What could the human brain have evolved from?

Question

Just from the way it looks it seems like the human brain could have evolved from a lima bean. Or a mushroom, brain coral, maybe memory foam, or even compressed macaroni. Are there any other plausible origins you can think of? It doesn't make sense to me that it could have evolved from fish.

Answer 1

Maybe like a pearl, it came about because of that irritating grain of sand inside of the oyster...

Essentially, the brain looks like a tumor!

Answer 2

"Early brains on our planet were very simple – and are found now in animals lower down the evolutionary ‘tree’ for example in insects, worms and snails. These early brains are more collections of ganglia – where hundreds of nerve cell bodies congregate.
Fish and amphibians have well defined brains – albeit small ones in relation to their body size. Reptiles and bird brains become ever more complex with areas devoted to specific senses, for example vision and smell.
Mammals have a vast variety of brain shapes and sizes. The biggest brain on our planet belongs to the blue whale – weighing in at 6kg, compared to the 1.4 kg brain of a human."
http://www.youramazingbrain.org/insidebrain/brainevolution.htm

There's a lot of material about brain evolution. However the preceding gives probably the best summary of what happened.

Basically, brains are needed to control the organism. The more complex the organisim and the tasks it performs, the larger and more complex the brain needs to be. A good comparison is the education process. The person starts off with pretty much a blank slate, learns to read wrote, do math and have social skills. Each year more complex information and skills are added. There's nothing huge that changes but a continual development. With brains the simple creatures tend to have simple and less developed brains. As you example progressively more complex animals, their brains also become more complex.

Answer 3

Who can really know? 'Religious fantasy' is about as good as 'scientific observation' when it comes to sorting this out - there are still too many mysteries even with as much as we know about the influences of environment, natural selection, chemical processes and the differentiation and specialization of cells and organs.

It is hard to imagine our brains evolving from those of fish - but it likely did not do so. It is more likely that both 'evolved' from something in common. How they evolved is the great mystery - we don't have a well connected fossil record that shows a neat and orderly progression.

'Religious fantasy' is one thing, pondering the astonishing architecture of all that we can observe is quite another. Given the nature of the universe, are we and all we can see simply the inevitable 'accident' that would froth up out of the stuff around us, or did 'someone' have something in mind?

Something to ponder although offensive to those who always want 'proof'. Trouble is, we can 'prove' so very little about any of it, only reject that which is proven false.

Great question!

Answer 4

Two answers:

It's possible that some human brains did actually evolve from a Lima bean. These brains end up in politicians and fundamentalists, you know, people who hate science.

The normal human brain may6 have begun life as a sort of 'Superior ganglion' call it a collection of neurons that while, not in a location such as the modern cerebral hemisphere, does perform neural decisions.
This, over millions of years of evolution, did finally become a differentiated group of neurons.

In lower life forms this. let us call it..."superior ganglion", served adequately as a proto-brain.

Evolution explains how this organ finally ended up in our ancestors differentiating them from our close cousin, Neanderthal who, by the way, had a larger brain that we do.

It appears that our neocortex, at least in it's present configuration, was unavailable to Neander.

So, if your question is sincere, don't take my word for it, it's only my opinion. Do your own research.

If, on the other hand your own brain is muddled by some religious fantasy, ot other, go right ahead and believe what you will.

Answer 5

Seeing that our brain is a lot more powerful than we think.

And seeing that we only use about 10% out of 100% brain capacity... i would think our brain came from something a lot more advanced and a lot more powerful than any creature alive today...

Answer 6

depends on how far back you take it. If you go all the way back to the initial emergence of life, you have your prosaic initial one-celled organism.
If you mean from what species just prior to humans, the accepted thought is that modern apes and man descended from a common primate ancestor, and branched off into separate evolutionary paths.

Answer 7

It has evolved from simple cells just like any other part of the body. God or The Creater of the Universe envisioned that we humans should evolve more than the other species hence we have the most powerful thing on Earth ( in the Universe maybe ) called the Human Brain>>>>> infinite times more powerful than the Nuclear Bomb.

Answer 8

A money's brain

Answer 9

It evolved from the dump i just took.

Answer 10

Bible versus Darwin?....
I onestly think that one is compatible with the other...the difference is in the language, and dans the interpretation
!
Happy 2008 !