One of the many good things about the time after midnight

What am I doing still awake?

I’m thinking.  After all, there are so many great things to think about.  And yes, there are also other less great things to think about as well, things like when to get a haircut, what color the next car should be, and whether pepperoni or Canadian bacon is the best topping for a pizza.  But beyond that, there are a few really wonderful things to ponder.  For instance, the other night I got to thinking about the first thing that led to the first higher-level thought.  Okay, maybe that’s not so wonderful, but I thought it was very profound at the time.  And it was interesting, at least to me at 3:30 am

Scientists who think about these kinds of things (and writers awake late at night) have often thought that fear was what led to speech and higher thought. For example, one might want, or in fact desperately need, to shout, “Run for your life, dinosaur stampede!” If you can’t put that kind of thought together you can’t say it.

Or perhaps the first thought was something along the lines of, “I’m hungry, and Fred (not his real name) over there has a dinosaur leg with a lot of meat on it. If I take it away I’ll get the meat. But then he’ll probably kill me. Maybe it’s better to just politely ask for some.” And from that we might have the first rational thought.