The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence by Carl Sagan

Author:Carl Sagan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Life Sciences, Science, Evolution, Brain, Genetic psychology, Intellect
ISBN: 9781439509869
Publisher: Paw Prints
Published: 2008-07-10T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6: Tales of Dim Eden

Very old are we men; Our dreams are tales Told in dim Eden . .

-WALTER DE LA MARE

"Al That's Past"

"Wel , at any rate it's a great comfort," she said as she stepped under the trees, "after being so hot to get into the-into the-into what?" she went on, rather surprised at not being able to think of the word. "I mean to get under the-under the-under this, you know!" putting her hand on the trunk of the tree. "What does it cal itself, I wonder?" . . . And now, who am I? I wil remember, if I can! I'm determined to do it!" But being determined didn't help her much, and al she could say, after a great deal of puzzling, was "L, I know it begins with L!"

LEWIS CARROLL, Alice Through the Looking Glass

Come not between the dragon and his wrath.

WM. SHAKESPEARE King Lear

. .At first, senseless as beasts I gave men sense, possessed them of mind

. .In the beginning, seeing, they saw amiss, and hearing, heard not, but like phantoms huddled in dreams, the perplexed story of their days. Confounded.

AESCHYLUS Prometheus Bound

Prometheus is in a fit of righteous indignation. He has introduced civilization to a befuddled and superstitious mankind, and for his pains Zeus has chained him to a rock and set a vulture to pluck at his liver. In the passage following the above quotation, Prometheus describes the principal gifts, other than fire, that he has bestowed on mankind. They are, in order: astronomy; mathematics; writing; the domestication of animals; the invention of chariots, sailing ships and medicine; and the discovery of divination by dreams and other methods. The final gift strikes the modern ear as odd. Along with the account in Genesis of the exile from Eden, Prometheus Bound seems to be one of the major works in Western literature that presents a viable allegory of the evolution of man- although in this case concentrating much more on the "evolver" than on the evolved.

"Prometheus" is Greek for "foresight," that quality claimed to reside in the frontal lobes of the neocortex; and foresight and anxiety are both present in Aeschylus' character portrait. What is the connection between dreams and the evolution of man? Aeschylus is perhaps saying that our prehuman ancestors lived their waking lives in a state akin to our dreaming lives; and that one of the principal benefits of the development of human intelligence is our ability to understand the true nature and import of dreams.

There are, it seems, three principal states of mind in human beings: waking, sleeping and dreaming. An electroencephalograph, which detects brain waves, records quite distinct patterns of electrical activity in the brain during these three states.* Brain waves represent very small currents and voltages produced by the electrical circuitry of the brain. Typical strengths of such brain-wave signals are measured in microvolts. Typical frequencies are between 1 and about 20 Hertz (or cycles per second)-less than the familiar 60 cycles per second frequency of alternating currents in electrical outlets in North America.

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