Humans are going through the most awful cognitive decline in their history. Neurodegenerative diseases and dementia are on the rise, and studies reveal that the human brain is shrinking. Who or what is the culprit? The answer can be found in a non-fiction book written by an independent researcher who crafted a compelling account of the history of our species and of the stunning neural and biological transformation that has occurred in the human brain. The name of the author is Dan M. Mrejeru, while the title of his work is The Making, The Rise And The Future Of The SpeakingMan.
The Content
The book is a ponderous collection of research papers exploring the most critical steps of human evolution, from the rise of Homo Sapiens to its likely extinction. The work has now reached the sixth edition with additional details that expanded the personal and professional research of the author.
Who is The Author
Born in Romania and relocated to the United States, Dan Mrejeru is a geologist who has had his job denied in his homeland. He suffered, indeed, the bloody Romanian dictatorship. It was thanks to his emigration to North America that the author found his identity, along with the opportunity to do his work as a geologist, engineer, and researcher. Influenced by a daughter who today is a brilliant neuroscientist, the author is now dedicating his life and writing to deepen and discover the mysteries of the human brain, and above all, the ones that reside in our mind and are still unknown.
What The Latest Edition Discusses
The Sixth edition of the book retraces all the human history as already seen in the previous edition, with the migration of the early hominins and the appearance of a new human species that was capable of thinking and reasoning with its same thoughts, namely homo sapiens.
This species appeared on our planet about 300,000 years ago, but it was thanks to the big migratory fluxes from Africa, around 60,000 years ago, that Homo Sapiens started to differentiate itself from other animals and species of monkeys, becoming the most evolved species in the creation of the known universe.
In his extended exploration, however, the author focuses our attention on a period dating back 23,000 years ago, when human communities experienced an impressive neural change that led to the development of the brain and a new important function, namely speaking. In this stage, the ancient humans learned to communicate with each other and exchange information, giving rise to the so-called society of information, to which the author dedicates a large space in his long dissertation. The capacity to speak is just the one that gives the title to the book, while the author describes speaking humans as Homo Loquens, also defined as Speaking Man.
But how was it possible that wild monkeys became skilled beings who spoke and thought? The mystery resides in their brain. Homo Sapiens, indeed, is the only creature that has a big brain with billions of neural circuits. It was thanks to the development of new neurons that the human brain became a little big universe capable of performing impossible tasks and unforgettable feats.
Oxidative Stress and the Development of Neurons
According to the discoveries the author mentions in the book, the flourishing of new neurons occurred during the strong geomagnetic excursions that humans experienced in their migratory phases. Geological glaciations and subsequent warming of the planet caused a large amount of ionizing radiation and C14 emissions. This radioactivity, in turn, caused oxidative stress and the development of new brain cells. Yes, in the prehistoric age, oxidative stress was a positive factor for the empowerment and enlargement of the human brain, while today, it is considered the primary cause of brain diseases. It is through this compelling revelation that the author dives into two unknown concepts related to linear and non-linear thinking.
Linear and Non-Linear Thinking
While early humans thought only of their primary necessities, such as sleeping and eating, the most evolved beings started thinking in a more complex way, developing more advanced skills, such as creativity and problem-solving. Humans were thus capable of feeling emotions and using their ideas to foster progress and technology.
Linear thinking was, in fact, linked to simple survival needs, while non-linear thinking regarded more complex emotions.
Gradually, due to nonlinear thinking, which led to greater brain enlargement, humanity’s evolution has gone through collectivism, individualism, feudalism, capitalism, war, and the dominance of men over other men.
What these phases of human history have in common is the way in which humans process information.
The pivotal organ is always the brain. The more information and emotions the brain processes, the more cognitive skills the brain develops, including the capacity for humans to choose between good and evil.
This is the same brain that today is menaced by an overload of information and the intense use of AI. However, the author launches a positive message in the latest edition of his work: information and AI are not our enemies; if we learn to use them to our own advantage, we can strengthen our cognitive skills and abilities. We have only to control and dominate technology, and not be dominated.
Conclusion
Only this way, our emotional thinking can return to the purity of the origin and be deprived from toxic thoughts that are dangerously killing our neurons.
Today, we see only perils, wars, and diseases, and strangely, the deadliest ones regard the brain.
Young people, for instance, are experiencing more and more cases of brain cancer, while middle-aged individuals are more and more affected by neurodegenerative diseases. Is all this a sign of our next extinction?
Why does oxidative stress today kill, and in the past, fostered the development of the brain?
These are questions that find a proper answer in the sixth edition of a non-fiction book, which is not only a neuroscience paper, but a long and wonderful journey into the development of the most mysterious universe that someone, maybe, has created: the brain.
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