The need to keep creating novel solutions to survival threats may of stimulated the growth of our large energy hungry brains. The Earth's climate has been increasingly erratic since our early ancestors, (hominids) first emerged around 5 million years ago. The landscapes we lived in, changed dramatically in cycles lasting for hundreds of thousands of years, deserts were replaced with forest, which in turn were replaced by grasslands, rich with herds and predators.
Our species has endured ice ages and learned to populate deserts. We have developed unique skills and ways to cooperate, combine and exchange the goods and services provided by those skills.
Where it is common to see an entire species adapt into a unique niche of opportunity. Within our species, each individual can become highly specialised and even multi-disciplinary. We have taken on the biological advantage of adaptability itself. In doing so we both create and remove niches of opportunity.
We do this at a rate that is much faster than our ability to comprehend long term costs and benefits. We can build amazing and new “things” but we can not replace what we lose in the process.
We are extremely malleable, we can tune our attention to solving totally different types of problems. We can become extremely sensitive to small variations in sound, colour, pressure, light, taste and even smell. The physical tasks we can adapt our physiology to are wide and varied, as are the different aptitudes for being able to solve abstract or thought problems.
As a species, our biological advantages come from working in large groups,(systems design) and using tools. Our individual biological advantage is our adaptability, which is governed by our sensitivity and ability to move well.
This post was inspired by this article in Scientific American, but we will go deeper over the course of this series.
Wisdom as Action Series
Act 1 - Do you remember?
Act 2 - What is Love?
Act 3 - Feeling Swell
Act 4 - Bound to be Free
Act 5 - Trust Issues
Act 6 - Knowledge
Act 7 - All you Desire
Act 8 - Virtue Reality
Act 9 - @tension
Act 10 - Rote learning vs Understanding
Act 11- Morality Paradox
Act 12- Body Language
Act 13 - Adaptability pt1 - survival
Adaptability pt2- attunement
Adaptability pt3 - focus
Adaptability pt4 - nutrition
Adaptability pt5- sex and intimacy
Adaptability pt6 - shelter