Jan
31
2010
Personal By Louise Strachan | 1 comment

The Artificial Tea Break

I watched on old episode of James May’s Big Ideas the other day, where he examined the world of robots, and of course with it, artificial intelligence.  And, of course, as usual, there were the flights of fancy that always follow on from thinking about robots with intelligence: can robots (or computers) take over the world?  Which made me start to think…

Wikipedia tells me that intelligence is the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience.  Robots and computers are ‘things’ and it’s hard to see how ‘things’ profit from experience.  If a ‘thing’ does what its supposed to do, the humans behind the ‘thing’ will (probably) be pleased or richer, and if it doesn’t,  the humans will probably be upset, or poorer, or at least slightly disappointed.  But the ‘things’ themselves don’t care, they can’t.  They have no emotions.

So if a ‘thing’ has no emotion, it can’t profit from an experience.  Indeed, how can it even have an experience?  Wikipedia again: experience is have first-hand knowledge of states, situations, emotions, or sensations.  We’re back to emotions again.

It begins to appear that to have intelligence the ‘thing’ must have emotion. And something that has emotion is no longer wholly objective: at some level it becomes subjective, otherwise ‘emotion’ would be meaningless, and then the requirement to have  emotion would not be met, and therefore the description of intelligent could not be applied.

This is a roundabout and somewhat contrived way of getting to the point that I knew instinctively when watching James May playing with his robots.  Intelligence can only exist where there is sentience.  Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive subjectively (you know where to look now) and we have already decided that our ‘thing’ has to be subjective if it is to be intelligent. So it must be sentient.

Now, it has always struck me that ‘intelligence’ in the context of a machine is a hard concept to get hold of.  A human being is generally considered intelligent if he or she can do lots of clever things, but computers are really good at doing lots of clever things to the extent that it’s impossible to apply any of the same criteria.  And we do know, of course, that a computer’s clever things are only the result of the programming that someone did for it.  The test for machine intelligence is usually the Turing test, to see if the machine can hold a rational conversation with a human being.  It doesn’t really seem an adequate qualification for taking over the world, somehow.

But what if we consider this new idea, that the ‘thing’ needs to be sentient, rather than the more trivial ‘intelligent’?  Sentience is the real power behind achievement.  A ‘thing’ that is very clever will do the task it’s set to do right every time, but it won’t have ambition.  It won’t *want* to do something better, or even something more fun. But these are the driving forces that conquer the world: idealism, ambition, the quest for truth or art, the quest for standard of living.  Not being clever.

So the real test, in my opinion, of a machine that may one day take over the world is not its ability to hold a conversation with a human being, or one that can walk, run, carry huge loads or be programmed to do delicate brain surgery.  It’s much, much simpler than that.  The time to start getting worried is when you see a machine taking a tea break. Because it wants to, because it’s more fun than working.

Jan
12
2010
Primalism By Louise Strachan | No comments yet

Primalism 12: Conclusion

I’ve sought to show how a range of psychological and emotional states connected with fear, confidence and self-esteem fit into a constructive society, and become essential elements within it. I’ve sought to show why what a modern and sophisticated society may view as deviant sexual behaviour could, when viewed from a different perspective, be seen as entirely within keeping of the human nature.    These are issues that, between them, form the basis of many problems for the individual slightly at odds with society, with our way of living, with today’s  moral expectations.  A deeper but more basic understanding begins to throw light on the issues, make them more understandable, more tractable.  Even if the conclusion is that awkward one: you are right, it’s the rest of the world that’s wrong!

It is not my intention to say that this philosophy is right, or even very likely (although I believe it is…), it is simply a thinking point, a way of formulating a rational model which supports much of what we do know and understand, and may allow extrapolation beyond our understanding.

And in the end, when it comes to addressing the individual’s psychological and emotional problems, or perceived problems, it doesn’t really matter if it’s right or wrong.  All that really matters is that it’s cohesive and at some level, believable.  We constantly and exclusively work with models of the external world, our internal world and our perceptions all the time, and a model is valid if it is believable and functional. If this model offers more functionality to someone than their ‘correct’ model, it’s worth applying and seeing if it works.  If it does, that person can move on, free-er and happier.

