Humans have evolved to be outdated machines

Technology has dramatically increased at an exponential rate in these last few decades. Communication and socializing with strangers is a new phenomenon that has made the world a much smaller place. The invention of the telephone, internet, automobiles, and airplanes have put us in situations that our human mind and bodies are not ready for. We are much more adapted to situations thousands of years ago than today.

Acrophobia is the fear of heights. Humans are afraid of heights. It is innately built into our system and to some extent a debilitating fear of heights. The reason for this is simple. Our body wants us to survive. Whether or not we actually do. We also fear snakes, rats, and spiders.

What are we not afraid of - cars. Cars kill more people than snakes, rats, spiders, and heights combined ever will. There is now an irrational fear to die from these above things as many of us will never even encounter these animals other than in a zoo. And they are locked up where they can not possibly even hurt us.

Our emotions are not ready for this smaller world that we live in. Thousands of years ago we never socialized with strangers. We only socialized with those people that we knew. And this was for good reason. Strangers could potentially kill us out of fear. We still have a debilitating fear of strangers. Go to any place where there is mass socialization and there must be alcohol. We have to numb this part of our brain from trying to protect us. There is no real need for alcohol.

One of the most difficult things for a man is to embarrass himself. Men are so tough that they will lift hundreds of pounds, fight, compete, conquer, and get physically hurt to prove their their strength and power. But how strong are men really?

Men can do all this. But what’s one of the hardest things for a man to do? Approach women. Go to any bar and see how many men are approaching new women - very few. Most men are absolutely scared to do this. But this is irrational - there is nothing to afraid of logically. But emotions kick in and totally debilitate hundreds of millions of men. Why is this?

Thousands of years ago there were not hundreds of woman to choose from - only women from your tribe. Going to another tribe and trying to take their woman would leave you dead. We fear this now but nothing will happen. No one is going to kill a man for chatting up a woman this day and age. Even with alcohol men still can’t get over this fear - it’s extremely hard wired. In this day and age, if men really wanted to have sex - they would go and talk to new women constantly - but they can not as their emotions are too strong.

The most similar thing for a woman would be when she firsts sleeps with a man - just before sex. She gets much anxiety. In this day and age it really isn’t something to be scared of with things like condoms (even with diseases - the deadly ones like aids are almost impossible to obtain even without a condom). But thousands of years ago it meant that a woman would get pregnant and perhaps not with the best possible genes for the baby.

We are machines best suited to survive thousands of years ago. Today, we are nothing more than outdated machines.

What you say is true but with the advance of science our residual instincts won’t for much longer be counterproductive to this new environment. Technological advances mean that transhumanist ideals are no longer just dreams.

Call me Bender…

That’s extremely interesting. I can’t even comprehend some of these transhumanist technologies. I don’t even see how it is possible - things like elimination of gender, instincts, and immortality. Especially immortality - even machines are not immortal. But I also don’t fully understand how a TV works either. So who knows. I definitely don’t think I’ll be alive when any of this happens.

we’re more likely to wind up becoming fat and unhealthy…

Don’t be so sure. I’ve heard here and there that the factors responsible for aging in a body have been isolated, and that the life of some type of worm has been tripled. It shouldn’t be too long from now that the same can be done for people. I also hear that a mind can be expanded, in a manner of speaking, to remember more things, acquire more information faster, and be able to synthesize information better. I really think that some centuries from now we won’t be much different or any less powerful from how the Greeks conceptualized their Gods.

wonderer,
I also read somewhere of this new pill that has come out, or is in production (I forget which) that will trigger some sort of reaction in the body that will exercise the muscles all on it’s own. No need for exercise.

One really can’t help but be excited about the distant future. Sentiments about the immediate future, however, are a different story.

This is, again, related to evo psych, isn’t it? I remember this idea in the evolutionary psych primer I read about a year ago, how humans aren’t better than other animals because they have lesser instincts - rather, humans are at the top of the food chain because we have more instincts.

