THE EVOLUTION OF CHOICE

When did humanity become human?

What truly separates homo sapiens from other highly evolved primate species, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans?

These primate cousins can all communicate using language. Although they cannot speak, they can covey complex ideas through sign language. They exhibit emotions, and they can solve complex problems. They display cooperation for the common good as well as aggression toward each other when there is conflict. They develop complex social hierarchies. These traits all sound very human. Are we really that different from them, and if so, how? Do human beings have a unique ability not exhibited by other species?

Perhaps the ability to speak and communicate verbally is such an ability. But is our spoken language any more complex than the squeaks of a dolphin, the screeches of a monkey or the songs of a bird?

What truly separates humanity from the rest of the animal kingdom is the ability to examine ourselves. The ability to look inside our own mind, and to contemplate our existence as something more than a survival exercise. Self-Awareness on a deep level.

Of course, there is no way for us to be sure, but it is not thought that chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans worry about the future or regret the past. They suffer anxiety certainly, but it is moment by moment, suffering the lack of food or companionship, or a fear/flight response. They do not, as far as we can tell, contemplate future failures or successes based on a variety of variables and alternative outcomes.

The human brain can imagine. It can conjure up realities separate and different from the one we inhabit. And beyond that, it can analyze these alternate realities and make decisions based on this analysis. Many other animals can make decisions, but only based on the information presented to them in the moment from the reality that confronts them.

When conflict arises, a human being can choose responses based on desired outcomes, rather than an instantaneous survival response. Too often, however, we revert to our less-evolved selves and react in a manner that may resolve the situation in the moment but have extremely negative long-term consequences.

We should choose cooperation over violence. We should choose compassion over judgement. We should choose compromise over winning. We must choose love over hate.

Other animals do not have this choice. We must choose wisely to properly take advantage of this evolutionary gift.