I’m analyzing the third sentence of the collapsed paragraph below(3/9 sentences):
paragraph from anxiety book
For example, if we step out into a busy street, turn our head, and see a car coming right at us, we instinctively jump back onto the safety of the sidewalk. That fear reaction helps us to learn quickly that streets are dangerous and to approach them with caution. Evolution made this really simple for us. So simple that we need only three elements in situations like this to learn: an environmental cue, a behavior, and a result. In this case, walking up to a busy street (the environmental cue) is our signal to look both ways before crossing (the behavior). Crossing the street uninjured (the result) teaches us to remember to repeat the action again in the future. We share this survival tool with all animals. Even the sea slug, a creature with the most “primitive” nervous system known in science (twenty thousand neurons total, as opposed to roughly a hundred billion in the human brain), uses this same learning mechanism.
Here’s the sentence:
Evolution made this really simple for us.
I think maybe evolution has made it simple, but what did evolution make really simple for us?? What does, “this” mean? I think that’s the fear reaction that happens to help us learn quickly about danger.
What does it mean when something is simple or really simple? I think simple means either one of these merriam webster definitions:
- free from elaboration or figuration
- constituting a basic element : fundamental
I think the author is talking about the first def cuz if evolution made something really simple for us then that means for us to learn stuff. Like, if we’re in danger then it has us learn something quickly to avoid danger. The process to learn something is simple?
Oh yeah, I don’t usually see evolution used in the way the sentence is using it. Like saying it’s like a living being. It’s like someone who made living really simple for us. I think we’re talking about the process of evolution? I forget what evolution is.