Wanderings of a future vestigial mind......

 vestigial  (v-stj-l):

Relating to a body part that has become small and lost its use because of evolutionary change. (American Heritage Science Dictionary )

 I've been intrigued by  vestigial organs, ever since I was plagued with a bad low back pain, several decades ago, which continues.  And as is my habit, I plagued all my doctor friends with questions.

Turns out, that we all have a tailbone, left over from the days, when we had more swinging lifestyles in jungles, and enjoyed swiping other people with tails, not to mention hanging from branches and so on with the help of tails.  I had often wondered  why a bone was there, when a tail looked so fleshy and pliable, and was amazed to know that inside a tail, there were structures similar to vertebrae in our backs.  By and by , as we became bipeds with celebrated celebral cortexes, used our front(upper)  limbs to fight and balance, the tails vanished, and what remained was , only the place to which they were attached, the tailbone.

Remember the time you tried to hold on to the floor platform edge of a moving crowded doubledecker bus as you tried to jump and climb in, and were pulled in by some good Samaritans ?

Well, if you only had not lost the Palmar Grasp reflex......


Babies have it. You hold out your finger , and their own fingers curl around it to hold tight. Even their toes curl in when you make them sit. This is an ancient leftover reflex, from the time of our monkey ancestors. Baby monkeys, clutched their mothers  at the belly with both hands and feet, leaving the mother's  both hands free, to navigate her movement away from danger. Human babies have this reflex till abut six months, after which it disappears and becomes vestigial.

Having done several leaps into moving trains and buses, and yearned for a grip at the edge of the surface,  I am just wondering if this "palmar grasp" thing can stop being vestigial and come back.


Wisdom teeth are supposed to be a vestigial throwback to the times when we nicely chewed all our vegetables,  straight off the trees, without the benefit of butter and pressure cookers.  Many people wonder why they are called wisdom teeth.  What can you say when sometimes wisdom also looks like it is becoming vestigial ?  Today these are often removed, with additional trouble. You are damned if you remove them and damned if you don't.


Remember the last time you got goosebumps ?  This is also a vestigial reflex.  Our ancestors  were hairy folks, and under stress,  the hair would stand up , and form a layer of protection, besides  forming an insulating warming layer. This would also make  the animal look larger to a predator.   Today we have evolved with not as much hair, and we mess around cosmetically, with what is left of it.  But the body skin  never forgets, and so the next time you get goosebumps after hearing a scary story, be grateful to your ancestors....

There are also some muscles in the ears which are vestigial. Macaque and other monkeys, have these muscles highly developed, and they are able to move their ears voluntarily  at will, to hear dangerous sounds better.  We too have these muscles, but they are useless. (You might think it is better to turn your ears instead of a big head to hear what others are surreptitiously saying about you, but no .)

Though it seems some folks with practice are able to move their ears at will.  But then this inability is compensated  by our ability to move our head in a horizontal plane, which is not so in most monkeys.  I've often thought we lazy humans, with our refusal to listen to wise  people, simply lost out on this ear moving ability.

Having delved into the past, I naturally worry how we will evolve into the future.

For one thing , we will definitely have uneven limbs, with one hand shorter .  Why ?

Decades and centuries, of constantly walking around with your hand to the ear, continuously talking into the phone, will harm the musculature of the upper limb. Whatever skirts the outer edge of the elbow  will kind of wear out. And whatever covers the inside edge of the elbow will be squished into oblivion. All with the permanently bent upper limb.

I am simply amazed at the people I see, on their way home from work, one hand on their bag, the other stuck to their ear, one behind the other, walking  in an involuntary rhythm, constantly talking to someone on the phone. Watch them on escalators,  food courts in malls,  buses etc.    As a "side" evolution, it may not be unwise to presume, that certain neck muscles habituated to fixing eyes on monitors and chin muscles habituated to adjusting and speaking into hands free microphones, may also decide to gracefully end their utility.

And now that we are such an advanced race, it makes sense to think of mental evolution.

The first thing that I anticipate is the enlargement of the parietal lobe of our brains , which is just above our foreheads, and  contributes to the understanding and processing of numerics, and quantities.

Notice how the human race as represented in India, now refuses to count in anything less than crores. There is an entire set of folks, with such developed parietal lobes, that they have amazing understanding about numbers and money, and how they can make both, by hook or by crook. The current stream of corruption scams this year is just a beginning.  Not for nothing, does the figure of ET, the extraterrestrial creature get designed  with a big head. 

