EMERGENCE OF MODERN BRAIN AND THE IMAGINARY BUILD-UP OF CIVILIZATION

Mrejeru (Augmentation and the Illnesses of Civilization, 2019, etc.) proposes a new theory for the emergence of language in this anthropological work.

According to the author, several brain mutations 4,500 to 7,000 years ago led to the invention of language. Language, in turn, changed not only the way that we communicated, but also the ways that we thought and felt. This gave rise to nuanced emotions, which, in turn, generated logical thinking, leading to civilization as we know it today. This evolution is the heart of Mrejeru’s book, which attempts to determine the factors that made humans’ brains so much more capable than their fellow primates’. He finally identifies an unlikely source for the mutations: low-dose “cosmogenic radiation,” which reached the Earth during shifts in the planet’s geomagnetic field. This radiation, he asserts, particularly affected the brain’s left hemisphere, where language functions are generally centered. Mrejeru develops these and other theories, exploring their ramifications on history, psychology, and language. Overall, the author’s prose style is academic and dry, and its awkward syntax often impedes its flow: “Various experiments on emotional dynamics found the subjects displaying continuous fluctuations, let’s say, from happier to sadder over a short period, like in a 2.5 minutes period, where have been measured 400 fluctuations.” Lay readers will have trouble with the book’s dense terminology and monotonous tone. Those with backgrounds in anthropology, biology, psychology, or a number of other fields, however, may be intrigued by Mrejeru’s theories, which have implications for many of the sciences. His argument may not ultimately persuade them, but they will grant that it goes in some truly unexpected directions.

An imaginative, if highly speculative, proposal on the evolution of the brain.