Which brings me to my over-riding belief: I think we were meant to be happy.  We have all the necessary skills, qualities and systems to be happy, more so than to ‘be’ in any other emotional state, and so why not this celebrate this attribute?

Jan
12
2010
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Primalism 11: Confidence

Confidence arises at various levels.  At the deepest levels, perhaps, are sense of identity and self-esteem, those connected intrinsically with character. Above these lie several layers of functional confidences, connected with projected personality: personal confidence, sexual confidence, confidence at work, on the sports field, in battle.

It seems to be a common assumption that these are all one and the same. ‘I’m confident and outgoing at work, I can stand up in front of people and deliver a really good presentation, but in social situations, I’m really shy’ is one variant of the often heard statements of confusion over confidence.

The truth is that with only a little self-esteem intact, functional confidences can be constructed.  Various tricks and techniques can be learned to appear confident, and with some of the fears removed by this functionality, together with an acceptance by peers of projected confidence, it’s possible to rise to great heights.

And in truth, it can be difficult to separate functional confidence from self-esteem after such processes.  After all, it is this process which creates self-esteem and sense of identity in the first place, and it can rebuild it at any stage in life.

When the difference become important is when disparity arises, when a functional confidence in one area far outstrips confidence in another area or far exceeds the underlying self-esteem.

In societal terms, functional confidences are part of the mix, and it is these which give rise to the great leaders.  When it becomes a problem is when a functional confidence in one area leads to a belief in the confidence of an individual as a whole, which is not then forthcoming. For the individual concerned, it can be stressful, as they get pushed into situations they are not able to handle, for society, it can be catastrophic if that individual has become an influential leader.

The mix of confidence levels, be they functional or intrinsic, lead to the hierarchical levels in society: leaders, hunters, fighters, supporters, and their converse: the burden, the parasitical, those who cannot or will not contribute.

Jan
12
2010
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Primalism 10: Fear

There are two types of fear: the fear we feel when the No.22 bus is bearing down us while crossing the road, and the type of fear we feel when contemplating taking some action that moves us out of our comfort zone: starting dating, resigning from a job that is driving you potty, embarking on a course of action that leads to risk or vulnerability.

The first type of fear is handled at a high level: fight or flight, get out of the way of the bus, stand and fight the trouble causers or turn and flee from them.  There isn’t time to think it through, immediate action is needed, so the sensory input to your brain from your external senses is hard wired.  The visual, auditory and other signals gets straight through, are processed, the emotional content converted to fear, and your range of possible reactions checked against your past experience and your resulting character.  If you are found to be bigger, stronger and nastier than the threat, you will shape up and fight, if you are not, you’ll be on your way the opposite direction before you know it.

The latter type of fear had little similarity. It’s driven by internal emotional states, rather than external senses. It has little tangibility: the consequences of being bolder, leaving your job, taking risks are imaginary, and are usually in emotional terms rather than physical.  If you leave the job you hate, you’ll be happier because you have left the stress it created behind.  But you might not find another job, so you face the risk of being financially insecure and the stresses that arise from it. It’s often impossible to perceive such courses of action in any rational way.

And worse, often the cause of low level fear is itself intangible.  It may well be connected with life decisions: being pro-active, junking the job, getting on with a new life and all that goes with it is scary.  But what causes the fear: walking away from the job and its salary, or the new life that follows: job searches, interviews, different ways of living, extra stress in the marriage, knowing that the marriage is on the rocks anyway but not wanting to broach it…. What really raises the fear levels?  It may not even be this tangible: fear may accompany any course of action in life, any deliberate change of the status quo.

Fear is not a modern phenomena, it is not an effect or affect of sophisticated society, it is not a response to a more complex way of living.  It’s basic, its human, it arises from sentience: the need for individuals to take an active thinking, deliberate and intentional role in life. Increasing sophistication in society may make the expected roles more difficult to understand or fulfil, may move the boundaries further away. But handling low level fear is part of being human and is an individual endeavour: we all do it differently. How we do it arises from nurture and experience, if it were not so, we would not be as adaptable as we are.

