A Significant Loss Can Turn into an Even More Significant Gain

When we look at the history of humanity, the changes from past to present are incredible. We are changing day by day and we are gaining new talents by developing rapidly thanks to the technologies we have developed.

Even if we think that we are ahead of our ancestors in many aspects, may we have lost some of our abilities as we developed?

For example, Aborigines, who are native Australians, had advanced telepathic powers in the past. In addition, new historical discoveries lead to theories that the civilizations that lived before us were much more technologically superior.

Now, let's take a look at how some of our features that existed in the past disappeared and how the loss of these features contributed to us.

About 7 million years ago, before chimpanzees or humans came into existence, the last known ancestor of chimpanzees lived, the Chlcas. This species lived in trees, as we often see in primates today. After a while, some members of this species decide to try their luck on the plains for some reason. However, they have a higher chance of being protected from predators in trees. When they decide to live on the plain, they have to give up a bit of this security. For this, they need skills that they never needed before. They need collaboration and knowledge sharing. They had to tell other group members where the predators were, where they usually roamed, and what time of day they were there. For this, they needed a collection of symbols.

According to this theory, the origin of language is based on this. Sharing information was essential for survival. The species that chose to live on the plains before us, unfortunately, could not escape extinction because they called it Carpe Diem, and only we have reached today.

Chimpanzees are one of the intelligent species that live in trees. One of the most important features that distinguishes us from them is that we can talk.

So why don't chimpanzees talk, why haven't they developed this feature?

Actually, as I just mentioned, it's because humans aren't strong enough to live in trees. Unlike our ancestors' extinction on the plains by living in the moment, chimpanzees survived by living the moment in the trees. So the chimpanzees actually chose the easy way. Because all they had to do was count how many enemies there were by looking at the bushes ahead and decide whether to go there or not. The most important feature required for this was short-term memory. This is exactly why chimpanzees have a much better visual memory than humans.

The scientific explanation for this is: In the evolutionary process, there is not a big difference between chimpanzees and humans in terms of brain anatomy. So a new kind of brain is not emerging. The only difference here is that while we are learning a language, the part of our brain responsible for language learning is adjacent to short-term memory. We also had to give up the part responsible for short-term memory while the part responsible for language learning grew and developed.

It also has a scientific name; “Cognitive Trade Off Hypothesis”

In other words, it was necessary to share in order to survive, and to develop a language in order to share, and while developing it, it was necessary to renounce the wonderful memory our ancestors had.

Judging by the evolution of humanity, this has not been such a bad trade. In fact, if we look at our essence, what makes us who we are, what separates us from all other animals, is to talk, not to think, but to share. Helping and supporting each other to ensure a better future for our children and keep them safe. Therefore, although we are not as happy as chimpanzees, if we support each other and help each other, we will find our true purpose in life.