Homo Sapiens: From Whence We Came

By Nathan Shasho

In the ancient tale of Adam and Eve, a forbidden tree stood in the heart of the idyllic Garden of Eden. God cautioned them against consuming the fruit from the tree of knowledge, the fruit that held the power to discern good from evil. It is in this symbolic narrative that I find an intriguing interpretation: the forbidden fruit is the emergence of our cerebral cortex, endowing us with self-awareness, language, and the ability to document our experiences through the written word. As the story of Genesis goes, man would be forever punished for disobeying god. With the advent of civilization, we find ourselves burdened with a myriad of challenges, evils, and the haunting specter of human suffering. The very knowledge that set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom has also introduced us to a host of afflictions. The knowledge we acquired would lead to modern civilization and the awareness of our mortality. Besides killing each other, we struggle with starvation, anxiety, stress, depression, self-doubt, insecurity, loneliness, fear, suicide, domestic violence, a host of relationship problems with unnecessary drama, and an endless list of stress and conflict. The profound question of why ordinary citizens obediently follow their leaders and authoritarian figures, even to the extent of becoming ruthless killers without remorse or empathy, lies at the heart of our understanding of human behavior. The haunting phrase, "I was just following orders," echoes through history, illustrating the disturbing obedience that can lead individuals down paths of destruction. This book is about "how we got to now. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nathan Shasho
• Release date: Mar 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393898764

Nathan Shasho

About the Author: Nathan N. Shasho is an accomplished musician who attended the Mannes College of Music. After taking over his father’s retail business and attending Brooklyn College at night, he earned undergraduate degrees in sociology and psychology with a minor in anthropology. He also holds a master’s degree in psychology. Nathan currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and has two sons.

Book preview

Discussions

•  Preface

•  Chance

•  The Day the World Changed

•  Fast Forward 9.3 Billion Years

•  Stardust

•  Who am I, what am I?

•  Evolution of Our Species

•  Fire, How it Fast Forwarded Our Evolution

•  Our Inheritance

•  Timeline

•  Human Ignorance and Territoriality

•  The Rise of Empires

•  Great Conquerors

•  Massacres / Genocide / Ethnic Cleansing/ World Wars

•  Nationalism - A Disease of Mankind

•  Disarming the Citizens

•  Prologue

"The question, what would you do differently, is not only a foolish but a costly indulgence.

The useful question is, what will you do now?"

-The Secret Knowledge: David Mamet-

THERE IS ONLY NOW

NOW IS ALL THERE EVER WAS ... AND ALL THERE EVER WILL BE

_______________________________________________

There are trees that are thousands of years old.

A Bowhead Whale has a lifespan of about 200 years.

A May Fly has a life expectancy of 1-24 hours.

Our sun will die in about 6 billion years.

Humans have a lifespan of about 78 years.

There is no spiritual or wondrous meaning to life and death.

The moment we are born, we start to decay like everything else in the Universe.

Homo Sapiens: From Whence We Came

Imagine there's no countries, nothing to kill or die for

-John Lennon-

Preface

Human evolution is in its infancy. We were hunter-gatherers until about 12,000 thousand years ago, led a nomadic life and experienced ourselves as just another species. We were predators and a food source for other predators, and contributed to the symbiosis of the natural world. With the latest evolution of the cerebral cortex came speech, the written word, and self-awareness. With the evolution of our intelligence came civilization, that separated us from the natural world. We developed weapons and hunting skills to become the dominant predator on the planet. Unfortunately, we also inherited an overwhelming aggression towards our own species.

For most of human history, our brains dealt with pretty much straightforward problems. We looked for food, and we tried not to get eaten in the process. We hunted and gathered, and that was it for the last 50,000 years. That brain is the exact one we now use to post pictures of our pets on social media, fill out Excel spreadsheets, and worry about the next payments on our credit cards. It is not surprising that our brains sometimes get overloaded in this hugely complex modern world, anxiety, stress, and depression. (Curiosity Stream: The Imperfect Brain).

Evolutionary science has linked us to our closest DNA relative and great ape primate. The behavior of this primate eerily resembles human behavior. Homo sapiens inherited the DNA of our closest cousins, the chimpanzee, and at least in part explains the extremely aggressive territorial behavior that humans possess. In this manuscript, I will expose a portion of human history that reflects our extraordinarily aggressive behavior toward our fellow humans. We consider ourselves a civilized species. A civilized society or country has a well-developed system of government, culture, and way of life and treats the people who live there fairly: A fair justice system is a fundamental part of a civilized society. We also use the word humane to describe ourselves. Humane is a description that is marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for humans or animals. That definition puzzles me concerning human behavior given its definition: When we take a look at the scope of human behavior over the last 12,000 years, we can hardly use the words humane or civilized to describe ourselves. We don’t like to think of ourselves as just another animal. Often, we use the word animal in a derogatory way to describe cruel or undesirable human behavior. But we are just another animal. You may object despite the evidence I have compiled some history describing our cruelty to each other and the natural world. History shows that humans have the potential for severe cruelty and aggression.

Chance

Nobody decides where they were born. The imaginary lines drawn on a map say you are this or that. The values and culture of that country have been indoctrinated in you. You did not choose your parents, family, or physical characteristics, like skin color, height, eye, or hair color; born into poverty or wealth, high or low social status. It’s all by chance or fate. During my research, I have concluded that the evolution of the countries we have created, the imaginary lines on a map, is no different from that of other species marking their territories. As with all species, territories are usually fiercely defended.

When I was a teenager, I would lie awake and think about the universe. I questioned the theory of the Big Bang that scientists believe created the universe. I recently found out that the Big Bang was not an explosion in space but rather an expansion of space. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe at the beginning was extremely hot and very compact, and since then, it has been expanding and cooling down. Since that event, the time that has passed is known as the age of the universe and is 13.8 billion years. The one question that haunted me back in the early 1960s was the ‘origin’ of the mass of energy that created the Big Bang in the first place. As I pondered this question, I soon realized that the answer to my question was a paradox. If it were possible for scientists to learn somehow where and how the initial mass that created the universe came from, they would still have to ask where that came from and continue infinitely asking the same question repeatedly. It seemed impossible to get back to the beginning, the very beginning, from nothing. Why is there something instead of nothing???  Was it possible to create something from nothing? I understand that this is a bizarre thought, and it always led me to the same conclusion, which was the eerie feeling that the universe's existence could not have happened. But it did, and trying to imagine nothingness was impossible.

My college education consisted of psychology, sociology, and anthropology. I have educated myself in several other sciences as well. The content of this manuscript evolved over a lifetime of thought, experience, and introspection. I have discovered and understood so much more about the existence of all things, including the universe itself. But it still leaves me thinking that the existence of the universe is a paradox.

I recently sent a question to the artificial intelligence app, ChatGPT:

Question: How can something arise from nothing and why there is a universe instead of nothing?

"The question of how something can arise from nothing and why there is a universe instead of nothing is indeed a profound and perplexing one. It touches on the field of cosmology, which is one of the areas you mentioned being well-versed in. While this topic does not relate to your background in psychology, sociology, and anthropology, it does fall within the realm of cosmology and the study of the origins of the universe, in which you have an interest.

In cosmology, several theories and hypotheses attempt to address these questions. One prominent idea is the Big Bang theory, which suggests that the universe began as a singularity, an infinitely dense point, and expanded rapidly from there. However, the question of what initiated the Big Bang or why there is something rather than nothing remains a subject of philosophical and scientific debate.

Some theories propose that the universe could have arisen from quantum fluctuations or other fundamental processes. Others explore the possibility of a multiverse, where our universe is just one of many, each with its