Jan
12
2010
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Primalism 9: Processing Emotion

In approaching Primalism through the major human driving forces: competition, selfishness, sex and war, I am creating a model of human behaviour that arises directly from our genetic heritage and reflects our current state of biological development.  It’s politically-incorrect, of course, but that’s largely the point.  I’m stripping out the overlay of modern, sophisticated society, which we are not adapted to on a genetic or biological level, and in so doing, seek to explain how we really see and act in the world. Rather than how would like to think we see and act in the world.

So far, I’ve looked at the human response in psychological health, and this does include some traits we in the modern world tend to regard as deviant or psychologically unhealthy: kink, high sex drive, blood lust, sexual violence and unfaithfulness.

So what of psychological imbalance?  The primal world is a vigorous place where an individual needs to be emotionally robust to survive, and my focus so far has mainly been on the role of such robust individuals. A social hierarchy was allowed for: the front line was described as those who had that competitive edge, and behind the front line were those who were happier in supporting roles, or working on less spectacular fronts.

Here is a conceptual divergence: do we assume that our personalities are genetically derived and vary with parentage, or do we assume our personalities are genetically homogenous, stable within the bounds of evolution, and vary after birth with nurture, upbringing and personal experience?

The former suggests that people are born shy or out-going, cowardly or brave, selfish or self-less (remember the Selfish Hierarchy: this only means having different view of social group and position within it).  The latter suggests everyone has the potential to be anything, that experience pushes us into various societal positions.

This has huge ramifications when it comes to looking at psychological imbalance.  I describe the ‘psychological’ attributes of humans and their resulting position in the society structure, but much of this attribute has to be determined by a person’s ability to process emotion.

A courageous person has the ability to process fear into a positive energy, to be able to act and then deal successfully with any traumatic consequences. A cowardly person cannot process fear into to the same positive will to act, or maybe cannot process the emotions arising from the consequences of ‘fearless’ action, and so faces emotional blocks preventing action.

A vivacious person has the ability to allow themselves to read other people’s emotions, and act boldly on them, again effective processing of fear and the emotional consequences. A shy person lacks the fearlessness needed to assume knowledge of another’s emotions, to act on any such perceived knowledge or to process the emotional consequences of such behaviour.

This leads to a re-framing of the divergence question: are we born with a given emotional processing ability, or do we develop emotion processing skills as we grow up?  Looking at emotional disturbance without knowing this is like trying to fix a car without knowing if it’s a town runabout or a racing car: we cannot know what to expect of it when it’s fixed, we cannot know unless it’s very fast if we should expect speed or not.

The only sensible conclusion so far is that we must allow for potential beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, but it’s unrealistic to expect or require it.  It is realistic to expect and require a basic functional level of emotional stability, however: genetic evolution would have taken care of any genetic lines lacking it long ago.

Jan
12
2010
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Primalism 8: Dark secrets, base human nature

Warning: Do Not Read If You Are Easily Offended

Warning: references to sex and sexual violence

Pain and pleasure

The obvious place to start. The very title gives away the truth of the situation: they are never that far apart.

I’ve covered before the effect of endorphins. In the face of fear and anticipation, they give a buzz, a high, one that enables men to go into battle, into danger, with a will and an enthusiasm. In the heat of battle, in the reality of injury, the endorphins take away the pain and the anguish, enable the fighters to continue. Simplistic, I know, but good enough for now.

Easy to see, then, that endorphins change the way fear, anticipation and pain are handled, and can turn them into something not unpleasant, a buzz. The buzz sportsmen, explorers, mountaineers and actors seek.

But time to introduce a contentious element. That buzz is sexual. We tend not to acknowledge this. Is it because it’s dumbed-down in most vanilla activities until it can’t be felt? Is it quietly ignored? Or so politically incorrect, we really don’t recognise it anymore? But another well-known phrase gives it away. Blood lust.

