Thought

For this chapter, we have saved the best for last: thought. Thought is what makes mobility and intentional procreation useful. Without thought, animals would not be able to exist with any great level of complexity.

If DNA is computer code, the brain is an actual computer. For the first time ever in the universe, the universe had an observer. That idea of an observer will become important in later chapters. For now, just make note it happened – animals became the first thing in the universe that could actually observe the universe.

Thought is a vital step in Complexification. Before animals, nothing could think or make decisions. This means that animals were the first foothold Q4P had in the universe to make real choices. Interestingly, Q4P decided to not only give animals instinct but some measure of reason and emotion as well.

It is worth taking a moment to pay special attention to those two things in particular. As we know, Q4P seeks out greater complexity. So, we must surmise that reason and emotion made animals more complex than simple instinct. As far as survival goes, we can assume reason may have helped instinct to keep

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an animal alive. After all, not every dangerous situation could be accounted for with instinct alone.

Sometimes we have to make a decision in what is called a risk versus reward scenario. Consider it like going to a watering hole for a deer. Even though it knows wolves may be about, it still needs water to survive. So, it may have a need to determine whether the risk of dying of thirst is worse than the risk of being eaten.

However, how does emotion fit into this Darwinian survival of the fittest thought process? Simply put, it doesn’t. Something is missing from the equation here.

Birnbaum states quite clearly that emotion is a higher level of thinking. Assuming this, it is an answer for why emotions exist –because it makes animals more complex. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Like so many other things Q4P drives, emotions serve multiple roles. It is also the foundation of the most complex animal ever to exist, humanity, and the springboard for far greater and profound levels of complexity than the universe has ever seen.

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