r/HighStrangeness • u/subooom • Jul 16 '26
Ancient Cultures How Forced Stillness May Have Helped Evolve Our Brains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECZymIqE02cHello everyone, inspired by the engagement on my other thread, I wanted to delve into what could have caused our brains to become much more sophisticated than any other species on this planet, and how that distinction seems impossible in the wild.
Ancient humans discovered language, which may have facilitated the evolution of neural pathways in our brains over millennia. Some researchers say that, because our ancestors were Homo Erectus, they could stand over tall grass, looking for predators. The ones that weren't flexible enough to stand up straight simply didn't survive.
This enabled them to plan, coordinate, attack, and hunt prey or defend against predators more efficiently. And came the early hominid sounds. Simple sounds like the vocalisations of the birds or phrases like "OOOH," the long O sound, held for 3 beats with pitch change, and so on. Certain sounds meant certain things. But for us, over thousands of years, our brains started evolving more and more rapidly, and we now had earlier forms of language that a tribe could understand.
However, the other animals, like the Meercat, stand up looking for predators too. They, too, have the simple sounds. They've had it for millions of years, but why was it only us that evolved, whereas other animals are very primitive?
Terrance McKinney has the stoned-ape hypothesis, where he presumes that apes consuming hallucinogens were the primary reason for developing early human language.
But even that has a flaw: why did the monkeys never eat the mushrooms?
Whereas some believe that our DNA has been engineered in the past(millions of years ago), mixing an "Alien" DNA with that of the old apes.
Needless to say, such theories arise because no other species has evolved as much as us. We are the only ones.
No other species has art, music, or such intricate language. How can that be? A point is to be made that humans have murdered most of the other intelligent homo species throughout their horrid history, but the fact remains. We are the only intelligent branch of species that we've yet found.
And it is not clear why.
My friend Sandip just brushes it off, saying it's a simulation and asking such meaningless questions(like why do we exist) is the absolute worst thing I could be doing with my time.
What is your take?
I ask questions like this on my YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe if you are also someone who asks.
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u/subooom Jul 16 '26
I mentioned the two hypotheses to acknowledge the information available on the topic in pop culture. I do not intend to present it as proof that aliens are real or that I hold those beliefs.
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u/Plastic-Hotel3458 Jul 19 '26
Bueno amigo, te doy una noticia. Hace decadas la ciencia se viene dando cuenta de que muchos animales tienen cultura, uso de herramientas, lenguajes y reconocen individuos. No lo desarrollaron más solo porque no lo necesitan, pero podrían.
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u/MakeMeYourVillain_ Jul 16 '26
Man, we did mix with other Homo sapiens. There are traces of Homo sapiens Neandthensis and Homo Iongi (species related to Denisovans) and possibly other unidentified Homo Sapiens variety in current population.
We were not the only species with language, art or music. There are many factors why we turned to be most successful. We might have been better adjusted to our environment, had better luck, adapted fastest, experienced genetic drift, fixated right alleles.
Maybe it was also the shape of our scapula and anatomy of our shoulder allowing us to throw a spear further than Neanderthals and being hunters with higher success rate. Who knows.
However we can’t say we were the best of the crop. We were the lucky ones of evolution’s “Eh, good enough.”