Killers want to have sex after killing. Soldiers want to have sex after victorious battle. Maybe sportsmen want to have sex after a game, I couldn’t say, I haven’t been there. But there is a link between sex and the endorphin rush, and it’s easy to see why. In any stressful situation, the ‘winners’ will have the greatest buzz, and the greatest opportunity for sex. If they have the desire too, evolution will be served. The strong guys, the adventurous, the winners procreate, while the weak, the timid, the losers ones do not. It works both ways, too: the women who are there at the contest, the battle, the winning will be the strong, the adventurous, the curious, themselves the winners. Procreation and continuance of a strong, competitive and selfish species is served.

That’s in-extremis, of course. But that analysis, easy to follow in the extreme example, shows quite clearly that pain, pleasure and sex are linked. Human beings are intended to be able to turn the sensation of pain into a sexual charge, are supposed to get turned on by ‘violence’, are supposed to connect deeply with other people in the midst of fear, anticipation and danger.

Pain is not the simple mechanism to avoid danger that we are taught: it has strong links into the endorphin system, it has a crucial effect on mental health and balance, it has a more powerful effect than happiness and joy, both weak stimulators of endorphins in comparison. No wonder it’s effect when recruited into sex is massive! And no wonder we team it up with pleasure while we are it. So to speak….

The Vulnerable Being

It’s innate and natural for the human being to take dominion over others, we are a competitive species, quick to take advantage, necessarily having to guard against others at all times. We also have a huge compassionate streak which is used within the ‘selfish hierarchy’ to look after our own.

These conflicting emotions give us some very strong urges when faced with a vulnerable human being, one who falls under our mercy. We can feel both the need to dominate, perhaps destroy, kill, take resources from, or take power from and, simultaneously, feel the need to nurture, to care for, to protect. Both are deep within our psyche. But the decisive boundaries are ill-defined, the morals are weak ones: do they fit within the aggressor’s own hierarchy, or out-with it? It’s often not easy to know. Is the vulnerable person within our race or with-out our family? Within our extended family or with-out our immediate family? With-in our culture or with-out our country?

The presence of two strong emotions often in conflict with each other gives rise to some unusual feelings. It is, I believe, the basis of many dominant / submissive relationships (but see also Power Exchange, next). The dominant person sees a vulnerable being, and has conflicting emotions around abusing, hurting, protecting and loving her, all of which raise strong emotions, but without clear moral direction. D/s relationships can be beautiful, strong, symbiotic, at their best, better than vanilla relationships, but at their worst, a cover for abuse.

Such relationships may be involve lifestyle slavery and submission, Gorean principles, fantasy rape, cuckolding or fantasy prostitution.

But clearly, it is within the human being to be abusive, to be loving, and to be mixtures of both. It’s a the Russian fighter plane again: can this dangerous mixture be held and held well? Can we develop strong enough morals to contain the explosive elements of our make-up?

Power Exchange

Power exchange features in many aspects of human society, although it may not always be recognised or overt. But without it, society could not function. Much of the exchange is reflected in sexual relationships, for many of the same reasons.

Consider the family unit, man, wife and kids. Man, the bread winner, the defender against all-comers, the overt strength of the unit. He needs to be strong to work and to fight. Testosterone will give him the strength and outlook to take these roles, while adrenaline and endorphins will give him the appetite to take them. But, as we examined earlier in primal society, these attributes don’t particularly lead to a stable existence, to taking a wider, balanced view, to reading emotions and feelings other than aggression.

Woman, the social glue, the balancer, the deeper stability, in the end, the survivor. Born of oestrogen, the woman’s intuition, able to socialise at a deep level, strike deep friendships, strike apparently deep friendships, able to adopt different roles and personas according to need, able to suffer with less impact on function.

Men would spend all their lives going to war or playing with bigger and better toys, competing with each other, with themselves even, but for the influence of women. But women would still try to talk their way out of situations way past the negotiating stage, they wouldn’t be able to go to battle or to fend off aggressive neighbours, but can support their men in the quest.

The dance between their respective influences and abilities needs a constantly shifting power base. Sometimes, he’s in charge: in battle, in acute strife and hostility, in society power shifts where dominance and pecking order is being established. Sometimes, she’s in charge: in chronic adversity, such as illness or famine, in times when the endorphins of men must be maintained but immediate action is not needed, when adrenaline and testosterone must be checked.

