The 'curse' of human consciousness. An enlarged, expanded prefrontal cortex could be the source of all our misery

As a student of Neuroscience and cognitive science I always had a fascination with how the brain and the human mind works. And modern science is still puzzled with the complexity of the human brain and the human mind considering it the most mysterious, absurd and complicated object in the entire universe. Consciousness is still largely a mystery to us and it seems so unique in nature and so different in relation to other species and nature itself.

As early humans faced new environmental pressures and changes and developed bigger bodies, they evolved larger and more complex brains. Large, complex brains can process and store a lot of information. That was a big advantage to early humans in their social interactions.

Of course the more we know about other species the more we stand in awe and realize that the term 'intelligence' is so subjective. In some ways the human species is very unique and in other ways so overrated since have always considered ourselves as the epitome of evolution, the center of the universe, and for some the unique creation perfectly designed by the hand of God.

As it turns out, the more we know about other species the more we realize that we are very similar to them, even in presumambly and once-thought complex and sophicistated behaviors such as understanding and doing maths, choosing among alternatives, perform 'thought'-planned procedures in tasks, mourning the dead, sacrifice, deception, hierarchies, suicide, even 'moral' behaviors such as who is being fair and who is not. Animals display complex behaviors that once were attributed only to humans. But humans are probably unique in one way that other animals aren't.

Humans have an expanded, enlarged brain, specifically the triple size in comparison to chimpanzees in proportion to our body size and particularly the prefrontal cortex which is 3-4 times greater than the great Apes. Of course this is a matter of a heated debate on what does it mean to have a bigger (prefrontal) cortex than our fellow cousins, chimpanzees. Many species have bigger brains in relation to their body size, sometimes larger than we do, such as certain dog breeds, several kinds of fish, sea lions, etc. A larger frontal lobe in proportion to one's body size, for many scientists, does not say much and it is nothing remarkable.

But then, how can we be the only species which is conscious of their own consciousness, which are capable of metacognition (thinking about thinking), are able to ruminate, reflect, introspect and retrospect, contemplate, day-dream and fantasize and then turn those fantasies into realities such as colonizing and exploring space, write beautiful pieces of music, do art, write poetry, enjoy the sunset, understand quantum physics, build scyscrapers, create astronomy, appreciate music, create philosophy and debate the existence of the universe, debate the very existence of existence. Our brain is capable of studying itself and that is a truly remarkable thing that no other species can do no matter how mindblowing abilities they might possess. Others might argue that this incredible mechanism performed by higher functions is merely an 'accidental' compensation due to the fact that we have poor senses. We are terrible in almost all respects and nature invented consciousness so that we may survive since our smell, hearing, vision, taste and balance are extremely poor in relation to many other species.

Interestingly, no other species is capable of so much suffering of the Mind. A brain which is a bless and a curse at the same. time. We are not just slaves of our own brains and minds, our genes and conditioning but we have the ability of undertanding that slavery and lack of 'free-will' as if we possess multiple 'brains' where each of one of them does its own thing. Other species have complicated emotional lives as well but only humans are able to comprehend and appreciate that for instance their fears are irrational, that their mind exaggerates, that their behavior is illogical sometimes, on a cognitive level humans have the ability to understand, reorganize and challenge their thoughts but the truly amazing but also terrifying component of the human experience is the ability of the mind to wander, the racing mnd. The evolution of consciousness brought as well together a wide range of 'dis-orders' that many 'intelligent' people have to suffer; being bipolar or depressed from too much or too little serotonin, capable of severe delusions and disortions of perception and reality, paranoia, schizophrenia, depersonalization and derealization, out-of-body perceptions and experiences, mystical visions, synaesthesia, repressed and altered memories, dejavu(s) and experiences that very few, if any other species are able to experience in such rich complexity.

And this is probably a special property of our prefrontal cortices; projecting into the future and into the past constantly. And that's what we do pretty much all day long. Instead of appreciating the morning sunrise while cycling on a mountain we think about our retirement, worry about our children, think about our past mistakes, our divorce, the 'wrong' decisions we made, and how to make ends meet.

People spend entire fortunes to dumben their thoughts and tame their brain and force their brains to 'shut the fuck up' from this exhausting brain activity of the wandering mind and racing thoughts; from taking drugs, alcohol and substances, paying psychologists, psychiatrists, conselors and life coaches, entire sections of psychology self-help books on how to change the way they think to new-age Yoga spirituality meditation mystics and mentors, practice mindfulness, engage in alternative eastern lifestyles, go ZEN, etc, etc. And all this with the purpose to free themselves from their torturous minds.

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In a way, humans are the most unfortunate, anguished and tragic species in the entire universe. We are not living our lives, evolution created a machinety capable of fantasizing about future moments of happiness, we are creating a virtual reality where we place our selves in a position of having something we always wanted and we think about those fellings of happines, we are experiencing that feeling through our imagination ' I ll be really happy if my new promotion makes me 40k a year. This way I ll buy the dream car I always wanted'. The anticipation of something secretes nature's troll hormone dopamine pretty much like with any other drug. Once we reach our goal, we get again a brief dopamine rush for about a few seconds and then ready to set our new goal. The same happens both ways. Just like we are happy in our own fantasies, we suffer more in fantasy than in reality.

A healthy, calm and clear mind comes from people who are trained to be in the moment as much as possible, focus and concentrate on what they are doing. The past is gone and the future is not here yet but our mind represents them repeatedly probably as an evolved mechanism built-in our cortex to deal with future threats in the environment by relying and reflecting on memories of the past as a way of avoiding repeating the same mistake in the future.