Evolutionary Truths Hiding in Plain Sight

At puberty, the human mind gradually switches from a “camera-mode” – recording and analyzing experiences – to a “projector-mode,” merely classifying experiences and projecting pre-formed expectations. The switch from camera to projector was encoded into our genes during prehistoric times, when the cultural and physical environment surrounding a given person was unlikely to change in the handful of years between adolescence and death.  However, both the rate of cultural change and the average length of human life have increased dramatically since the Paleolithic Era. In the contemporary world of antibiotics and digital communication, the adolescent switch has become an evolutionary maladaptation.  Our capacity to understand a changing environment is limited by our caveman-like tendency to perceive novel surroundings as nothing more than a slightly shifted version of the status quo. In this regard, the hard-wired switch from camera to projector serves as a bottleneck to human progress, allowing important truths – new realities – to hide in plain sight.  Exposing these truths will transform the way you think about your world.