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I think most animals have an I-box to some degree. We’ve seen organisms selectively choose their mates and even choose to fight for them. This requires some decision making skills and an I-box. I think maybe the extent to which an I-box affects daily behavior depends entirely on the size of the brain and thus the size of the I-box. However, a too advanced and complex I-box seems somewhat dangerous to me, and I beginning to doubt its advantages in terms of evolution. I think humans are in constant battle with their biological needs and the I-box can sometimes help, but also hinder survival in humans. For example, we need nutrients from fruits and vegetables, but people can choose diets high in fat and cholesterol rather than eat healthy and benefit their bodies. This gets me wondering if the I-box is an evolutionary advantage or disadvantage. Sure feelings make living more interesting and diversified, but without feelings, do you think we’d be better suited for survival? We would behave solely off of biological urges. For example, we would eat when hungry and no anorexia or bulimia could affect that.
The National Institute of Mental Health claims that “mental disorders are the leading cause of disability (lost years of productive life) in the North America, Europe and, increasingly, in the world. By 2020, Major Depressive illness will be the leading cause of disability in the world for women and children.” Do animals, who tend to be more driven by biological needs, have mental disorders like humans? Are our brains too advanced to control? I think of our brains as this high-tech electronic where the complexity makes it difficult to fix if malfunctioning, somewhat like an i-Pod. I’ve dropped my walkman (yes the kind that plays tapes) a number of times and it still works fabulous, however my sister dropped her i-Pod once and it only works every now and then. I know there are a lot of benefits to having an i-Pod over a walkman, but its starting to seem to me that walkmans may outlast i-Pods. But humans can’t really choose at this point, we have the i-Pod model of the brain whether we like it or not. I guess we all just have to be careful not to drop our i-Pods or fill them with too much trashy info.