• Question: Why weren't we born knowing everything about our body? Instead we need to learn something our body already knows, but your brain doesn't.

    Asked by meltedgentleman to Carrie, Cedric, Ellen, Ines, Rupert on 9 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Ellen Williams

      Ellen Williams answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      Maybe our brain knows the things but just not consciously…? So the brain as an active organ knows how to survive instinctively but the brain as an organ which allows rational thoughts needs to learn about the background to the processes (something which isn’t necessary for us to survive and so therefore is not a part of basic evolution)…

      Really great question!

    • Photo: Rupert Marshall

      Rupert Marshall answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      Our bodies are fairly simple machines. Our brains learn to drive the machine in different ways depending on the circumstances. We are very adaptable creatures.
      This is an interesting question though. Someone once said to me that psychology is everything we know, brought to our attention. A similar idea to yours

    • Photo: Carrie Ijichi

      Carrie Ijichi answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      Great question – it’s one of the trade offs for being human – we’re altricial animals and that means we’re useless when we’re born (we can’t even hold our own heads up!). Although it takes us a really long time to develop and learn simple things like walking, the benefit is that we have very big brains and can learn to do a lot when we’re fully developed. If you compare that to a foal that is precocial – it can get up and walk almost immediately, begin to feed itself and keep itself warm. But, it doesn’t develop to be a particularly advanced animal cognitively.

    • Photo: Ines Goncalves

      Ines Goncalves answered on 11 Mar 2017:

      This is probably the hardest question I’ve had, well done! I think the answer is simply that we do not need to know everything. It would be absolutely exhausting to know everything and be in control of everything that is going on in our bodies. For example, in the “background” the brain controls our breathing, and we breathe in and out 10-20 times per minute, 1440 minutes per day, 365 days per year, say for about 85 years. Imagine being aware of all this action, and have to think “now breathe in”, “now breathe out”. That’s all you’d be thinking about all the time, nothing else!
      In general, you know what you need to know, or learn when you have to learn. The body does its best to save energy, and knowing everything is too energetically demanding, especially if your survival doesn’t depend on that knowledge. Like the secret services, the body works on a “need to know” basis.

    • Photo: Cedric Tan

      Cedric Tan answered on 12 Mar 2017:

      Very interesting question! Taken from an evolutionary point of view, understanding ones body is not as important as say knowing how to feed and drink and to choke when food gets stuck in our throats. We will not die because we are unaware of our body works, animals don’t either!

      Such information is often learned. As the information is not vital to our survival.

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