1. Ancient creatures crawled out of the water to land to see better.
2. Since eyes see farther in air, it brought access to food on the shore.
3. All the poking out, seeing, trying, led to basic limbs; to help them move.
4. As animals came onto the land, two types of spaces defined ecosystems.
5. Ecosystems that defined predators, preys, dominance and survival strategies.
6. Open spaces, like grassland and plains, favoured strategies for speed games.
7. Closed spaces, like forests and jungles, favoured strategies for running for cover.
8. While big predators benefited from open spaces, small ones took to closed spaces.
9. At this stage, not much planning was needed; options to hide or hunt were defined.
10. But neither speed games nor running for cover had an edge in a certain sweet spot.
11. A mid-spot where open and closed spaces mingle so it's not too sparse, too dense.
12. The neuroscientist Malcolm MacIver and colleagues call this the 'Goldilocks zone'.
13. With a balanced edge for predators and prey alike, this zone required animals to plan.
14. Which led to the beginnings of our planning circuitry; to envision, determine, be strategic.
15. So our ability to imagine/pick future paths is based on what we think our adversaries will do.
16. Since our planning circuitry has limitations, and is evolving, we're bad at planning/planning ahead.