Something else in danger of going vestigial is the rods in our eyes. There are rods and cones inside our eyes, that convey to the brain a sense of dark-and-light, and color, respectively via the optic nerve .

I can only talk about the Indian side of things, and suffice it to say, that given the national aversion to anything dark, like a complexion,  the rods in our eyes will soon become vestigial rods.  Given the tendency of our brains to  develop neuroplasticity, I presume that the cones will then takeover that job of the rods, and will be able to show the dark in all its hues and colors, instead of black and white.    The occipital lobe in the cortex at the back of the head that deals with vision issues, will simply bulge with all the overwork.

So stay tuned to see folks with huge foreheads and lumps at the back of their heads. It is clear that hairstyles will have  to change, Though the possibility of beauty standards drastically changing cannot be denied. 

 I know there is a brain area that processes thoughts and reasoning. I just wonder what part of the brain allows thoughtlessness.  That and the area that controls violent emotions  will be the next to enlarge with overuse.

And so sometime , say in 2050,  a Google image search (if it still exists then on screens) will  show folks like us  when someone searches on  vestigial brains . With what they will call small parietal lobes, excessive rods in the eyes,  equal length of upper limbs, and , maybe, just maybe, we being described as the last of the peaceful tribes.

One of our greatest scientists, whose brain was preserved and studied, Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 1921, who died in 1955, could actually see the connection between technology and evolution then when he said:

“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

 I think he had something else besides rods and cones in his eyes.
 

Death, dark, and fairy stories.

Prominent cosmologist Stephen Hawking, in a recent interview to the British newspaper, The Guardian, has said that , "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

While Hawking, (who suffers from severe motor neurone disease for the last 49 years, and "enjoys" computer assisted communication) , is surely entitled to his esteemed opinion as Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, at DAMTP in Cambridge, UK, I don't see how how regarding the brain as a computer , implies the presence or absence of heaven and/or afterlife.

Comparing the brain and a computer is like comparing the Himalayas with the hill in my backyard, or say, the movements in Kalarippayattu or Russian ballet , with my dodging actions and hesitant moves, as I attempt to cross the high traffic potholed road outside.

Brains are so superior to computers.

They have a built-in neural plasticity, that allows a particular sense or circuitry in the brain, to take over the functions of a disabled sense or ability, to some degree, and perform new learning. And so you have sightless people who have an amazing sense of hearing or touch, or someone so mathematically incapable, but who can navigate through the intricate alleys of classical music and "taalaa", with impeccable renditions, in languages you don't need to know, to understand them.

When did you last see a computer, where after a virus attack, the CPU remembered and learned to ward of other attacks ? When was the last time, the monitor conked out, and say, the DVD writer circuitry connections on the motherboard, self adjusted themselves to try and get the monitor working ? When was the last time, the engineer was able to repair your computer while you merrily carried on typing the blogpost ?

And have you heard of complicated surgeries , including those of the brain, being done, with the body anesthetized, and partially temporarily disabled musclewise, and that there is no such thing as a human body "reboot" ?

And have you wondered at what is called human will, which sometimes performs wondrous miracles, as yet unexplained by logic ?

And speaking of rebirth and heaven, nobody has been there and reported back. And so no one has the right to get up and make statements about these things in a definitive way.

Religions may or may not believe in afterlife and reincarnation. Many times, religions across the world, have been misused to get power, and divide normally peaceful people. Blind following of rituals, intimidation of folks in the name of religion, and suppression of education for those in need of it , can never be upheld in any society.

But when , as a child, our understanding of religion was restricted to saying prayers daily , and enjoying festivals, it worked, when someone who was fond of frequently making evil faces at someone was told, not to do so, because , in his/her next life, he/she would be granted a permanently crooked mouth. And it was believed.

Sometimes, one gets repetitive dreams, of some unfamiliar structures. Sometimes , you visit a place and feel something familiar about it, a sense of strange comfort. And sometimes, you feel terribly wary of someone you have just met. Such events are yet to be understood.

The feeling and understanding that this is Play 1, Act 1, and there is always a Act 2 possible, sometimes strengthens the individual when faced with the fall of curtains.

X, at 89 , was a formerly active , wiry, very imaginative, wilful person, who was now bedridden. He had a group of friends who would meet every week in some one's house, for reciting some prayers , some interesting talk, and prasad (blessed food). When he was absent continuously for awhile, his friends called to enquire and were unhappy to hear his news. They asked if they could visit, and the family invited them to have a prayer session with him.

