Human Brains Shrinking for 30,000 Years

[rideforever]

Wow, this is a big thing.
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/scientists-are-alarmed-shrinking-human-brain-001446

 

We are in a pretty degenerated state already.   Gurdjieff said that humans exist as a layer of energy transformers in the chain of existence, and that if there are many people on the planet it means that the transformation has become weak and so more have to be produced  by nature.   Meaning the quality of humans vastly decreases.

Just speaking to a secondary school teacher yesterday, he was saying that in the last 5 years children have degenerated because it is the first generation who's mother's have mobile phones.

 

I have personally also noticed that many younger people today don't grow fully into their bodies, their lower half seems more like a newt' tail, coupled with jeans hanging low, and their faces are not fully formed into real face of real people.

Also ancient people often seemed to be very spiritual in some ways, soulful, and the modern destructive human is a sign of degeneration.

 

As humanity becomes more collectively connected .... other people think for you, work for you, do everything for you .... and so your brain and other faculties degenerate.  Soon humans will degenerate to the size of a small mammal.   And then there will be no soul.  Humanity will become soulless.

Also I happened to see some photos of "small people" indigenous tribe of Africa, monkey-men living in the forest.   That is coming as well as there isn't enough food to support larger bodies.   The internet soulless monkey humans of the future !!!

 

Most education at school and of doctors, is to use other people's knowledge whilst becoming dumber.

Anyway, there is great room for development far beyond the people around you, that's the message I take.   
Even many spiritual teachers teach only a small type of awakening.
Being like the ancients is possible if you have fire in your soul.
Drop everyone and learnt to grow and grow big.

Every energy-saving-device is really a device that prevents your interaction with life and degenerates your soul and your happiness ! 
Well, mostly anyway.
It is one thing having had a childhood in physical reality, and then learning to use a computer.
And another thing were you are given a computer at birth and never develop.

 

Further hard data I saw a couple of years back was a meta study 100 year period of the visual reaction time of modern humans with the victorian era (who documented their experiments) and we had degenerated by 2/3rds if I remember.  Having fast reaction means you are alive, and is correlated with IQ.  
Of course the apologists will say this and that, everything is getting better.
Human society always has a very large industry of apologists to explain away everything, like schools in NY having 30 different bathrooms for 30 different "genders".

 

Wow : self-domestication.   In the same way we have dogs and cats as pets, we treat ourselves the same way, exploit other people.  Interestingly domesticated animals have tiny brains compared to wild counterparts.
F*************************** inghell.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a14392897/domesticated-brains/

 

I feel a very large spirit of rebellion coming on.

Kunlun spontaneous qigong anyone ?
 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2018 by rideforever

[Marblehead]

Yep.  I'm still shrinking.

 

[3bob]

before Mr. G. died he apologized for the mess he left, so I suggest not swallowing everything he was mostly quoted for as being "gospel".  (including the crap about soul-less people)

Edited November 26, 2018 by 3bob

[rideforever]

Artificial Intelligence
Being a programmer myself I have been mystified at the worship of "AI", because I know damn well that a machine is a machine and "AI" is simply a kind of marketing policy for some computers.
But behold on the world news people think it is intelligent like a human sentient being.
Wow.
That's strange, did I just walk on to the set of Planet of the Apes ?
And the reason is that human beings have degenerated beneath feeling their sentience.
They no longer feel their sentience (or their soul).
Also the reason people imagine they are already One, because they have lost interest in being souls.
Incredible.
In 50 years time mankind will be a small mammal standing around a giant iPhone surrounded by vast seas of decaying garbage.
And nobody will mind.
Wow.   What a crazy place.
It is already later than you think it is.
Much later.

 

[3bob]

that which is against the Tao has no root,  thus a rootless doom will not prevail,  She will prevail.

[rideforever]

The future of mankind does not look good, the brain has already shrunk 15% in 20,000 years, if it shrinks another 10% we will have regressed 1 million years I shit you not.
All the technology just turns people into sheep-monkey-idiots.
"The best way to help humanity is to stop being an idiot."

 

[alfheim]

Reducing what the brain allows to its size is misleading.

Edited November 28, 2018 by alfheim

[rideforever]

4 hours ago, alfheim said:

Reducing what the brain allows to its size is misleading.

