Primitive Intelligence is an essay written and shared by Sourodip Ghoshdastidar to The Ugly Writers under the theme Love for the month of May.
Primitive Intelligence (Language and a baby’s cry)
Hola! How are you?
Our ancestors. Imagine. They had no modern language. Every tale of theirs was theirs only. How did they communicate with each other? I don’t know. We modern humans think in terms of languages-our emotions can be hijacked by just a few words- for example, the words “I love you” said to a person completely changes said person’s brain chemistry, ie, emotions. Say the same words to a Neanderthal- they wouldn’t bat an eye. So how did ancient humans communicate? We now have words for various emotions. The question is, since everyone experiences everything differently and no one can peep into the brain of another person, how did the words describing various emotions arise? That is one big question I have. For example, “butterflies in the stomach” describes an emotion that occurs when someone meets their crush. But not everybody has the same reaction to the said event. So how did such a consensus arise? The consensus of butterflies in the stomach describing said event? Are all humans wired similarly then? I don’t know.
But what I do know is something about the very primitive forms of intelligence-a baby’s cry. Think about it. Every species on the planet gives rise to offspring. Why does an offspring cry? Because it has needs. And those needs need to be fulfilled. The said offspring does not know the ways of the world like its parents do. If a mother did not understand a baby’s cry, those needs would go unfulfilled, and the offspring would probably die, and the species would cease to exist. Thus the basic requirement of continuation of a species, among many others, is probably the intelligence that a mother has about its offspring’s cry. That, I think, is a very primitive form of intelligence that existed way before the complicated beings we humans are now.
Give some love to Sourodip Ghoshdastidar by reading his previous entries at The Ugly Writers:
