by Kim Terpilowski

Created on: October 12, 2009

DIGITAL CAVEMAN 74

DIGITAL CAVEMEN AND WOMEN

I sit in my Anatomy & Physiology class, as I do every Monday and Tuesday night until December, and I wonder if and how we have evolved? Has the age of wonder ended without us noticing?

Are we once again reduced to satisfying our basic needs? Are we just cavemen and women living in a digital age?

Let me explain what I mean. Our basic needs. One could argue that our basic needs are, in no particular order: need to survive, need to procreate, need to sleep.

Human beings have essentially two brains. The more modern brain, where guilt (those of us who had the unfortunate privilege of growing up in a Catholic or religious households know guilt very well), responsibility, accountability, thoughts about our existence, general life questions reside in this brain. Why are we here and what is our purpose? Questions that live and spark within that modern brain.

As my friend once said, intelligence is just byproduct of evolution. That statement is something I would like to take on later. For now, let's get back to the second brain.

Our primitive brain. You know which brain, the one that will make you get up in the middle of the night to reach into the fridge and pull out that last piece of cake. That cake of course is oh, sooooo good. It's that brain that will make you cheat on your spouse, or stare at a member of opposite sex drooling even though your spouse or significant other is just few feet away. Of course, men are less inclined to hide it.

It's that brain that will make you frame your co-worker for your mistake or take credit for something you didn't do. It's the pleasure center, the power and importance house. It's the brain that will make you move out of the way when danger rushes towards you. That brain is also responsible for impulse racks right next to the registers in any given store.

In times of cavemen and women this is the brain that allowed them to survive to see another day. The one with a primitive brain that was quicker survived to reproduce. Natural selection.

Are we back to that scenario, but this time will it have the opposite effects?

Meaning, the more primitive our thoughts get, the more primitive our needs are the more susceptible we are to death in this digital, fast-paced age.

In the cave days men and women had to worry about animals, and nature in general. Now we have cars, planes, diseases from all over the world, genetically altered food and animals. Let's not forget nuclear warfare, chemicals,

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