I read that the reason why our brain is so big and marvelously structured derives from the fact that at some point during our evolution we decided to move on using only two of our four extremities. Balance gets difficult and requires a lot of calculation for the right muscle commands, and therefore the brain asked for more operating power. The advantage of this unstable procedure was that we freed the remaining two extremities for other purposes, like for holding a smartphone and texting.
Initially, humans walked a lot to find food, and ran a lot not be eaten by predators. There was not much mental capability left for anything else. Since the invention of the chair, our species walks and runs less and less, and it is no wonder that idle brain capacity showed up to produce things as intricate as the airplane or any country’s tax system.
But should we really presume that everybody can fully cope with the increasing complexity of the intellectual and moral demands our high growing civilization is putting on us?
We should remember that if somebody uses brain’s occasional free neurons for something else than maintaining the balance on only two feet, discovering for example during that lapse the special theory of relativity, this is a miracle and was not foreseen by the selection process that led to our species. It is a great gift for humanity and nice to have. No question about it. But you cannot expect that from everybody, especially not from people that still are standing and walking a lot. They do not want to be deceived by gravity and fall on the floor, and this endeavor requires their full attention.
