Evolution: Instincts, Emotions, and Logical Thinking
16th Oct 2020
The advancement of our knowledge in the evolution of brain has come a far way and it is intriguing to note how different parts of our brain evolved over time. To begin with, the primitive brain emerged around five hundred million years ago having a very basic structure responsible for vital functioning, such as breathing, sleep-wake cycle, impulses, senses, and instincts. Enough to survive. Going ahead, the next milestone in brain evolution was the development of the limbic system which emerged around two hundred million years ago. This part of the brain plays a central role in emotions, motivation, learning, and memory. Making us beings who can feel emotions. The final remarkable step, believed to give us headway towards progress was the evolution of neo-cortex which is involved in logical thinking, creativity, cognition, all decision-making abilities, and much more.
It has been a long arduous ride, spanning thousands and millions of years into the past, and we carry this long history inside us, which influences how we perceive the world and ourselves. Following the eventuality of the brain development, it is tempting to believe that with the evolution of new parts of the brain, we got better off as a species. But, hold on, maybe not. If we look meticulously at the progression of brain evolution and how we became what we are today, it answers a lot of questions about our existence, the ones we never really give a conscious thought to.
“The answers to your problems lie all around you. The keys to your self-discovery are waiting to be found in each sunset, each pair of eyes, and each breath of fresh air. Listen to the symphony of life and you will hear yourself. Find the beauty of nature and you have found your soul.”
Vironika Tugaleva
Many a times we get an inexplicable instinct about a particular thing. There is a voice inside us that says “I have a strong gut feeling about this”. We cannot really point out the path that led us to believing in something so strong from within. But that feeling persists. The enigmatic part about this gut feeling is that majority of the time, if not always, that feeling is right. Instincts play a greater part in our lives than what we give them credit for. A research study carried out has shown that majority of the decisions we take in our day to day life are more intuitive than rational. This kind of makes sense when we correlate it with the fact that the part of the brain which controls impulses and instincts is more evolved and has been in existence for a much longer time. After all, practice makes a man perfect.
Slowly, we gravitated towards the development of limbic system which is the predominant part of our emotional and behavioural responses. When we look back, before agricultural revolution, the foragers were on a constant move searching for food, and survival was the most important factor for many species; therefore everyone was under a constant fear for life to save themselves from the predators. Fear is the first and the oldest emotion to be experienced by any species. Probably why many of our feelings revolve around fear in some form or the other. We fear losing our loved ones, we fear not performing well, we fear not being good enough. We fear. “Bad news sells because the amygdala is always looking for something to fear” – Peter Diamandis. This evolution of the emotional centre also led to the creation of ‘self’, gradually establishing various other emotions. Love. Anger. Happiness. Sadness. Envy. Guilt. Pride. And the list goes on. No matter how pragmatic we think we are or how we think we don’t let emotions affect us, we all have prejudices, and all our decisions are always biased based on our emotions.
Later, with the development of the neo-cortex, what we refer to as the logical brain, we got our ability to analyse and rationalize things. This eventually led to emergence of various centres in the brain responsible for different things, with the left brain believed to be involved in linear thinking and the right brain in creativity. This step in the evolution would come across as an obviously advantageous one. We can think (read overthink) and invent and discover. Yet, many of the great inventions and discoveries have happened serendipitously, which were backed up by instincts and emotions. It is quite enigmatic as to why even after developing the ability to think rationally, do we still rely on our ‘primitive’ feelings.
The truth is, as much as we pride our ability to think rationally over other animals, it is important to understand what formed the basis of our existence and is crucial for survival. We are not meant to be thinking beings who can feel emotions. We are emotional beings who can think. A particular school of thought will reject instinct- and emotion-based decisions and call it fallible because it cannot be proven scientifically as to how they work. Albeit, we’re still in a process figuring out the rational thinking part and we have to cover a long journey going ahead. Being logical and rationalising things is great, it undoubtedly pushes us further in multiple ways, but lets not mute out emotions and instincts in the process. There is a reason why we get up with a particular feeling or instinct sometimes. It is not insane to follow it. Believe in yourself, it can take you to great heights.
“Scientists have discovered, it’s true, that employing positive illusions will help you achieve your goals. But I have slowly come to believe that far better things await outside of the tunnel vision of your goals”
– Lulu Miller
Footnote: The primitive brain also had primitive structures homologous to the limbic system and the frontal cortex, just not developed enough!
– Sanketa Raut
Back to Segments
Samay and Solace 