Vulcanization is a process of hardening rubber to enhance it's strength. I came across this great economic journal by Jonathan D. Cohen called Vulcanization of the Human Brain. Cohen presents an apt and very informative argument on how evolution vulcanized our brain via the prefrontal cortex. This simple journal covers lots of ground.
"The prefrontal cortex evolved in the context of pre-existing emotional pro- cesses and must therefore have developed to interact effectively with such pro- cesses. However, the full emergence of the prefrontal cortex, and the technological and social innovations to which it has recently given rise, have begun to produce changes in the physical and social environment that have outpaced evolution, creating circumstances for which the emotional mechanisms in our brains may not be fully adapted. This situation, coupled with the apparent heterogeneity in the development of the prefrontal cortex across members of the human race, intro- duces a potentially fundamental instability: A world in which the potency of technology introduced by the prefrontal cortex, and perhaps manageable by it, is equally accessible to mechanisms that were not adapted to the use of that technol- ogy. Albert Einstein has been quoted as saying: “The world we have made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them” (MacHale, 2002). It remains to be seen whether the prefrontal cortex (and associated structures) has the capacity to meet the challenges that its appearance seems to have introduced, or whether evolution has truly taken a bite of Eden’s apple."
The point is vulcanization is incomplete in all of us. It's up-to us to continue the vulcanization life long and yes, it's easier said that done.
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