Man appeared on the face of the earth about 2,500,000 years ago. We tend to think that there was only one type of human. However, one of our grandfathers, who in those days was the Ape Austral , he left some corner of East Africa and embarked on the path to other horizons, such as Asia, Europe and evolved in different ways according to the demands of the climate and other prevailing conditions. We know from Europe the Neanderthal Man , which adapted well to the cold and glaciations; Asia was populated with the Upright Man (Homo Erectus ); in Java lived the Solo Valley Man (Homo Soloensis ) that was well adapted to tropical and humid climates; on another nearby island lived the dwarf Flower Man (Homo Floriensis ) who was one meter tall and weighed 25 kg; Denisova Man was found in a cave in Siberia; there are other African derivatives such as the Lake Rudolf Man, the Working Man and, finally, the Wise Man…“Homo Sapiens ”.
It is worth saying that between the appearance of humans and up to 70,000 years ago, all these human species had no gravitation or influence on any ecosystem on our planet. However, from about 70,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens quickly took over the world (the supremacy of the lion or the shark took millions of years). How do i do it? I'll test some hypotheses below, but what happened to the other humans? Very well we do not know and it is a well kept secret to which for now we do not have access. What I do intuit is that Homo Sapiens must have had something to do with it...
What is the secret of your success? We tend to think that we are more intelligent and virtuous than other animal species (including other humans) and therefore we would naturally survive them. Going to the individual level, confronting other animals means losing, be it against a gorilla, lion, elephant or shark. Perhaps we would surpass insects or small animals. Even if we faced each other in small groups we would almost certainly lose too. However, placed in groups of more than 150 individuals in the same situation, Homo Sapiens is likely to prevail.
And why is that? It is known that animals live in the real world of rivers, mountains and rains, while Homo Sapiens lives in that world, but is capable of having an unreal world that is only within his imagination. It vibrates, moves and interacts in both. So that makes it the species that can understand, communicate and collaborate on unreal or non-existent issues except in its imaginary. Their language about 70,000 years ago developed differently and this aspect is what we know as Cognitive Revolution . In this framework, Homo Sapiens is capable of generating collaboration on a large scale and in a flexible way. We know that ants or bees collaborate on a large scale but they are not flexible in the face of any problem or opportunity, they cannot reinvent the system. They just aren't able to change. They are stiff. Thus, Homo Sapiens excelled at the collective level. We know that chimpanzees, elephants or dolphins are more flexible but work on a small scale. By the way, they only interact with acquaintances, the stranger they reject or run away from.
Homo Sapiens combines both forms, can work on a large scale and be flexible at the same time . You do not need to know your neighbor to collaborate. That is the basis of his immense strength. It takes over the world in all aspects. I can be writing this article without knowing who is reading it and yet generate an intellectual exchange even without knowing the reader. A chimpanzee cannot lecture strange monkeys.
Author:Zdeněk Michael František Burian
How can Homo Sapiens win? Through the imagination. Believing the same stories and obeying the same laws. The secret of the species is that it can speak, function and act based on things that do not exist, except in its imagination. And that thanks to its power of communication. It is not the only species that communicates, it is known that elephants or chimpanzees can chat with their group where there is water or bananas or where the lion lurks; whales or dolphins can talk to each other over great distances. However, in addition to the real world, Homo Sapiens believes in and creates fictional realities that live only in his imagination such as religions, countries, money, political, economic or legal systems, corporations, military service , human rights, to name a few. To be fair, it should be mentioned that Homo Sapiens is also capable of creating horrendous cooperations such as a prison, or a concentration camp, which the orangutan would never do.
You cannot convince a chimpanzee that if he throws the ball to you he will go to chimpanzee heaven and be rewarded with 70 bananas. Only Homo Sapiens can believe that and other stories.
Collaboration with Gabriel Gromadzyn
Source:From animals to gods – Yuval Noah Harari