by Terry 95 Replies latest jw friends
Making animals out of dirt is not the only way to create.
Ironically, dirt as we know it is largely a creation of processes that have occurred over vast periods of time, and a large fraction of dirt is made of organic substances.
Otherwise it wouldn't be dirt, it would just be rocks.
Tuche Syn
imo: it takes as much faith to believe in evolution as it does to believe in creation, it's just which set of visibile possible proofs you choose to believe.
Pole:
Let's imagine you can travel in time 5000 years back and somehow bring a human child of some relatively intelligent parents "back to the future".If you brought this child up in our culture, the child would have no problems with functioning in society, receiving education, and possibly becoming a rocket scientist. No culture shock here, right?
However if you took a humanoid child born say 2,000,000 years ago, the child could have problems with adapting because of the biological limitations of the its brain. I guess there's little we disagree about so far.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
So far, I agree completely.
However I am assuming you think that all contemporary humans have common ancestors who could be traced back to a certain area of our planet and a certain point in time when they started to differ considerably from other apes.You assume correctly.
To sum it up: When could humanoids have started forming their first separate proto-cultures? What is the earliest possible "date" that can be reasonably suggested?
I would have to say around 200,000 years ago with the appearance of modern humans.
1) Ever since we can know directly and indirectly, all known languages have been generally becoming simpler in terms of morphology, syntax and to some extent phonology.
All the old languages we know of are written languages for obvious reasons. It seems reasonable that a culture must be relatively advanced with a complex language in order to come up with the idea of writing. The earliest known forms of writing are pictographic in nature. These became simplified over time, presumably for speed and convenience. The development of alphabets simplified things further. English-speakers can convey the most complex ideas with around 50 different characters (including numbers and punctuation). In Japanese there are over 4,000 symbols, but there are no ideas that can be expressed in one language but not in the other.
There is a tendency to think of progress in terms of increased complexity, but that is not always the case. The simplification of the tools of language make it easier to learn and more suitable for expressing complex ideas. A lot of the complexity in language is "vestigial" and serves only to make them more difficult to learn. (Imagine how much easier it would be to learn French if they didn't arbitarily assign a gender to everything)
The above is, at best, a sketchy hypothesis. It's a combination of memory and guesswork but I think it seems reasonable.
2) The relative complexity of languages which have been developing for
________(please specify my timescale here according to the guidelines provided above)_____
of years independently of one another cannot be explained in terms of cultural development. In other words there are no primitive languages. Rather, what is genuinely surprising is that some of the most primitive cultures have languages extremely complex grammars, and vice versa.
When you say primitive, are you talking about ancient languages and cultures or those that exist today but are regarded as primitive?
I also think, there's one thing about language that is well explained by the evolution of the human brain. It has to do with the fact that the very nature of human language suggests that historically all abstract concepts were derived from literal ones.
I'm intrigued. I thought one of the defining points of language was its arbitrariness, although it certainly makes intuitive sense that when naming something for the first time there would be some logic behind the name.
I won't elaborate on these points until you tell me what my timescales are and whethere they make my points relevant to the discussion on certain aspecs of evolution.
Language must have developed sometime between ~6 million years ago and ~10,000 years ago. There is, of course, no direct evidence of spoken language as the spoken word doesn't fossilise very well, but some indirect evidence seems to indicate that hominids were capable of rudimentary speach as much as 500,000 years ago. I'm not sure if any of this is directly relevant to the original discussion. I don't see any gaps in our knowledge of the origins of language as being large enough to turn over the whole idea of evolution. That doesn't mean I don't find it fascinating, however. I'm still not sure what point of view you're coming from. Can you please elaborate.
I started with the sarcasm though - and it was your turn now, so no comments here.
I think we can both do better than taking pot-shots at each other. I may have acted a little too defensively. For some reason, I feel like an attempt is being made to ambush me somehow. Maybe it's just your posting style - or my paranoia!
I have my own theory about something pertaining to language and writing.
My hypothesis is this. Things don't get written down without an argument being behind it. Two opposing views are at odds and the result is an attempt to solidify a kind of "proof" version of events.
A local ruler who needs to counter opposition to his right to rule might cite mighty deeds, a connection to a god, blood-relatives of reknown, propaganda generally.
A religious controversy might require each contesting version to seek validity by resorting to the written record. People are always divided by opinion and united by common accord with deed or document.
Versions of great stories might get written down to claim authorship.
Paternity was always an important consideration because the passing of power and property to one's own flesh and blood naturally took precedence over a usurper's claim. A written geneology would solve this need.
Nation-wise, rule of law would make it easier for a ruler to enforce his rule because common knowledge of minimum behavior requirements eliminates the arbitrary from justice and thus lessens complaints of unfairness. Writing down such laws (Hammurabi) (Moses) eliminates "versions" from proliferating.
Business transaction, trade agreements, inventories, accounting records all stem from the necessity of Two potentially contrary opinions coming to blows when no verification is available.
In my above hypothesis it is conflict rather than mere progress which motivates the necessity for writing.
Terry
A very interesting observation, probably true in many cases. For example, israel finkelstein, in his book 'the bible unearthed' claims that much of the ot was written in that fashion. It was written later than traditionally claimed, namely after jews' return from captivity, and, as a propaganda piece against the more progressive northern tribes. Finkelstein is one of the top dogs in archeology in israel.
Christian writings, the beginnings of the nt, started as you described it, because of challenges.
S