X's face lit up on seeing then, and then he looked a bit confused, because , thanks to memory problems, he suddenly couldn't place some of his friend's names. The eldest member, in his nineties, and a veteran of pilgrimage walkathons, sat on his bed, his hands pressing X's legs.

He cleared his throat.

"Tell me, do you fear Death ? " he asked matter-of-factly . No one in the group thought this was odd. They looked at X.

X took a deep slow breath, and with a great effort so he could talk in a loud voice, shook is head and said "No. Not at all"; and then he smiled at his friend sitting on his bed.

The friend started saying a particular Sanskrit verse, and gestured to X, asking if he remembered the next line. He prodded X, and X exercised all his old and tired neurons at will, and slowly came up with the next lines. The rest joined in, and the prayer was completed with smiles on every ones lips, and eyes that were full.

I think X felt at peace. He wasn't worried about death, heaven, hell, afterlife, or anything. It didn't matter. He was happy now.

He never thought about Death normally, and would not do so now.

It was important to live in the moment, and live it honestly, truthfully and well.

That was heaven for him, in this life.

He would worry about afterlives later. His daughter was reading a book by Brian Weiss, and he was curious. He had noticed the title. "Many lives, many masters ". He would talk to her about it, sometime..... For the moment, he needed to take some rest.

Mr Hawking is supposed to have said, "I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark. "

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X was never afraid of the dark.

He never battled death. He didn't even play hide and seek.

He just went smiling, facing the bright lights at the end of the tunnel......

Schools of inattention

This post got me thinking .

Movies and how they influence you. Whether they should . What is considered good. And bad. How standards have changed. Whether movies have changed or the audience has changed. Whether it has anything to do with your childhood milieu.

And it took me back to the late 50's and early 60's .

I don't remember pouring over any kind of movie ads. Or my folks discussing movies, per se. Even our schools didn't encourage them. But I do remember talk about Marathi plays . Those that were famous, and often included the doyennes of classical music. The type of music that lives, even today.

If we ever went for a movie, it was considered useful and mandatory to watch the "Indian News Review" which preceded the main movie. Television was many light years away. I didn't even know then how a TV looked . The Indian News Review was like a mini-capsule of today's TV news on a maxi screen. It almost invariably showed Pandit Nehru inaugurating something, water flowing over dams, some visit of some famous person somewhere, floods, and for some reason, hockey games, the last with some really fast background music.

But I distinctly remember going with my parents and siblings to see a movie called "Tenzing and Hilary conquer Everest ". These were the sort of movies that we were encouraged to see. There were many Laurel and Hardy movies that occasionally happened, and we were allowed to watch these too. Not each and every one, though. Cinema was not something you enjoyed, say on a weekly basis. Then there was some vague movie I remember about Princess Margaret (sister of the current Monarch) of Britain getting married. Maybe the British High Commission brought it to India, but I remember that if you went as a class through school, you got discounted tickets. I remember my mother grudgingly saying yes to this outing from school. She knew Princess Margaret was not a patch on Tenzing, Hilary or Everest. But it was about going with your school, walking in twos, on your best behaviour, accompanied by your class teacher, and getting some kind of dose of how things happened in the rest of the world. Many world leaders were present there. Unlike today, "leaders" were few. And we recognized most of them as school children. There was a story book quality to all that business with white gowns, trains, horse carriages, tail coats, practiced smiles,and sanitized waving to throngs lining the London streets.

Occasionally there would be a Hindi movie based on our religious stories, which always ended with the victory of the simple, truthful, and brave over cheating, wicked and overconfident types. And we would see , may be, a couple of these , during an academic year or so. These stories were our routine fodder as we gathered several times a week, at night at our grandmother's to listen to her tell them. We never felt we were missing out on anything special if we missed out a particular movie, as such.

Which is not to say that my parents were conservative ogres.

Far from it.

Sports was a big part of our life. All of us were always going so many times a week for badminton, table tennis, kabaddi, kho-kho, or swimming coaching or something. Then there were music classes, for which someone came home to teach us. During our younger days, particularly for girls, learning classical dance was a big thing. I had many friends who learned, from the same teachers that I did, and these were all home tuitions. Our colony had a yearly Ganesh festival, and there was always a combined classical dance performance from all of us, during a festival evening, for which we practiced a lot. All this left us time only for school, homework, and for general playing with our friends on free evenings. And this was indulged in with a lot of gusto, sweaty clothes, scrapes, fights and everything.

