Socratic method trudges on in the realms of philosophical digression and impractical non-science.

In our studies of the history of scientific investigation we find ourselves tripping over the dogmas of many uncertainties and untruths. They are as changeable as the flavours of the times: like the pre-Copernican idea of geocentricity wherein the world lies at the centre of the universe.

Where at one time there was little separation between the doctrines of philosophy and science the two disciplines have diverged to become estranged over time. Every so often we encounter a gem of radical thinking and discovery and on inspection conclude that it is the Aristotelian method that yields the most abundant fruit. Of the three ways to learn it is direct experience which is the greatest teacher, followed by example, and only then by instruction.

As we evolve an ever more sophisticated intellect it seems to be an acceptable and almost gratifying experience to deviate ever farther from reality in our suppositions, applying mental agility in the search for collateral meaning. Philosophy becomes art and it is left to art to explain life. Little wonder then that much of what purports to be art has shown a devolution to the present form where expressionism has lost the complexity reflected in the tools and the toys of the highly complicated society which it serves. Art no longer imitates life, because artists no longer appear to understand it. Heaven forbid that life should imitate art.

It is easier to assess the pointless focus of another's life than to be the censor of one's own meaningless existence, but such as it is, that is human nature. Everyone's a critic, and as often a critical judgementalist. Even the slightest introspection would reveal that the censure is invariably rooted in the critic's own character. When someone is telling you all about you, they are usually telling you about themselves. It is a common phenomenon social psychologists call projection. Projection contributes much to the gist of an amateur psychoanalysis. To understand another is to know oneself, but just as often as not, neither applies.

To understand oneself demands that we first understand the whole of humanity. To understand humanity requires understanding the real roots of our humble beginnings. Then we might better master the direction that the path of our history is taking us. We will learn how and why we differ from the animals with whom we share this earth.

Knowledge is like a tree where the trunk represents the truth and the divergent branches the misperceptions of reality, which nonetheless have their beginnings in the truth. What we think is real and what actually constitutes reality are for the most part two autonomous views for most of us. It is our intent not to deviate from that truth but to align ourselves with it, for while much knowledge has been acquired by taking divergent paths, the facts can be misleading. If we establish that fact and truth are mutually inclusive then not all knowledge is both factual and true, merely elemental. Let us embrace logic in the hope that it will help us to discover the truth, then perhaps in knowing the facts we may reveal true meaning and purpose. We cannot easily understand how or why without knowing what.

The progressive path of evolution has contributed to the enhancement of the human being. Over the course of our evolutionary history our brains have grown steadily larger so as to accommodate an increasingly larger cortical surface area, the "gray matter" of our cerebral cortex. We engage in deeper thought, a more acute reasoning and a keener understanding of the nature of things than we did while we were still struggling to meet the challenges of our environment. It is most apparent that the pace of human evolution appears to have greatly eclipsed that of the animal. We observe that animals simply evolve into better animals: lions become better lions; gnus become better gnus; horses become better horses. But humans find themselves on a direction that diverges ever more distant from the animal kingdom.

The differences become self evident. For example, if changing environmental conditions preclude the continued existence of a certain animal then the animal dies out, even to the point of extinction. We, however, rise to the challenge and conquer any adverse environmental conditions imposed upon us. If one were to ascribe a single character trait in the human that appears lacking in the animal it is an intellectual attribute, that of inspiration - the ability to overcome challenges through inspired problem solving and innovative engineering.

Animals then are content to pursue their limited and patterned behaviour so long as their environment is compatible with their sustained existence. Higher primates are also environmentally symbiotic in that their habitat provides them with the food and comfort sufficient for their continued existence without the need for innovation. Their ability to learn through training and observation is not equivalent to any ability to create new methods through inventive engineering on their own to enhance their lives in the natural condition. Their environment in some areas is changing radically by the encroachment of humans into their territories, and their continued existence is threatened by it. In some areas they have become extinct because they lack the ability to meet the challenges of that changing environment. Among the lower primates, the lion tamarind of southeast Brazil is one such species seriously threatened with extinction. Any other animal will suffer the same fate when its environment is no longer able to sustain it.

Applying logic to reason, one may safely assume that humans are not animals, that there is something in our genetic makeup that predisposes us to uniquely human characteristics and intelligence. It is not enough to say that it was the requirement for throwing accuracy that gave rise to human intelligence, or perhaps that it was the development of language. These are definitely contributors to the evolvement of human intelligence, but there is yet the underlying root cause that prompted the first humans to be inspired to develop the concept of hunting with projectiles or express ideas using vocal sounds to communicate in the first place.