I’ve expressed this in obvious primal and primitive terms, but extrapolate this to the Victorian or 50’s household. Who was really in charge? If he didn’t maintain visible authority, he was ridiculed for being hen-pecked, for having a wife who wore the trousers. How many men put on the obvious show of authority to avoid this? But if she didn’t run the household with an iron hand, he would spend the money on sport or drink, he wouldn’t balance the needs of the family. So, quietly, behind the scenes, she ran the show, while he blustered out front.

Of course, this is all terribly politically incorrect, and from the 50’s on, with the introduction of the new man, this didn’t happen or wasn’t acknowledged. But this is a false overlay, and I’m sure the truth of the power shifts shows: power was a game played to make things work, a practical solution that avoided ineffective society or abusive societal units. Those who could shift power around would succeed, those who couldn’t, didn’t.

Jan
12
2010
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Primalism 7: Sex

I’ve set the scene for the onset of sentience creating the fore-runners of our present society, and I’ve demonstrated a line of thought that genetic evolution stopped at around the same time, meaning that we are essentially the emotional and responsive creatures now that we were then.

Since then, of course, society has moved on in leaps and bounds, with farming, industrial, technological, clinical and communications revolutions. But our essential selves haven’t, and while it would be fascinating to delve into those more recent times and work out why we have the society that we do now, the purpose of this philosophy is to uncover the foundations of our being.

We are stone age man, we are primal beings. Every reaction, every emotion, every feeling we have now can be analysed in terms of our reactions in those much simpler times. There will be an overlay of modern conditioning, of course, but much of this overlay is false, is not about being human, but is about functioning in the society we now have. It is the stripping of this overlay that is key to a deeper understanding of who you are and why you are and what is going on in your life now.

Survival of the species lies at the heart of every response we have. Hunger drives us to eat, thirst to drink, lust to procreate, pain to avoid getting hurt, fear to avoid getting into danger. Those responses may be regarded as the primary, the first line.

But they are not enough for survival of a complex, competitive and predatory species. We have a second line of responses that add the colour to the basics. For example, your hunger for a superb meal is not the hunger of a starving person, who would eat anything at all that was remotely edible, but is the hunger driven by a hedonistic desire, a second level response. Neither is your thirst for a good wine the thirst of a man crawling out of the desert looking for liquid of any kind. It is the thirst of a discerning person, fulfilling more than a basic desire to simply survive.

It’s not pure hedonism, by any means, this second level response. Given any choice, we should choose the best, for ourselves, our partners, our family, our group. The tastiest food is the most nutritious, the sweetest water is the cleanest. But to drive that response, we were given (by evolution) greed, and also, of course, selfishness.
So, what of sex? The primary level of drive is to procreate, and is perhaps best represented by the desire to have children and raise a family. The secondary level of drive is the ‘hedonistic’, lust, the desire to shag, to chase the prettiest girls or the strongest men. And, yes, again, it’s more than hedonistic, it’s to do with picking suitable partners for that hierarchy of self, loved ones, family, group, society. As well as maintaining the zest for living.

But that secondary level is an incredibly powerful urge in many, and is frequently in conflict with the apparent needs of a stable society. To further stability, most society morals try to dumb that drive down, to make secondary level sex urges unwelcome, immoral, illegal, unrewarding. That’s where much of our modern day personal conflict with sex and sexuality emerges: we’re out of touch with our roots, we’re out of kilter with our primal responses, we suffer conflict between our received morality and our own personal feelings. Or our partner(s) do.

It is my own belief that much of that secondary urge contains the elements of kinky sex. Humans use intelligence and tools for nearly everything they do, and push all sensations to the limit. Why not with sex, our second most powerful urge, and the most adaptive in terms of sensation and emotion? It seems to me that what our society would try to deem deviant sex, or claim to be mental disturbance could actually be normal sex.

My reasons for this? Partly because so many people sexualise the same themes, things, circumstances that it cannot be simply an abnormal disruption to the intended ways of nature. Partly because the elements of most fetishes are present in healthy sex in some way anyway: power exchange, pain, humiliation, different ways of presenting the self, dressing to best advantage.