However, I disagree that humans are ‘outdated’ machines. While our psychology may be hampering us in some ways, you cannot say that humans are outdated. There is nothing to compare us to. I can say that a 1999 laptop is outdated compared to a 2008 version, but I cannot say that a human is outdated as compared to… what? You have to compare it to something. Can water be outdated? It has no feasible alternative for its function. Even coke is water based.

If you compare us to human machines, that’s incorrect - we have created those machines, and even the most sophisticated piece of tech we have right now needs human maintenance. Further, our human limitations are becoming supplemented as quickly as they are being exposed, thanks to our human strengths. These technologies are a direct result of human existence, and it is always our tools that have elevated man beyond mere survival. As long as we keep pumping out new technologies to compensate for our weaknesses, we will not become outdated.

If someday we manage to invent a true, artificial intelligence, then we may have something to compare ourselves to, and we will probably come short in terms of effectiveness or efficiency… or if, for fuck’s sake, an alien lands on Earth, then we can probably compare our psychological baggage to theirs. Also, there is the matter of what measure one may use to ‘grade’ an entity. Efficiency? Beauty? Reproductive potential?

I may be committing some sort of logical mistake above that I’m not catching right now, but that’s my take, anyway.

Never read that. I’d be interested to read that if you know where you got it.

That’s a poor analogy. Water is not outdated because we still use it and it still has a functional purpose. But our instincts can be outdated. Our appendix is for the most part outdated. To our scientific knowledge it has no useful purpose and was supposedly used for something a long long time ago. Certain instincts of ours are outdated because they are not as useful and actually hinder our success opposed to someone who would not have them.

lol… speaking of human machines this asian dude built a machine and it has artificial intelligence. there is a video of him interacting with i think it’s trying to feed him and he keeps swinging his head dodging the food. and she says “if you’re going to act like that i’m not going to feed you.” And then he grabs her breast and she says “hey it offends me when you do that.”

My favorite science fiction movie has to be gattaca. by the way in no way in my original statement was i comparing myself to machines or aliens.

psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html

Kind of dry, but interesting if you’re interested in this stuff.

I thought that Gattacca painted a bleak picture of the future, yet offered hope through innovative technology - it’s one of my favourite sci-fi movies too.

We probably do have functions that are unneccessary in this era, but does not the body/mind adjust to the new, and adapt in order to cope with current times?

We adapt or die-out.

We’re out-dated machines suited to hunter-gatherer societies, that hasn’t stopped us, as a species, from starting to implement ourselves with technological improvements. Artificial limbs, life saving medications, cognitive-expanding medications, even electronic chips/implants to maintain nerve functions, mech-suits are in production to make us much strogner than we currently are.

We are outdated machines, suited to hunter-gatherer groups, some of us already, have a machine for a heart it won’t be long until through genetic engineering and biotechnology that we’ll be a bit more updated.

Still the majority of the brain’s circuits and specializations are meant for solving long-standing adaptive problems, and that might not change for a very long time.

As compared to a chimp or a crow or a house-cat which are adapted to their environments better?

Do you mean that chimps, crows and house cats function better to their environments than humans do? I disagree.

a) First, humans cannot be fairly compared to chimps or other animals. We are basically the only one of our kind that we know of - the only one with real civilizations and cultures. Yes, I know that animals think. Gorillas can be trained to do sign language, parrots to talk with real meaning. But they hardly encounter the same problems that humans have as a highly intelligent creature. Gorillas can’t debate the issues of abortion, or same sex marriage, etc. We are alone in our intellect, as far as we know.

b) Humans are remarkably adaptable to any environment. Take a chimp and put it in the middle of a city. He’ll do bad in it. Take a crow and put him in the amazon jungle, or maybe a house cat. Humans, on the other hand, have gone to all of these places and have established dominance above everything else, or at least survived in it.

However, I would like to counter myself somewhat by saying that we humans are so great at adapting because we adapt the environment to our self, not the other way around. So, like I said, as long as we keep pumping out the technology to deal with our shortcomings and make up for our limitations, then we will not be outdated.

Cars are nothing like living organisms, they are controlled by humans so your comparison makes little sense.