What's a "lizard brain"?

[BigmanPigman]

John Meacham (MSNBC) just said tRump's white male, voters are lizard brains. I don't understand.

[unc70]

1. The most primitive part of the brain

Evolutionary first developed, centered in the brain stem. Seat of the most basic instincts and emotions. Things like "fight of flight" response, fear and aggression, etc.

[BigmanPigman]

4. OK, I get it now. Thanks!!

[unblock]

2. People dominated by the part of the brain that controls base emotions like

Fear, hate, territorialism, tribalism, etc.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triune_brain

This is base instinct stuff, no higher order thinking.

[Raine]

5. Neanderthal, I think. nt

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

14. Nope. Neanderthals are mammals.

There is an enormous difference between mammal brains and lizard brains.

I recently read a book called, I, Mammal by Liam Drew and among other things, it points out the profound difference between a lizard or reptilian brain, and a mammal brain. It's huge. Essentially there is absolutely no way that dinosaurs might have ever developed the intelligence needed for a technological civilization, no matter how long they might have survived without the asteroid that killed them all off some 66 million years ago.

While Neanderthals may have been lacking intellectually compared to Homo Sapiens, they were geniuses compared to lizards.

[uriel1972]

15. Neanderthals were quite intelligent having

relatively complex and advanced society and technology. The perception that they were primitive is a form of hollywood stereotyping

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. Very true.

Not as complex and advanced as H. Sapiens, but well worth honoring.

If there is such a thing as reincarnation, it's possible that any number of us were formerly Neanderthals.

[Raine]

16. Very interesting

THANKS for the info.

[Crunchy Frog]

19. As a matter of fact, dinosaurs did survive the asteroid impact of 66 mya,

In the form of birds. Some groups of birds, most notably the parrots and the corvids (crows) have evolved extremely high levels of intelligence.

So in fact, there is no inherent reason why dinosaurs would not have been able to evolve an advanced civilization.

Both mammals and birds have evolved large, complex brains from lizard type ancestral brains. There may be practical anatomical reasons why birds would be unlikely to develop a technological civilization, but it's nothing to do with brain differences.

Sorry to be picky, but I really dislike scientific inaccuracy.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. Yes. Birds which are a form of dinosaurs did survive and are still with us.

But they don't have the large frontal cortex that mammals have. Mammal brains are fundamentally different, and the book I, Mammal goes into that in some detail.

That fact wouldn't stop some enterprising writer from writing a book about a kind of dinosaur that was as intelligent as homo sapiens and developed a technological civilization back then. Heck, I've thought about writing just such a novel, but I'm not a good enough writer to pull it off.

The high levels of intelligence attributed to some of the birds still is on the order of a four or five year old human child. Not the genuine complexity of thought and reasoning of an adult human.

Sometimes I like to speculate what kind of civilization might come from highly evolved cats or dogs or elephants or any other creature we might want to think about. All of them have two huge impediments. First is limbs that can manipulate the environment as we can with our hands, especially our opposable thumbs. The other is true language. There are various creatures that have learned a lot of human language, and great apes who have been taught sign language and can communicate appropriately with it, although in a very rudimentary sense. That can't discuss ideas, such as is taking place in this thread. A lot of animals have their own complex system of calls, songs even, that fill important purposes for those animals. But again, they are not capable of considering or discussing abstract ideas. That's not to say that somewhere down the road (a very long way down the road) evolution might produce another animal with the intelligence and anatomy to develop what we call civilization.

I am not simply dismissing all non humans as mere animals, unworthy of respect. I am simply pointing out that the gulf between them and us is huge.

[Crunchy Frog]

24. It only took only around 3-4 million years, blink of an eye in geological time,

for evolution to turn something with the intelligence of a chimp into something with the intelligence of a human.

As far as birds go, they seem to have evolved different structures in their brains that perform similar functions to the mammalian neocortex.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/newfound-brain-structure-explains-why-some-birds-are-so-smart-and-maybe-even-self-aware

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/crow-intelligence/

I tend towards the view that humanlike intelligence is not as unique as we like to believe. I think there's a tendency among many to want to see ourselves as "speshul", and that this impulse can lead to some harmful and destructive behaviors.

I think there's just a philosophical divide that we're on different sides of, as I prefer to think of ourselves being a part of life on Earth, and our minds existing as part of a continuum with other creatures.

At least as far as bird brain question goes, it looks like the current scientific consensus is on my side.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

25. Interesting links. Thank you.

I will still point out that even the smartest of birds are far behind us in all sorts of ways. Heck, I can't begin to imagine two birds having a discussion remotely like the one you and I are having.

[Crunchy Frog]

26. Eh, a couple million years of the right kind of natural selection...

Besides, who knows what they get up to behind our backs.

I'm glad you find the links interesting. I've been fascinated by the subject of animal intelligence since I was a kid.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

27. Just give it time, right?

[Crunchy Frog]

28. Time and the right selection pressure.

I think that we're occupying the technological civilization niche right now, but who knows about the future?

BTW, did you know that there's an Australian raptor that makes deliberate use of fire? Lots of cool stuff out there.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

29. No, I didn't know that.

Perhaps they caused those awful fires earlier this year?

[Crunchy Frog]

30. No, the responsibility for those fires is strictly human.

Global warming and land mismanagement, plus irresponsible behavior.

Whatever the birds do, it's small potatoes next to that.

Here's a cool article though. https://wildlife.org/australian-firehawks-use-fire-to-catch-prey/

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

31. Actually, I was pretty sure the birds weren't responsible for the fires.

I should have added an appropriate smilie.

[Hoyt]

6. Ignorant white wingers.

[Volaris]

7. In any vertebrate group, as evolution progresses, brain layers increase.

A 'lizard brain' refers to a brain that is one layer above the spinal cord...its the core brain of birds and mammals. If you look at an anatomical brain diagram of humans, its everything thats NOT cerebral layer, plus cerebellum. So, spinal top and cerebellum off the back.

It's a a crude (but sometimes accurate) reference to how non-thinking they are...

[lagomorph777]

8. They are members of the Reptilian Party.

[Awsi Dooger]

9. Meacham has been really great tonight

Many great terms like Adverb Republicans

[Whyisthisreal]

10. Or an underdevelopment?

Damage to 7th chromosome? Thinning blood brain barrier? Smooth-brains?

It must be. I work with some of them, in farming. I have personally seen these people get out of their tractor and taste the leaves to make sure they weren’t spraying roundup from the airplane above us. From his reaction when he did it, he previously knew what roundup tasted like. Said person is the owner of a ranch.

“It’s all about the genes.” -Donald Trump

[Awsi Dooger]

11. "Donald Trump is a product of the anguished nervous white guy's lizard brain"

That's the quote

[BigmanPigman]

12. Oh, so Meacham said it as an insult to tRump

instead of his supporters.

[mantis49]

21. I interpret that as an insult to both.

n/t

[Awsi Dooger]

23. Same

The tone and context indicated that

[BainsBane]

13. conspiracy theorists

I think.

[musette_sf]

17. They are Amygdalan-Americans

[11 Bravo]

22. Something Eric Trump would kill for.