Yes I had thought of that ... but the evidence for domesticated animals tells its own story.
Society is geared at the moment towards robotising everything and the result is people don't work in the way that people did years ago, when they had to struggle, the were alrounders in every sense, and work hard.
Now, even if you have a job it is specialised and you are basically going from one managed environment to another.
Imagine having to break the ice in a stream to collect water.
So, we are "safer" and like domesticated animals we don't need brains, we have no need for them.
And so we regress, a lot, if that isn't obvious everywhere anyway.
Thing is I am 47 and when I was young people were quite different and so I remember.
I am sure that if you are 27 you probably think everything is fine, because you never lived in a world of soulful people who were capable in many ways.

[thelerner]

Course isn't it a certain pathology to think there used to be soulful people and now there aren't?  I'm sure most of the adults in the 60's & 70's  were sure the teens of there day (your generation?) were lobotomized.   I think what you're describing was also said by Aristotle Socrates ranting against the kids who knew nothing, were getting into new fangled reading and had no idea how to be good citizens.

 

To me you're feeling the same way all cantankerous oldsters have since we emerged from the caves.  At 54, I have 3 in college (oy) but even in high school there work was often beyond me at least in math, programming, language.  Too often we look down on people because there learning expertise is different then our own.  Visiting colleges the last couple years, these kids are smart and hard working.  They're entering the world with open eyes and a bit of fear. 

 

If you're feeling depressed about the future I'd recommend going to a good college and walking around.  I think you'll find it optimistic.  And more kids are going to college then ever, which brings on its own problems.

 

They aren't learning hunting and gathering because they won't need it.  They will need tech skills and in this faster paced world,  learning how to learn quickly and fearlessly.  The worst of them will undoubtedly look down upon you/us as obsolete dinosaurs. 

 

I don't know if the future will be brighter or darker.  Modern kids seem to be way more environmentally conscious then my generation and that bodes well. 

[Lost in Translation]

1 hour ago, thelerner said:

I think what you're describing was also said by Aristotle Socrates ranting against the kids who knew nothing, were getting into new fangled reading and had no idea how to be good citizens.

 

I recall reading in the Iliad by Homer how the younger generation of Greek soldiers were far less than the giants of their fathers' and grandfathers' generation. Achilles, as mighty as he was, was still no Hercules.

 

This feeling of generational decay is as old as humanity.

[rideforever]

If you have children of course you will say good things about them because you love them and wish the best for them.
But, I am not blaming anyone, certainly not creatures born into this world.
And it's always important to be positive and do the best you can with the situation, one cannot always wish to be born in a time of plenty and integrity, things wax and wane and there is a skill to sailing in any weather.
I would just suggest that a person should undomesticate themselves and live as an allrounder with real struggle or the intelligence will not grow.   A hard life is a good life.
Of course most just fill their heads with millions of useless facts from the internet .... but this is the point, the more you bring in other people's thoughts, the less you need to create your own.
The less you need to exert yourself and the smaller the brain becomes.   Same for all areas of life, physical emotional spiritual.

[alfheim]

21 hours ago, rideforever said:

So, we are "safer" and like domesticated animals we don't need brains, we have no need for them.

I see a lot jobs where a good brain is required. Scientists, mathematician, inventors, engineers and similar. Set humanity back into survival mode and see how many will be left able to solve complex mathematical problems. It certainly will be fewer with everyone busy surviving.

Edited November 29, 2018 by alfheim

[rideforever]

39 minutes ago, alfheim said:

. It certainly will be fewer with everyone busy surviving.

I read once a forum about the Titanic, a bunch of people were really going at it to see if the ship after hitting the iceberg, whether judicious course of action could have actually saved the ship.   It went into great technical detail : from memory it would have been possible if some makeship welding had been done, as well as the ships engines blowing all the water in them .... or something like that.
Anyway, the interesting thing was that the engineers on board her at that time could do logarithmic calculations in their heads.
Now today many people can use calculators etc...  But they cannot do logarithmic calculations in their heads.
And that is a degeneration of the quality of people.
And as you can see, the more assistance you give to people the lower in quality they become.
Yes ... they can use the machines that do everything, but they cannot themselves do it, they no longer have the power.
But ... the trend to thing oneself clever because you can use a machine, is deeply entrenched, people love it.
Most no longer remember the point of being capable.

[Nintendao]

ENIAC weighed 30 tons and was used by weapons engineers. It had less memory than a Fitbit, which is all but weightless and is used by health enthusiasts.

[Lost in Translation]

28 minutes ago, rideforever said:

Anyway, the interesting thing was that the engineers on board her at that time could do logarithmic calculations in their heads.
Now today many people can use calculators etc...  But they cannot do logarithmic calculations in their heads.

 

They probably used slide rules. The calculations would have been quickly and dirty but surely "good enough". The thing to consider about automation is it does not stop one from thinking. It just allows one to think about other things.

[rideforever]

Ha.  Well ... I think I would be hard pressed today to find many people who care about such things. 
After all who wants to be intelligent, right.

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000470

[Lost in Translation]

Surely past generations relied on memory more than we do today for the simple fact that they had no choice. Even fifty years ago one did not have a pocket calculator so anyone who performed math as part of their daily activities would be incentivised to memorize tables of data. Today we do have pocket calculators so there is no need for that kind of memory.

[thelerner]

Intelligence has to mean looking beyond only evidence that backs up your view and making assumptions of the very best of one group versus the median of another.   What I'm getting at is if you measure IQ by reaction time (which is dubious, as athletes & video game players would be the smartest amongst us) but also if you delve into criticisms of the original paper, you see that measuring devices have changed, ie your timers in the Victorian era were not very accurate on the whole, not like modern devices. 

 

Similarly the average person can't do logarithms in there head now or then.  Though you can find people who train to do it in both eras. 

 

It might be interesting to look at college exams from the Victorian era and today.  What they were expected to know, the length and breadth. 

 

addon> with that in mind, a quick perusal found this- https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/nov/26/schools.education

which supports Rideforevers view.  Here's an excerpt of a test given to the brightest 11 year olds in 1898-

'The questions covered English history, grammar, maths, geography and Latin, and were aimed at the brightest 11-year-olds of the time. ..

These are some of the exam questions tackled by 11-year-olds applying for places at King Edward's School in Birmingham in 1898

Arithmetic

1. Multiply 642035 by 24506

2. Subtract 3.25741 from 3.3; multiply 28.436 by 8.245; divide 0.86655 by 26.5

3. Simplify 183/4 minus 22/3 divided by 11/5 minus 31/2 multiplied by 4/7

English grammar

1. Parse fully "And call the cattle home."

2. Explain the meaning of o' Dee, dank with foam, western tide, round and round the sand, the rolling mist.

3. Write out separately the simple sentences in the last two lines of the above passage and analyse them.

 

Geography

1. On the outline map provided, mark the position of Carlisle, Canterbury, Plymouth, Hull, Gloucester, Swansea, Southampton, Worcester, Leeds, Leicester and Norwich; Morecambe Bay, The Wash, Solent, Menai Straits and Lyme Bay; St Bees Head, The Naze, Lizard Point; the rivers Trent and Severn; Whernside, the North Downs, and Plinlimmon, and state on a separate paper what the towns named above are noted for.

2. Where are silver, platinum, tin, wool, wheat, palm oil, furs and cacao got from?

5. Where are Omdurman, Wai-Hei-Wai, Crete, Santiago, and West Key, and what are they noted for?

 

English history

1. What kings of England began to reign in the years 871, 1135, 1216, 1377, 1422, 1509, 1625, 1685, 1727, 1830?

2. Give some account of Egbert, William II, Richard III, Robert Blake, Lord Nelson.

3. State what you know of Henry II's quarrel with Becket, the taking of Calais by Edward III, the attempt to make Lady Jane Grey queen, the trial of the Seven bishops, the Gordon riots."

 

 

me.  Course that's not saying how many kids passed and got things wrong.  These are waay harder then modern tests given to kids, but then this was not a test given to average kids either.  This was for the Kings school.  So comparing it to an SAT for 11 year olds wouldn't be accurate, I'd have to find an entry test to an elite school for 11 years old. 

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by thelerner

[rideforever]

Norweigian Intelligence Study on Millennials
https://nypost.com/2018/06/12/millennial-men-are-getting-dumber-by-the-year/

 

Seems that the rise of connectivity is accelerating the decline.
Ever seen the Matrix ?

Anyway, there is always a response for those that wish to be alive whilst they are alive.
As a muscle atrophies if it is not used, so does intelligence emotion and spirituality.
And no, reading stuff on the internet, or memorising the best theories, does nothing, because it costs you nothing.

