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I realize that this is not an original or unusual way of thinking, but when I see a minuscule insect going about its business and realize it has a brain, or at least a highly developed nervous system, I wonder if what we know of as "the universe" is actually super tiny compared to some unknown, larger reality. Thoughts like this help me put my torturous existence into perspective.

RobLawrence 7 Aug 3
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Why is your existence torturous?

@RobLawrence I understand. I've been lucky so far, health-wise, but I've just been told I am pre-diabetic, and I'm getting tested for Parkinson's next month.

@RobLawrence Sounds like it would be worth doing, though I've never been much of a vegetable lover. I already have non-diabetic neuropathy in my legs and feet, cause unknown, and I know what a pain it is.

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Niel Tyson DeGrasse! Yup. We aren’t that smart.

Our brain, despite their amazing complexity and cleverness are full of issues, blind spots and defects. Culture development seems to be what truly has made a difference. Culture is our software: logics, mathematics, gemometry then phisycs, chemistry...

The amazing software that took millennia to be developed, once installed in our very fallible brains, makes us look very smart. Take the software away, we are back to being monkeys.

Imagine humanity lost computers, and all the knowledge acquired through the centuries. Some argue it would take centuries just to redevelop a language complicated enough to express ideas or feelings. Despite the baby steps, culture is still much much faster than biological evolution. That’s why culture is thought to be a new trick of evolution to accelerate itself. Same rules that apply to evolution apply to culture/ideas if you think about it.

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