Ancient beliefs and evolution.

[Strange]

 

Now this might be progress.

 

Tell me, what exact books do you have from before 2000 BC?

 

I'm of course willing to accept translations of any such books.

 

Good grief. That was supposed to be irony, to highlight how hard it is to understand what you are trying to say.

 

I assume you mean something like: "no books that I think existed before the invention of writing survive". Well, no. Because writing hadn't been invented and so there were no books.

 

If you are trying to imply that there is a forgotten form of writing that pre-dates known writing systems then why didn't these "ancients" leave any texts on stone or metal as many later civilizations did?

 

p.s. Am I to assume from your vague references to Egypt, that you are only or mainly concerned with an Egyptian society?

[cladking]

Maybe this will help;

 

http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/

 

Some of these pre-date 2000 BC but it's too difficult for me to study them without knowledge of the origin or more substance to thew works. I can only solve the meaning of ancient writing by referent discovery where words are used in context sufficiently often to determine meaning.

[cladking]

 

Good grief. That was supposed to be irony, to highlight how hard it is to understand what you are trying to say.

 

I assume you mean something like: "no books that I think existed before the invention of writing survive". Well, no. Because writing hadn't been invented and so there were no books.

 

If you are trying to imply that there is a forgotten form of writing that pre-dates known writing systems then why didn't these "ancients" leave any texts on stone or metal as many later civilizations did?

 

p.s. Am I to assume from your vague references to Egypt, that you are only or mainly concerned with an Egyptian society?

 

I'll try again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is not a single book or manuscript on paper or papyrus from before 2000 BC anywhere in thwe world. None exist. There are scraps and fragments of paper with a few words on them but no complete sentences. There are no books from before 2500 BC in any form at all. None. There are apparently some short Sumerian writings from this early on clay but these aren't available on-line with dates. So far as I know this includes no corpus and no "book".

 

After 2500 BC there is writing that has been copied from the walls of timy little tombs and are known at the "Pyramid Texts". This is extensive writing but it is all religious in nature as is all other known Egyptian writing (don't forget there are no books). The PT can be thought of as a book but can not be thought of as being comprehensible (unless you define "comprehensible" to include no definitions of the subject). There were numerous writings on wooden coffins but this writing is very similar to the PT but is not a corpus because parts of it come from many different places. There is some Sumerian writing from this 2500 to 2000 BC time frame as well, but again, not on paper. These are on clay and they are mostly incomprehensible as well though "Gilgamesh" looks vaguely recognizable in this form.

 

As far as I know there is no Chinese and no Indian writing surviving from before 2000 BC unless there could be some lists there as well. But there are no books.

 

Pretty much the only ancient writing that survives (and the only corpus) was inscribed in something. There were no books. The inscribed words are almost strictly (at least by percentage) incomprehensible gobblety gook.

 

I don't know what happened to all those books that no longer exist. I don't know why none of them were copied in later times to preserve the ancient knowledge and the oral traditions that must surely have been recorded when writing was invented. But I do believe there's a very simple explanation and this explanation is based on the facts and logic. The ancient books were just as enigmatic and just as much gobblety gook to the people in 1999 BC as they are to us. They knew their ancestors were wise and knowledgeable but they couldn't take the meaning of the writing. It mustta been highly frustrarting if you catch my drift.

 

If I'm right the ancient scientists would never have even tried to translate their science into the new language which they referred to as "confused" or had meaning that was "divided". They would have believed all science would forever be conducted in the ancient language and that it wasn't really translatable anyway. It would require not words, but flow charts and logic charts. They saw no pressing need to preserve their science. They did not foresee that the inability to adapt to the rest of society would eventually doom them and that society could function and thrive on the existing knowledge being passed down father to son. Populations were high and man's control of his enviroment was strong enough that even without the ancient science people could live. The ancient knowledge was preserved in bits and pieces in alchemy, religion, astrology, witchcraft, and many other esoteric lores. This is not to say that I believe in any of these or that there is truth in them, merely that knowledge in a fragmented and distorted form underlies these. Perhaps the knowledge was best preserved in alchemy but this is not the same thing as ancient chemistry nbut rather they use some of the techniques and knowledge of ancient chemistry (this means "of Chemis" which was a city near the pyramid) are used to attack a single chemistry problem which has been forgotten. I could even tell you how "chemis" became the root word for chemistry but it would be OT.