Inasmuch as all species of life can be traced to some prehistoric ancestor which evolved to become the modern version of itself, it was only the human whose brain had the genetic predisposition to enlargement for the sake of intellectual aptitude. Again, it is the overall surface area of the two millimetres thick layer of the wrinkled and folded surface of the brain called the cerebral cortex which determines the number and complexity of neural networks and therefore the degree of complexity of associative reasoning and calculation of which our brains are capable.

Physically, the brain may be compared to the characteristic growth of a broccoli flower. Following the stem from the bottom of the plant the closer one gets to the surface the more numerous and finer the divergent pathways become until one arrives at the florets, comparable to the neuron bodies of the cortex itself. A larger cortical surface area allows for a greater diversity of intellectual potential.

Because a bigger chassis requires a bigger engine, the result of the development of our brain size leads as a matter of course to the development of a more highly evolved inner brain, the support system. The ability to develop more complex intellectual skills, rationalize with greater skill, think higher thoughts, imagine more fantastic things, all lead to the requirement for more memory and therefore better memory management and more highly advanced associative reasoning faculties. This naturally leads to the ability to acquire more knowledge and more knowledge opens doors to deeper thinking. "I am already intelligent. Therefore, I can become more easily more intelligent."

None of the preceding explains what inspired humankind in the first place. Inasmuch as necessity is the mother of invention, that which leads to the decision that anything is necessary arises from the capacity to be innovative and to invent. If inspiration determines the need, than what was it that inspired humans to begin with? What was that momentous occasion, if there was one, that ingrained in the brains of primitive man the seed that ultimately led to the development of a larger brain mass? It cannot be competition, because all of the lower animals compete with one another for food and shelter, and yet they just evolved into better animals, still trapped in their smaller brains.

To examine the reasons for the separation of humankind from the animal we must delve far into the earliest times of paleantological history.

Whatever and whenever major natural catastrophes or cyclic events cause mass extinctions, there are always survivors. The current school of thought on the subject teaches us that all the dinosaurs died out when a massive comet struck the earth. That is a convenient solution to the puzzling problem of what became of them. There is no doubt that such an event occurred, for we see the evidence in the depositions of the material of this collision in the sedimentary strata corresponding to the applicable geological era all over the world. But that is not to say that there were no survivors. Never in earth's history has all surface life perished due to some calamity of nature. Early man has survived ice ages by living around hot springs or fortunately finding himself outside of the glacial fringe. In the case of the comet those early precursors to humankind would have defeated extinction by living in caves, where lichen, moss and fungi and underground springs provided sustenance and oxygen necessary for survival while the dust settled. These were probably our primordial ancestors.

They were also dinosaurs of a sort, belonging to a unique phylum. The niche that they had carved for themselves arose from the choice of their staple diet, the eggs of other dinosaurs, rich in protein and nutrition. The fact that they superseded the evolution of post-apocalyptic life by millions of years explains in part the huge gap between the development of human intelligence and that of the other animals including the primates. He was already smart enough to know how and where to hide, and why.

The first reptiles appeared about ninety million years before the earliest dinosaurs. There is an interim of five million years between the appearance of the first dinosaurs and the emergence of the earliest mammals. Our scenario easily satisfies the question of how humans developed such large brains when all the other animals seem trapped in their limited intelligence because of their comparatively small brains. We had a considerable head start. At the very earliest time we were relatively small egg-laying dinosaur-like creatures ourselves, not quite primates. Our legs became adapted to running bipedally to escape the threat of chase and our arms grew longer to be better able to clutch our booty while fleeing pursuit. To organize a raid on a dangerous mother raptor's cache of eggs required cunning and skill. This led to the development of a rudimentary social structure, perhaps the first, because there is in cooperation a higher probability of success.

The question of why we don't lay eggs now can be readily attributed to evolution. Examples can be found in nature. There are shark species which give birth to live young. They tend to have a long gestation and reproduce infrequently. Sharks are known to be among the oldest surviving predatory life forms on the planet, predating the first mammals by about eighty million years. And yet, there are species of sharks who do not give birth to live young, but instead deposit egg sacs that look like square pouches with a fine tendril at each corner. So it seems that giving birth to live young as opposed to eggs, or egg sacs, is a matter of divergent evolutionary trends. It is evident that sea life has remained fairly consistent in character and nature over time, of course largely because the environment does not change to the extent that the surface environment does, therefore the need for adaptation is less stringent. Yet it is obvious that even sea life can evolve creatures that experience live birth whose primordial origins no doubt lie in an egg-laying ancestry. The odds are largely in favour of surface based life evolving the same way much more rapidly.

