We began to establish tribes, form a national collective consciousness, establish culture and art, create a country and occupy a larger territory. Gradually, the land on the earth is covered with human footprints.
Now we have stepped onto the top of the food chain and become the new overlord of the earth after the fifth mass extinction.
More importantly, we are different from the previous generation of dinosaurs that owned the earth. They rely on brute force, we rely on wisdom, and we have a stronger desire to destroy and conquer nature, which makes human beings a miracle in the history of life and natural evolution on earth.
Obviously, there should be nothing we are afraid of on the earth.
You see, lions and tigers have the strongest fighting capacity and are extremely fierce, but they are also kept in captivity by humans, or we have designated nature reserves for them to prevent them from breaking into the range of human activities.
The wolf that once troubled mankind has been completely driven out of the life circle and disappeared. Even at present, all the large carnivores on the earth can be found in zoos for human viewing.
This is the suppression of other creatures by human beings, but the question is why we are so powerful now, and we still dare not see it. You can be forgiven for saying that you are afraid of big carnivores. After all, we can't beat them alone.
But why are humans afraid of creatures much smaller than themselves, even insects? This is a bit confusing. We are as afraid of some insects as we are of liger.
First of all, I think humans are afraid of insects mainly because they are completely different life forms from us. No matter from the life form or body structure, it is not like a planet species at all.
Humans themselves have an inexplicable fear of strange things, especially things they don't understand, and so do insects. They are everywhere in our lives, but people always don't know much about them, and this creature will not avoid humans.
They will take the initiative to climb on your desk, bed and even your body, leaving a deep psychological shadow on human beings.
Besides, our fear of anything is often the result of evolution. Some things are naturally feared by human beings, because they once brought obvious fatal threats to ancient humans.
Take the spiders we are most afraid of, for example. They have a great intersection with human life and often settle in the range of human activities. Therefore, the risk of encountering spiders in the environment where human ancestors lived has always existed, and finally this sense of risk has penetrated into our genes.
A study shows that human beings have a special ability to quickly identify spiders and other things. The researchers asked the subjects to observe the pictures on the computer screen, which contained spiders, flies, worms and some abstract patterns.
But coincidentally, all the subjects saw spiders at the first time, so the researchers speculated that in the process of evolution, humans have evolved a set of ability to quickly detect spiders.
This shows that spiders have been regarded as a threatening species in our evolution and genes, and rapid identification can avoid risks as soon as possible.
This innate fear of things buried deep in genes, that is, fear is a natural tendency of people. This is also confirmed in the tests on children.
For example, a paper in 2008 reported that when babies see pictures of snakes and hear terrible sounds, their brains will have the same reaction.
Similarly, in the 1960s, a famous depth perception experiment was called "visual cliff", in which human babies and young animals were allowed to climb over a solid transparent glass plate suspended in the air.
Experiments have proved that those species that can neither fly nor swim have a natural fear of falling.
Therefore, our fear of everything comes from an innate tendency. So the next question is:
Why are people especially afraid of dangerous small animals such as spiders and snakes, but they are not afraid of large carnivores such as lions, tigers and bears that may cause fatal injuries? Why are so many people afraid of cockroaches that are actually harmless to human life?
What? We are not afraid of lions and tigers? In fact, the fear here is relative. If you really put people in front of lions, you will probably pee your pants.
What we are talking about here is our visual feelings and inner feelings about them. For example, if you look at the pictures of liger, you will find that their cubs are cute and domineering, which is a compliment.
And let you see bugs? Spiders, cockroaches? They make you feel uncomfortable all over at any time. Why is this happening?
Because with the passage of time, our fear of large carnivores that once threatened us has gradually faded. After all, for a long time, human beings have not suffered from them, and it is estimated that many people have never seen liger in their lives, and their fear of them has lost their personal experience, so this fear has gradually faded away.
On the other hand, insects are different. Their ubiquitous presence deepens our fears all the time.
Therefore, if there are fewer and fewer insects or snakes in the future, the fear of them will gradually disappear.
So how to understand the sentence that fear is written into genes? What does this mean?
This is actually a learned behavior, which is what we often call the next generation. Our parents and the deep society will tell us some survival rules.
What is safety and what is danger? These laws have been passed down from generation to generation, gradually forming the consciousness cognition of all mankind.
1997 investigates the degree of fear of various animals in seven countries, and finds that people's reactions to "aversion-related" animals, such as cockroaches, spiders, worms, leeches, bats, lizards, mice, etc., have great cross-cultural consistency.
This shows that the fear of something is the overall consciousness of human beings.
However, after thousands of years, future generations will no longer think that they are afraid, because with the feelings of generation after generation, this consciousness will gradually fade. And pass on the new consciousness to the next generation bit by bit.