We know that when you take key things away from a humans natural environment, that terrible developmental and psychological issues can occur. For example, children who have been utterly neglected sometimes just sit in the same space and rock back and forth, it's horrible.
Another example is that mice, when deprived of any sort of stimulating environment at all, lose a lot of brain function and cells, only for them to dramatically grow back a while after being exposed to a feature-rich environment. We know that if an eye isn't used early in life it never develops properly, just disintegrates. We know if we don't use muscles they eventually atrophy irreversibly. Could the same sort of thing be happening to parts of our brain/hormones/physiology from not being exposed to these things? Even our ears for example, are highly used when we try to balance.
We need contact with others. We need time to relax. We need dignity and respect. We really like to watch others and read about other so-called "important" people in the news. For the most part, these things our ancestors did have been passed down.
But what about grooming and climbing/navigating in 3d? Are we neglecting these fundamental aspects to our psychology?
I wish I could find a grooming partner, but I'm sure most people would think I'm nuts for even suggesting such a thing.
What about climbing and tree navigation also? What about the large area of our brain devoted to climbing and being extremely careful in trees? I think you could make an extremely strong argument that this type of immense judgement and coordination required for navigating them without falling and breaking your neck had a huge influence in making primates so intelligent.
Sometimes when I play certain fast videogames with multiple platforms/levels, I like to think I'm playing in a 3d environment.
But perhaps that is nonsense when compared to *actually* manouvering a 3d environment.
I would like to "re-awaken" these instincts within me. Baby baboons are known to fear snakes just by pure instinct. If I saw a lion and I was on a tree, would pure instinct take/help me up the nearest tree? I read before about a primatologist experience such a situation, where it was not just him and his companions that fled up the tree, but a whole group of baboons also. In fact one baboon calls the others to alert them, I wonder if a human could make such a call also to the baboons to warn them. There is something about that incident I find intriguing. Just a few primates, altogether looking down on the danger below.
But if you think about it, we went from being in a 3d environment almost all the time, to basically never being in a truly multi-levelled 3d environment, apart from using stairs or something.
