Catherine Vo-Nguyen Human/Nature Dr.

Boesch

Final Synthesis Paper

Through the course of this term we have looked at the components that contribute to what it means to be human. Biological evolution, brain development, language, and culture are the lenses as Le Guin has put it, that we learned in depth about. They each work together to develop the humans that we are today. Each is critically important, but I feel that the most essential one has to be brain development. First off, biological evolution is what lays the foundation for all species to be possible. Not knowing our roots and essentially where we came from before we got here is like not knowing a huge part of who we are. An important aspect in the biological evolution process is natural selection. As homosapiens outlived their ancestors through being more well adapted to the environment and passing on those advantageous genes such as our low position in the human throat of our larynx, bipedalism, a larger cerebral cortex in the brain, ect, we were able to outlive and out-populate our ancestors. In this aspect, that wouldnt be possible to do without the key difference between homosapiens and our related ape species or our ancestors like the Neanderthals; our brain. Evolution gave us a larger cerebral cortex which is where most of the higher functions occur (Ehrlich 110). It allowed homosapiens to think of better ways to live in the changing world. The ability of the brain to create more complicated tools like the spear heads shown in the

Secrets of the Mind video demonstrated a thinking process, which couldnt be done by ape species or any other species. As we evolve through the biological evolution process, we reshape in the way we think to adapt accordingly to the world because of the way the brain functions. And not to mention evolved in the cortex of the brain later on in mammals is the neocortex, which is central to the way human beings think and perceive about the world (Ehrlich 110). Our ancestors have used the brains capabilities to create strategies to outwit enemies, planning ahead to hunt and gather food, and produce elaborate tools that require high mental processing. Through seeing how the brain had aided our ancestors back then in being better suited to survive from others that didnt have as high capabilities like the human brain, we can clearly see how brain development is critical for biological evolution in its contribution to human nature. Onto another lens that is equally important to the human nature but yet affected also by brain development, is language. Language is essential in what it means to be human, because first, the human language is truly what is unique to humans, because no other species has a form of communication as complex as ours. And second, the ability for humans to possess language means we can verbalize our thinking. Therefore not only is language important for communication from person to person but it means language and thinking are intricately connected, and therefore language and the brain are also intertwined in a significant way. Like thought, language involves dissecting the world around us into a huge vocabulary of symbols that are then combines, according to rules, to make statements not only about the world as it is directly perceived but also as it might be (Tattersall 216).

Language is also unique to humans because our brains have the capabilities to produce it. The Broca area in the prefrontal cortex of the brain is what controls speech and speaking abilities. The FOXP2 gene is linked with our language abilities, and has been discovered in the Neanderthals as well, which showed the possibility that our ancestors possessed the ability of language. Language is made of three main elements which are vocabulary, syntax, and meaning. These three elements allows us to have the basic labels for what to classify and identify everything around us (vocab), then we could arrange those words accordingly based on grammatical rules (syntax), and finally interpret the structure we organized in a way that makes sense (meaning). Of the three, the most important one in distinguishing human language as unique to every other species is meaning. Humans are able to attach meanings to the words we speak, in other words, symbolic speech. A form of this is metaphors, the most sophisticated form of symbolism and meaning. According to the Lakoff article, we use metaphors and symbolism so casually in our everyday speech in an unconscious way that it means thinking incorporates symbolic speech and therefore, thinking and language are intertwined. metaphor is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words. We shall argue that, on the contrary, human thought processes are largely metaphorical (Lakoff 6). The brain not only provides the foundation to produce language (through the Brocas area and the prefrontal cortex), but our thinking and our minds are intimately intertwined through the use of language. Language gives form to our thoughts and allows us to interact with other creatures, because not only are we thinking animals, we are social animals as well.

Culture is the lens that really shaped the humans that we are today. The changing and evolving environment allowed us to grow culturally as creatures through various ways; art, music, religion, customs, traditions, ect. Our cultural sense it was defines us from other species, for example our ideas on morals and what is right and wrong in society as Schwartz calls as the is and the oughts, are made through our cultural awareness. The brain helps analyzes the changing society and begins altering our perception of human nature. For example our ancestors back then only knew to mate for the purpose of repopulation and carrying on their generation. But modern homosapiens plan ahead and may use contraception in order to prevent having too many children because of the changing society where mating is no longer just to populate the world. In Zerubavels article, humans define the world they live in through the drawing of lines, and we can see that the brain plays a part in that. Because there is a need for the brain to detect the millions and millions of stimuli out there, it must work to classify and distinguish those stimuli by breaking things down into categories and dividing those lines. And as Zerubavel said, these lines play a critical role in the construction of social reality, since only with them do social entities (family, social classes, nations) emerge out of the flux of human existence (Zerubavel 2). In essence, the brains drawing of mental lines and mental processing in classification of the world around us is what creates our reality of what it is to be human. As seen with the Genie video, being isolated from her surroundings and the cultural environment around her virtually cuts off her humanity, i.e. what makes her human. She behaved in animalistic ways and was not able to speak, walk or function in many ways like regular humans. The influence on culture on what it means to be human is significantly shown that way. And without the functions of the brain to interpret and analyze our changing culture

through its mental lines to the increasing complexity of the social world, the modern humans as we know it today would not be the same. Through learning about these four lenses I clearly grasped the fact that they all contribute greatly and equally to our human nature. The lenses dont just individually exist but all connect with one another and one affects the other. However through a deeper look at this I see that the common ground that essentially allows them to connect and work together is the brain. The development of the brain through our evolution is the utmost crucial factor because literally without that organ that is the ultimate control center for all organisms, none of the other factors would even be possible. The plasticity of the brain and its vast capacity to take in knowledge is crucial to the always rapidly changing society and culture. Not only does the brain performs and maintains all the necessities for our physical bodies to properly function so we could live, it contains the powerful and limitless nonphysical world of the mind. Without this and the ability to process higher levels of thinking, we would not be able to evolve from our more simple minded ancestors to prevail as the modern animals we are today. Language and the shaping of culture are simply not possible without the development of the brain to contain the complexity of speech and communication for the social world. The two fists-sized blob of matter inside our heads is the most powerful thing due to its astounding functions and endless ability to continue growing. Its development along side with the human evolution through the times is ultimately the most critical factor to the development of humans I believe.