7.《人类简史》Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind

After the sigh of relief, then we have to ask, what is this awakening skill called the cognitive revolution that God has helped us to unlock? The first thing that comes to mind for the vast majority of students must be the search for secrets at the individual level, thinking that because we are a superior species, we must have a very unbelievable advantage in ourselves as individuals. Well, if a human and a chimpanzee were to be thrown together on a deserted island, who do you think would survive better? If I had to bet on the gorilla, I'd bet on the gorilla, because the gorilla would definitely be able to live better in nature alone. Let's continue to think about it, that is if you put a man and a gorilla in a one on one fight? As we said earlier it's hand to hand with a cold chicken! What about if we let 10 people and 10 gorillas fight in a group? That would be a hand-to-mouth chicken feast! But what if we put 100 people or 1000 people against the same number of gorillas? Then the gorillas would surely lose!
So the secret to the rise of humanity is not on an individual level, but on a collective level! Because we can work together! But then again, we are not the only species in nature that can work together! Ants and bees, for example, can work together on a large scale, as can wolves and gorillas.
Let's look at them separately. Firstly, insects like ants and bees can indeed form large societies and are very stable, but this is because almost all the information needed for collaboration is already stored in their genomes. In bees, for example, unfertilised eggs develop into males and fertilised eggs into females, but the female larvae may grow up to become queens or general worker bees, depending on the food they are fed. In their DNA, the necessary behavioural patterns have been set up for both different roles, the former allowing her to be matronly and the latter allowing her to do her best and work hard. They can indeed collaborate on a large scale, but their DNA also dictates that their patterns of cooperation are very rigid and inflexible. If suddenly confronted with a threat, bees have no way of inventing a mechanism to deal with the threat in a short period of time. Just as bees cannot execute their queen and set up a bee republic, they cannot do this, and their genetic code greatly limits their forms of cooperation.
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叹息过后，那我们就要问了，上帝帮我们解锁的这项叫做认知革命的觉醒技能到底是什么？绝大多数的同学首先想到的一定是寻找个体层面的秘密，觉得因为我们是高级物种，我们个人身上就肯定有非常逆天的优势。那好，如果把一个人和一只黑猩猩同时丢到一个荒岛上，你觉得谁会生存的更好呢？如果要押宝的话我一定押大猩猩，因为大猩猩肯定能在自然界单独生活的更好。我们继续想想看，就是如果让一个人和一只大猩猩单挑？我们前面说了就是手撕凉鸡嘛！那我们让10个人和10只大猩猩群殴呢？那应该是手撕凉鸡盛宴吧！但是当我们让100个人或者1000个人再与相同数量的大猩猩对垒呢？那大猩猩必败无疑！
所以，人类崛起的秘密并不在于个体层面上，而是在于集体层面上！因为我们可以协作！但是问题又来了，自然界里能协作的物种何止我们人类啊！比如说蚂蚁和蜜蜂可以大规模协议，还有狼群和大猩猩也可以进行协作啊，这怎么解释？
我们分别来看，首先是蚂蚁和蜜蜂这样地昆虫，他们确实可以形成大型社会并且非常之稳定，但这是在他们的基因组里面就已经存储了协作所需要的几乎全部信息。比如说蜜蜂，未受精卵会发育成雄蜂，受精卵则发育成雌蜂，但雌蜂幼虫根据被喂食的食物的不同，长大后可能成为蜂后，也可能成为一般的工蜂。在它们的DNA里，已经为两种不同角色都设定好必要的行为模式，前者让它能母仪天下，后者则让它尽心尽力、认真工作。他们确实可以进行大规模的协作，但他们DNA同时也决定了他们的合作模式是非常僵化的，是缺乏灵活性的。如果突然面临一个威胁的时候，蜜蜂是没有办法在短时间之内发明一种机制来应对威胁的。就像蜜蜂不可能处决他们的蜂王，进而成立一个蜜蜂共和国，这些都是做不到的，他们的基因密码大大的限制了他们的合作形式。