 "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended to forego their use."
The origin of modern "imaginative" humans can be traced from the time of its transformation when the vital "keystone" cells evolved in brains of their cerebral cortex around forty to fifty thousand years ago. The Homo Sapiens' physical body and brain had slowly evolved for thousands of centuries but modern humans only became imaginative fairly recently, geologically speaking. Anthropological evidence indicates it happened between 40 to 50 thousand years ago. This "final" evolution of the brain caused the archaic modern humans to become modern "imaginative" humans. The Homo Imaginative Sapien's species is a rather ordinary animal physically but its "imaginative mind" is a quantum leap over the rest of the animal kingdom including the Neandertals. The transformation occured when the final vital "keystone" cells came on line giving the archaic modern humans a powerful new "sense", an imaginative mind capable of becoming more aware of the world around them - capable of imagining. This is when the Homo Sapiens species were transformed into the "Homo Imaginative Sapiens". Their brain had evolved a powerful new "sense" that put the brain into contact with its surroundings on a much higher level. They now had the potential to comprehend phenomena that never occured to them before. It was a revolutionary worldwide event. These "imaginative" genes may have been carried by the archaic modern humans ever since the time their original ancestors had separated from their cousins the Neandertals, thousands of centuries before. The DNA of these vital cells slowly mutated within the brain (evolution can be a very slow process) for thousands of centuries and it was only when the final "keystone" cells were in place in the brain did the transformation take place - no matter where the modern human decendants had wandered to, in the meantime. It was the time of transformation, that modern humans made the quantum leap into a brand new age. It gave them the power, to visualize ideas within their brain - to imagine. From this time on these imaginative beings used their new power, over the next 50 thousand years, to invent new words, languages, complex tools, beautiful art of every description, created vast civilizations, and even began exploring the heavens as well. Over time they discovered nature's secret; microworlds, macroworlds, radiowaves, genetics, etc. It was only after humans became imaginative that they began to invent meaningful vocal word sounds, especially abstract idea words. Writing came thousands of years later. And yet before the transformation, for thousands of centuries, these same people did nothing but survive? Something revolutionary must have happened - I say it was the activation of the vital "keystone" cells in the cerebral cortex of their brain that set these amazing events into motion. Human imagination is the innate ability of modern imaginative humans to visualize within their mind, to come up with explanations of the things that puzzled them, to plan ahead, to think abstract thoughts, to create new; words, languages, art, tools, inventions, ideas, philosophies, non-existent spiritual worlds, etc. All these attributes are forms of human imagination. Unfortunately for our cousins, the Neandertal's brain apparently did not go through this imagination evolution and they were not transformed into an imaginative species. Everything that separates the modern humans from all the other hominids is based on modern human's mental ability to imagine. After the transformation anthropological evidence indicates the modern imaginative human's tremendous new creative power began to cause strange, wondrous things to began happening on our tiny planet. Beautiful new tools, paintings, weapons and other artifacts began to be created. Words and languages were invented and storytelling began. This new technology and art is about the only evidence we have of this mysterious event that apparently occured around 40 to 50K years ago. Suddenly these imaginative trinkets and weapons and paintings began to appear, nothing like this ever happened on the planet before this time. With this new power - modern imaginative humans began their relentless progress through the ages and would not let anything stand in their way. Before the transformation, the archaic (pre-imaginative) modern humans were physically similar in every way to the modern imaginative humans but they lacked the tremendous imaginative power of the latter. The Neandertals and the archaic modern humans may have been competing for thousands of centuries for food and territory and now the transformation evolution tipped the scales in favor of the modern imaginative humans tremendously. Modern imaginative humans differ genetically in some ways from the Neandertals but both had big brains and were mentally on par throughout the thousands of centuries since they separated. (although they may not have had the vocal ability that the modern humans had.) The archaic humans were barely able to hold their own against the much more physically powerful Neandertals but after the transformation this changed drastically in favor of the new modern imaginative humans. The Neandertals remained very intelligent hominids but could no longer compete with their old adversaries. The Neandertals had some very crude tools and weapons that enabled them to hold their own before, maybe even dominate, but now they lacked the imaginative power of the modern imaginative humans. Over a period of time they were completely overwhelmed by the new weapons and tactics of these imaginative humans and became extinct, probably killed off in thousands of skirmishes with their "new" adversaries. Perhaps in these skirmishes, the modern humans killed or drove off the Neandertal men and took the women back to camp as slaves. The two species were too far separated genetically to produce offspring but they undoubtably had mated. Perhaps, even if they were able to produce an offspring, the resulting offspring was not fertile, similar when a horse and donkey produce a mule but the mule is not fertile to continue the linage. This scenario proved to be a dead end for the Neandertals and they eventually became extinct. The ape family shows no sign of progressing either physically or mentally since the time of their species origin. The chimps, orangutans and gorillas are all intelligent animals that are able to survive fairly well if conditions permit but they cannot progress, they are the same now as they were thousands of years ago. It was those final brain cells that were the watershed development that catapulted modern humans into being the creative geniuses that they became. Scientists now think that one genetic variant of ASPM (the genes that determine brain size) in humans arose around a mere 6000 years ago. The human brain may still be evolving and growing! Is this where our super creative geniuses of the past 6000 years are coming from?? The ancient Greek philosphers; Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, etc. - and later; Newton, Einstein, Tesla, Galileo, etc. etc.. Do they all have this new variant of ASPM ?? (see http://novan.com/suprmind.htm "The Superminds of Mankind") Did the new gene variant ASPM usher in the tremendous technological advances that have been made since that time?? Was this last variant gene another "keystone" advancement in the evolution of modern imaginative humans that gave certain humans even greater imaginative power?? Did the invention of writng occur only after the last ASPM variant mutation had occured around 6000 years ago?? There was no evidence to indicate that the archaic pre-imaginative modern humans had a creative imagination until after the transformation when they became imaginative and began creating their beads, fishhooks and other trinkets, etc. The archaic pre-imaginative modern humans may existed for hundreds of thousands years, ever since they separated from the Neandertals, but what did they do all this time? They showed no sign of progressing until the time of the transformation when all of a sudden they began creating these wonderful artifacts. They had a large brain all this time but nothing happened. It is this lack of evidence, lack of progress, for all this time that is so puzzling. The answer is - they were not yet imaginative! Can you imagine modern "imaginative" humans not progressing or making life a little easier for themselves for all this time! The archaic modern humans were very smart animals, they survived very well, just as the Neandertals did, but they did not progress. Two of the most distinguishing traits of the modern "imaginative" humans are; they are always creating and progressing. The "Mind" of mankind came about soon after revolutionary time, when the people had invented word and languages. The ability of people to communicate ideas with each other and to build upon each others ideas is the basis for the "MIND" of mankind. The Wright brothers invented the airplane but it was the "MIND" of mankind that improved it and brought it to its present state of development. Thousands of "minds" (people) worked on the original idea over the years, steadily improving it, until today these fanastically complex flying machines, are whizzing all over the sky. This can be said for nearly every new invention, the original ideas are always continuously improved over the years by other imaginative minds that may be located anywhere on the planet. This is the strength of the "MIND" of mankind - it all started with human imagination. By - Donald Hamilton author of - The Mind of Mankind: Human Imagination, the source of Mankind's tremendous power!
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