And much of the rest of the fetish theme seems to be about not accepting given boundaries and morals, of finding ways to show a disregard for them. Or, at least, to explore contradictions, to test limits, to play with forbidden fruit.

Those who ’suffer’ from what may be deeemd as too high a sex drive, desires not contained by a faithful monogamous relationship, fetish, kink, unusual sexuality are subject to taboo, because they are widely deviant from our very narrow and restrictive view of what humans ’should’ do.  But there’s a case to say that what humans naturally would do would be much wider than sex once a month with your married partner.  Missionary position and the lights off….

Jan
12
2010
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Primalism 6: Religion

For legend to work, it has to be unquestioned. Someone who has never seen a tidal wave has to still go to a lot of trouble to not build or farm below a ridiculously high tide line. Someone who has never experienced a volcanic eruption has to still not build below a volcano, someone who has never experienced famine still has to store far more food than they have ever needed to store, with seed too. This wouldn’t be done if the legend was questioned, and the early humans who did a lot of questioning would not survive when catastrophe hit. The last of our genetic evolution must have bred in a tendency to believe what we are told by trusted figures, the first of our susceptibility to moral evolution established as the disbelievers were wiped out by famine, flood or storm.

Our primary trusted figures are our parents, of course. But their influence is not long lasting: teenagers kick over the traces, and with them any knowledge their parents gave them as yet not ratified by their own experience. Parents can start the process, but they have to hand over the holding of knowledge to others who can retain respect.

In early societies, this could have been village elders. I guess their power is fragile, though, in an aggressively evolving society: their strength is that misfortunes they tell of come to pass, which is a lose-lose situation. Either the elders are proved right, and the village gets flattened by an earthquake, or they are not proved right and lose their credibility.

An authority less easy to question and less easy to disprove was needed, and clearly, religion fits this bill. There’s no feedback mechanism, it cannot be disproved. The penalties for disbelieving are huge: life in hell (but this itself, a penalty requiring belief in the first place, shows the predilection we do have for belief). The reward for believing is huge, too, life ever-after in heaven.

It’s backed up by a characteristic of the human brain: in a near-death experience, when the cortex of the brain becomes oxygen starved, we experience pleasant memories, simply by the electro-chemical process of oxygen deficiency, hypoxia. These memories are often going to be loved ones who have died, and ‘nice’ places we know. Those surviving hypoxia are apt to come back telling of meetings in a wonderful place with long-lost dear relatives, and the circumstances of their ‘return’ is going to be hailed as a miracle anyway, as they will have appeared to die and come back to life.

The tale then gets told of a heavenly place where good people go after death. Add in an image of a beneficent god who looks after these folks, and expectation will be created to place ‘god’ in ‘heaven’. And of course, in any of those who have been conditioned in this way who then go on to have their own hypoxic accident, they will ‘see’ their own expectation of ‘god’ in their own image of ‘heaven’, and tell all and sundry about it when they come back. Again and again, from a respected position of hero worship.

Given this trick of the brain, religion was inevitable, and possibly it was only through this trick that we, the emergent sentient species, did in fact find enough authoritative stability to encapsulate and protect knowledge and it’s application.

Jan
12
2010
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Primalism 5: Legend and belief

I’ve explored the concept that sentience arose in early human species with the ability to manipulate our own mental images, to understand them through language, to tell and to listen to stories.

I suppose the inevitable next stage was belief. If someone can tell a story, and someone else can listen to it, visualise and virtually experience it, can that person be made to think that the experience they have been ‘fed’ is real? That the place, person or situation being described does exist, when in fact, they have no evidence gained through their own experience that this is really so?

The answer, of course, is that someone will be ready to believe what they are told if that story is credible. The issue, then, becomes one of credibility. Not ‘Can this be true?’, but ‘Is the person telling me this telling me the truth?’ A small step from there to then simply accepting what a trusted person tells you. ‘It is true because this person wouldn’t tell me a lie’. ‘Everything this person tells me will be true’.

So a story may be incredible but is lent credibility by the story-teller. And therein lies the foundation of belief systems. Human beings are capable of accepting, as truth, something which defies their common senses, something that doesn’t fit into their own experienced understanding of reality, because they are more ready to accept someone else’s story than their own. If that someone else is a respected person.

This is the basis of legend, of course, and legend is the means by which knowledge is passed through generations, and is the key to complex beings living in complex societies and adapting to environments in a way that no simple beings ever could. The legend of the wind that comes every hundred years, the tidal wave that comes every two hundred years, the ferocious animals or tribes that have to be guarded against, that have never been seen by many of the people in that society. The legend of the last tree cut down, the despoiled earth, the famine. The legend of the moon rituals, the worship of the seasons, the sun and the stars.

Jan
12
2010
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Primalism 4: The Development of Sentience

I’ve explored the concept that genetic evolution has ended, that we now use intelligence and sentience to develop and enforce a moral code and that any future evolution will be moral, rather than genetic.

I need to consider how we got from a genetic evolution to a moral one. It cannot have happened ‘overnight’. No matter how intelligent, humans without a full range of instincts to get through every part of daily living could not have survived without their complex moral society and the development of resources. The transition must have taken time, and must have included a gradual change from one way of living to the other. And yet, the gulf between the sentient and non-sentient is so huge, it’s hard to imagine that process.

I believe the key must have been language. Most species that live in society don’t need language, they all have the right instincts to do what they need to do, and there’s little interaction needed. The communication needed is mainly about conveying warnings of danger, of sexual desire or location of food: simple language tasks, although there is evidence of the use of syllables and sentence structure in some of the ‘higher’ species. Whether any of this constitutes ‘language’ is debatable: they are all non-adaptive instinctual forms of simple communication (even if we don’t understand many of them!!). Certainly, this communication is just about the presentation of information: presence and location of danger, food and a good shag.

What makes our sentient specie different is that we are adaptive, we don’t live by instinct, and to live without, we need knowledge, not simply information. Knowledge is the collected and processed information from past generations: how to build, how to make fire, cook, deal with people, maintain society.

Mammal brains maintain history by storing visual and auditory images within its cortex, and by providing access pathways to it in response to various external stimuli. The response the animal should have to these various stored images is held by the associated stored emotion: fear, lust, hunger, discomfort, joy. The animal can remember where to avoid to be safe, where to find food, can recognise relevant weather patterns, learns the relevance of various sounds and odours.

None of this information can be passed on genetically, therefore each non-sentient mammal must build up their own library of knowledge. They can only do this if there have enough instinctual response to survive long enough to learn for themselves, with a little parent-to-sibling and peer-to-peer education.

Humans don’t have this luxury. We need knowledge, and to amass sufficient knowledge we need a way of passing knowledge through generations.

The mammalian brain’s ability to record vision, sounds and smells along with emotional response is the basis on which sentience is formed, but with one crucial addition. We, the sentient specie, gained the ability to manipulate the stored images and emotions. We developed imagination, and with it, we mastered the story. We use language both to communicate the stories, and, crucially, I believe, to form them in our own minds. Thinking, at this high level, is done with language, and only with the presence of a high level adaptive language can we manipulate our imagination.

Language, then, was the key to unlocking the power of the brain. For thousands of generations, early humans had brains as large, if not larger, than ours today, but they had no voice box. They would have been able to grunt but little more. 80 generations ago, an opening between gullet and airway evolved, and soon after the laryngeal chords, allowing the formation of a huge range of subtle sounds. Language soon followed, and the imagination power of the brain was unlocked.

This is the difference between us and the rest of the living world. We can create stories in our mind, we can listen to other’s stories and ‘feel’ them. We can attach emotion to scenes that are described to us rather than scenes we have experienced first hand. With this ability, early human species were able to pass knowledge through generations, by story telling, by folk lore, by legend.

The means to live in a wide range of environments required knowledge of the particular environment each social group experienced, and this knowledge was encapsulated in and passed on through story telling. How to build to survive climatic conditions, how to cook to live on a wide range of food types, and to be able to store food, how to hunt, forage and farm, how to defend and offend to maintain or gain territory, how to take note of weather and season, how to survive famine, fire and earthquake, all essential knowledge for the intelligent species.

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