h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As we stride toward a better, brighter and more vacuum-packed future, are there certain life skills that are now lost forever?

Quite likely. Most people I know of would need to camp out with Ray Mears for three months to work out how to bivvy in the wilds. Most of us have a bad enough time trying to work out how to survive a period of snow, as the bare supermarket shelves are testament to!

And, as we become more technologically advanced and metrocentric, are we pushing away those intuitive powers that, if tapped into, could really push us into a higher state of being? Telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and teletransportation - are they within us if we just took the time to look for them?

Boffins say that we only use less than 10% of our brain for anything specific. If that is the case, then what is the other 90% hanging about doing? Other than taking up space? I reckon we must have the latent skills, but I doubt we had them in the first place. Although you might lock me up as a crazy woman, there are definitely times when I have something akin to precognition. I am not saying I am psychic or anything, just that I know things. I can't tell you why, and I hate the feeling it gives me, but I just do. My grandmother used to call it being "fey".

We've had opposable thumbs for years, but how else do you think our bodies might evolve and develop in our technology-assisted future? Large, over-developed mouse-clicking index fingers? Kids sprouting wheelies on their ankles?

Ummm, well as a result of our largely sedantary lifestyles, aren't most people developing huge arses?! I know I am!!

Or is this all just rubbish? Are we deep down, underneath it all, just the same frightened, cave dwellers we've always been, cowering in our loincloths and throwing sticks at the moon? Is it just the architecture and haircuts that have changed around us?

Quite possibly. With the current weather and climate patterns the UK is experiencing, I figure the next logical evolutionary step is to develop gills. Definitely a step into the past, but I suspect useful if you live on a flood plain!

Thanks Crickett. Some great points. We're liking the gills idea

And have you seen Minority Report? Maybe your precog powers could be put to good work, cracking crime before they happen.

"Boffins say that we only use less than 10% of our brain for anything specific. If that is the case, then what is the other 90% hanging about doing?"

That's like saying if you're using the microwave, then you're only using 10% of the kitchen to do something specific. It doesn't mean that the remaining 90% (washing machine, refridgerator, sink etc) will suddenly gain some new, unexplored potential while not in use*.

* For the purposes of this analogy, 'prewash' does not count as a new, unexplored potential.

Alex

This is a common misconception.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10%25_of_brain_myth

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percent.asp

LOL! Yes, I have seen Minority Report, but I can't just call it up and know what is going to happen. If I could, I would have done that to win the Lottery!!

I didn't realise that was a myth which had been de-bunked. Thanks for the information!

Don't tell us what's going to happen on EastEnders. We'd rather it was a surprise...

You don't live in Cornwall too do you? With the amount of rain we get down here during the year, I'm beginning to think that webbed hands and feet as well as gills are soon going to become quite essential unless the weather patterns change!

>>>You don't live in Cornwall too do you? With the amount of rain we get down here during the year, I'm beginning to think that webbed hands and feet as well as gills are soon going to become quite essential unless the weather patterns change!

LOL