Early hominoids had only the night to contemplate their place in the cosmic scheme of things. The clear blackness of night, especially during the phase of a new moon, unadultered by manmade smog and atmospheric pollution must have presented an awesome sight. It is no wonder then that the oldest known organized society still in existence is that of the Rosicrucians, thought to have originated with the earliest of the ancient Egyptians, and based on the study of astronomy. It is also no wonder that the religion of the ancient Egyptians was centered around the "celestial river", the Milky Way rising out of the southern Nile at night, for it is by way of the celestial river that the dead join with the "seven spirits before the throne", the seven planets there were known to exist at the time.

A rethinking of the age of the pyramids and the sphinx has given us the approximate age of the sphinx at around 25,000 years. This is based on the evidence of erosion due to streaming water from its original base which was excavated rather recently and which could only have been caused by the post-diluvial rains, an acknowledged period in geological history. The alignment of the sphinx is such that it is oriented on the thirtieth parallel with its nose pointing at exactly that latitude on the horizon when during the summer solstice the rising sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator - in other words, when it rises farthest north on the horizon which happens around June 22 in the modern calender. The three pyramids at Giza are so arranged so as to be in precise alignment with the positions of the three stars in the belt of Orion, the stellar constellation, as they were exactly 25,000 years ago at that time when Orion is positioned beside the milky way in the southern sky. Astronomers have concluded from the archeological evidence that the ancients had knowledge of precession, that is the wobble of the axis of the earth, which is how the earth behaves in motion, much like the end stage of the spinning of a top. We now know that this wobble increases and decreases in cycles in correspondence with the influence of gravity that the planets have over the earth's motion. This knowledge is definitely not the result of the ponderings of the mind of an animal.
With the discovery of modern fertilizers and the unstoppable might of the industrial revolution came a radical change in human social behaviour. No longer the hunter-gatherer, humans now earned the time to develop culture and realize their creative potential. Anatomists have recorded a general increase in bone density and overall dimensions of the human anatomy over the last three hundred years of human history. We also have enjoyed a greater longevity as a result of those advancements. The demands of an increase in the input of information and the investment in time now given over to study and contemplation has no doubt also contributed to a corresponding relatively rapid increase in cortical area necessitated by the growing need to expand the neural network.

All of this only serves to reinforce the concept of humankind's unique place in nature, its separation from the animal kingdom and the tremendous gap of intelligence that exists with respect to the intelligence of those whom we believe to be our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom, the higher primates. Indeed, insomuch as lions evolved into better lions and bears evolved into better bears, therefore apes have evolved into better apes and humans into better humans, and we have evolved into a species apart from the animal. In truth we are no more related to the ape than we are to the cat or bear. Each has evolved to meet the demands of their environment and have settled comfortably in their niche. It is apparent from what we know about human evolution that humankind has never been comfortably ensconced this way. We are not animals. We are different. We have learned to walk upright and wondered at the planets and the stars, and they have inspired us. We have survived the nuclear winters and the ice ages to become what we are today because more than 230 million years ago we smaller and weaker dinosaurs developed a taste for the concentrated proteins and nutrients of the eggs of those great lumbering beasts that then ruled the earth. No doubt the first cooked meal that our human ancestors ever ate was the omelette. The recipe: a flat rock, the stifling heat of a primordial sun, and a clumsy thief.

Logically, there is no other way to explain the huge degree of separation that humans have from any other species in what we like to call the animal kingdom. Evolution in natural selection and adaptation and the development of the far more highly evolved brain of the human compared with that of any other animal is a process requiring aeons of time more than that allotted to that period since the establishment of the first primates, which happened about 70 million years ago at a time when a strange prehominoid had already established his presence on earth even before Pangaea divided to form the continents almost 200 million years ago. When the first primates appeared, about 150 million years after the earliest mammals, our ancestors were already walking upright, and five million years later, shortly thereafter in the geological time scale, the dinosaurs became extinct. When that happened we were by then expert in our chosen field of egg procurement and no doubt contributed to their demise. The assumption here is that the human race never diverged from a phylum in common with the primate but that it is unique and distinct, otherwise we would also have evolved to become merely better apes.

One might question this idea on the basis of appearance alone, not to mention the fact that our DNA is 98% compatible with that of the gorilla. In genetics a 2% difference is huge. If we can use genetic arguments to make comparisons then it follows also that more DNA means a more complex and more advanced species. On that basis the fruit fly should be far more highly advanced than we are because their DNA has for more genetic material than that of either humans or apes. The fact is that we can't draw such conclusions.

Apes look like somewhat similar to us because there are only so many logical conformations that anatomy can take to cope with the environment. We can say that all birds look the same, or all quadrupeds look the same, or all insects look the same. In doing so we are oversimplifying the zoological process of classification. Insomuch as apes appear to be evolving into bipedal creatures whereas the simians of the South American jungle appear quite happy with their grasping tails and their arboreal lifestyle, if anything they support the very fact of the evolutionary progression which places humans clearly far ahead of the apes in the chronology of palaeontology.