Occasionally on weekends ,we climbed the Parvati Hill Temple at dawn with our friends, carrying notebooks, paints, colored pencils, water, and of course , mouth watering breakfast stuff, freshly prepared for us by our mothers , before dawn on a weekend morning. A lot of older indulgent regulars on the Hill often stopped by to see our terribly ordinary artwork, supposedly depicting sunrise over the landscape, interspersed with spoonfuls of Poha or Sabudhana Khichadi.

Not every family subscribed to this kind of entertainment.

I remember a friend once telling me that they (her folks and her) were planning to see a movie called "Naykinicha Sajja", which implied and hinted at helpless amoral behaviour from a heroine "madame". And they asked if I wanted to come. I still haven't forgotten the look on my mother's face when I asked her if I could go. There was always something at the back of one's mind that wondered why we couldn't go and others could. But there was always a conviction, that one listened to one's parents, and playing truant and hide and seek with that was not on.

And again, there was a time when there was a popular movie on a story from the scriptures about the churning of the ocean and fights between the Gods and Evil types. My friends and I, were allowed to see this, didn't want younger brothers with us, and loudly proclaimed that it was "girls only". Only to be told that there wasn't going to be any girls-girls-boys-boys stuff, and either we go together, shepherding our younger brothers, or the whole thing gets cancelled.

Much in the future, approaching adulthood, I enjoyed movies of a certain type, but was never desperate about seeing them. Movie music in Indian movies was many times the thing that attracted you, and you tended to remember that, rather than some outrageous scenes or dances where outfits were more important than the steps.

Opinions may differ. But I think that this kind of disciplined approach and learning over time, of what was essential and what was entertainment, built up a personal strength , where, later on , while staying in a hostel at college, I was able to prioritize my activities. I knew many girls who got totally drunk on the sudden independence, with no one to check on where they went, when they went and what they did. Many gave in to peer pressure in lieu of a sensible decision. And when I did see movies with my friends, I enjoyed them thoroughly or despised some of them, purely as entertainment, without treating them as something that dictated social norms or seriously affected my life.

Yes, some movies made you think, you recalled scenes. It's how you emerged from it all, that was important.

When I see kids around us today, aping the fashions and language of the so called matinee idols, picking up vices, and developing attitudes that emphasize only results and not the means, I worry. Social mores are bombarded with gestures and attitudes, totally alien to us. All this is deemed acceptable, and some folks even feel less qualified if they do not pepper their conversation with obscene swear words. (Just see Twitter).

Of course , I call them swear words. Others laugh about that. I still cringe when I hear girls (for that matter, boys too) using such words, in their posts and blogs. At some point in my working life, I had to look after computer engineering lab sessions, and had to resort once to reminding some vociferous students that they were in a public place, a lab, not in their own homes or entertaining their friends, and minding their language (under the threat of being asked to leave their stations) , was the need of the hour.

I wonder if there is a dual persona situation. A persona you depict when with your parents, and a totally shocking one that you depict amidst peers. And how this affects your assessment of right and wrong. And your ability to be bravely unpopular , openly.

Movies have got worse today. Quick and fast monetary rewards appear feasible to young folks. Intolerance and violence is applauded. Vices are picked up because everyone is doing it. Under the guise of trying anything once. Ask them to try swimming under the same guidelines, and you will be surprised at how many will refuse to learn, run away.

Because role models have disappeared. Some have role models amongst family. Some had these amongst their friends. Most have no role models, because those who could have been, are busy earning to enjoy plusher and plusher lifestyles, and keeping up with the erstwhile Joneses.

Many of our movies depict the permissive social mores so common in the Western world. You don't see that stuff in your everyday neighborhood. Its either that or the old village style family revenge type mafia don movies. Today, you often read news items in the paper which make you wonder if it is a movie story or real life story.

Of course there are good movies occasionally. One sees them, enjoys them , recommends them.

But a different, simple , kind of indulged childhood, with some very strong insistence of yes and no, and lots of early parental time gives one the strength to enjoy the stuff, but keep things in perspective, and balance. Leaving ,what is seen on screen to be left on screen, and not contributing to storms and stress in your life.

A loss of this balance is stressful. And so you see a lot of stressed young people today. It shows in their health, their strength of mind, and their easy giving in. Agents of vice have always been around. An unstable mind is easy to bend. Its how you handle things that counts.

Robert Bresson, a photographer and Film director is known to have said :

"Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing.”


And he might have added, "react without thinking"...

Kind of a visual knee -jerk

One would tend to agree.