[dawei]

so size doesn't matter ? 

 

[thelerner]

On 11/29/2018 at 1:57 PM, rideforever said:

Norweigian Intelligence Study on Millennials
https://nypost.com/2018/06/12/millennial-men-are-getting-dumber-by-the-year/

 

Seems that the rise of connectivity is accelerating the decline.
Ever seen the Matrix ?

Anyway, there is always a response for those that wish to be alive whilst they are alive.
As a muscle atrophies if it is not used, so does intelligence emotion and spirituality.
And no, reading stuff on the internet, or memorising the best theories, does nothing, because it costs you nothing.

 

You realize the above somewhat contradicts the original OP, ie that we've been getting dumber since Victorian times, ie

I quote 'The IQ scores of young men have plunged below previous generations for the first time in nearly a century, a new study claims.' That previous generations except for the latest, sorry post millenials or whatever letter you call yourself, have been getting smarter.  

The truth is the humanity hasn't changed or evolved much in the past 20,000 years.  If push comes to shove we can do the same things as any other generation.  Probably we are in a comfort trap.  Yet I'd argue that it doesn't matter what people Urugua are doing right now.  What matters is what we are doing.

 

rideforever, are you learning to solve logarithms in your head?  I doubt it.  You could (I could) but it'd be a waste of time, other then for the mental workout and challenge.  You could learn to fully use modern cutting edge tools, like 3D printers, but I don't think your interests lie in that direction.  Hopefully you'll take pride in learning some old crafts and be snoblike when it comes to learning the newer stuff.

 

If your big epiphany is everyone but me is lacking emotionally and spiritually, the problem may be mostly yours and not societies. 

 

 

[rideforever]

9 minutes ago, thelerner said:

You realize the above somewhat contradicts the original OP, ie that we've been getting dumber since Victorian times, ie

I quote 'The IQ scores of young men have plunged below previous generations for the first time in nearly a century, a new study claims.' That previous generations except for the latest, sorry post millenials or whatever letter you call yourself, have been getting smarter.  

The truth is the humanity hasn't changed or evolved much in the past 20,000 years.  If push comes to shove we can do the same things as any other generation.  Probably we are in a comfort trap.  Yet I'd argue that it doesn't matter what people Urugua are doing right now.  What matters is what we are doing.

 

Why do you think it contradicts the OP ?   The second study shows a 40 year decline to 2009, and the other one was a decline since Victorian times.  Both hard data studies showing decline.
 

Strange thing about humans is that whatever they say they don't really mind living in an Idiocracy, because most of them spend their lives with their eyes closed and dreaming fairy stories that are "very compassionate" and "loving".

 

And then you have the industry of explain-it-away, for those that wish to continue to live in their pyjamas no matter what happens.   Like the 4 piece band that carried on playing as the Titanic sunk.   Had a big crowd, 5 minutes later they were in the water dying.

 

But hey ... what can you do.   I recently heard that the proportion of people who are interested in being conscious is 1 in 10,000.   Of course spirituality is a nice fun new game that 9,999 might be playing if its fashionable, but they aren't actually interested and would run off to the other side of the planet if they new what it meant.

[silent thunder]

whales have the largest brains on the planet and seemingly spend the majority of their time, flying through water and singing...

 

i'm convinced.

[Lost in Translation]

What's the point of it all? Can this decline be stopped by our actions or is simply a cathartic release on our part?

[thelerner]

1 hour ago, rideforever said:

 

Why do you think it contradicts the OP ?  

 

Because of the quote it has '.' That previous generations except for the latest, have been getting smarter." 

To me this quote from the article you mentioned means that the previous generations, except for the latest, have been getting smarter.

 

I believe that since this (the article you link to) doesn't fit into your current paradigm that  will ignore it.  Thus your beliefs will always be unshakeable because you ignore evidence to the contrary.

 

1 hour ago, rideforever said:

But hey ... what can you do.   I recently heard that the proportion of people who are interested in being conscious is 1 in 10,000.   Of course spirituality is a nice fun new game that 9,999 might be playing if its fashionable, but they aren't actually interested and would run off to the other side of the planet if they new what it meant.

 

I recently heard people who make up statistics to back up there prejudices are 90% more likely to drink orange juice without pulp.  

same old, same old.    Others don't fit your eccentricity so they're wrong, and you're superior.