 

I'm sure this all sounds strange to people. But it is a simple fact that there is a void in history between 3200 BC and 2000 BC because "all" the exceedingly few wrirtten sources are incomprehensible. Experts believe there is no useful knowledge in any of this but these are the sources that suggest why chemis became the root for chemistry and what alchemists have forgotten. It suggests an explanation for all human history and even parts of the Bible and Koran.

 

All I mean is what I say. I may not always say what I mean as well as I might but it is what I mean and no more.

 

There are no books. All we have is the Palermo Stone which is chiefly a list, the PT (incomprehensible), and the titles. These do not add up to the paradigm without a lot of assumption that makes the whole package illogical. I don't believe there is anything in the Sumerian literature that will change these equations.

 

 

[Delta1212]

Are you basing any of this on something you can point to as evidence or are you just making it up as you go?

[arc]

 

 

I'll try again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is not a single book or manuscript on paper or papyrus from before 2000 BC anywhere in thwe world. None exist. There are scraps and fragments of paper with a few words on them but no complete sentences. There are no books from before 2500 BC in any form at all. None. There are apparently some short Sumerian writings from this early on clay but these aren't available on-line with dates. So far as I know this includes no corpus and no "book".

 

After 2500 BC there is writing that has been copied from the walls of timy little tombs and are known at the "Pyramid Texts". This is extensive writing but it is all religious in nature as is all other known Egyptian writing (don't forget there are no books). The PT can be thought of as a book but can not be thought of as being comprehensible (unless you define "comprehensible" to include no definitions of the subject). There were numerous writings on wooden coffins but this writing is very similar to the PT but is not a corpus because parts of it come from many different places. There is some Sumerian writing from this 2500 to 2000 BC time frame as well, but again, not on paper. These are on clay and they are mostly incomprehensible as well though "Gilgamesh" looks vaguely recognizable in this form.

 

As far as I know there is no Chinese and no Indian writing surviving from before 2000 BC unless there could be some lists there as well. But there are no books.

 

Pretty much the only ancient writing that survives (and the only corpus) was inscribed in something. There were no books. The inscribed words are almost strictly (at least by percentage) incomprehensible gobblety gook.

 

I don't know what happened to all those books that no longer exist. I don't know why none of them were copied in later times to preserve the ancient knowledge and the oral traditions that must surely have been recorded when writing was invented. But I do believe there's a very simple explanation and this explanation is based on the facts and logic. The ancient books were just as enigmatic and just as much gobblety gook to the people in 1999 BC as they are to us. They knew their ancestors were wise and knowledgeable but they couldn't take the meaning of the writing. It mustta been highly frustrarting if you catch my drift.

 

If I'm right the ancient scientists would never have even tried to translate their science into the new language which they referred to as "confused" or had meaning that was "divided". They would have believed all science would forever be conducted in the ancient language and that it wasn't really translatable anyway. It would require not words, but flow charts and logic charts. They saw no pressing need to preserve their science. They did not foresee that the inability to adapt to the rest of society would eventually doom them and that society could function and thrive on the existing knowledge being passed down father to son. Populations were high and man's control of his enviroment was strong enough that even without the ancient science people could live. The ancient knowledge was preserved in bits and pieces in alchemy, religion, astrology, witchcraft, and many other esoteric lores. This is not to say that I believe in any of these or that there is truth in them, merely that knowledge in a fragmented and distorted form underlies these. Perhaps the knowledge was best preserved in alchemy but this is not the same thing as ancient chemistry nbut rather they use some of the techniques and knowledge of ancient chemistry (this means "of Chemis" which was a city near the pyramid) are used to attack a single chemistry problem which has been forgotten. I could even tell you how "chemis" became the root word for chemistry but it would be OT.

 

I'm sure this all sounds strange to people. But it is a simple fact that there is a void in history between 3200 BC and 2000 BC because "all" the exceedingly few wrirtten sources are incomprehensible. Experts believe there is no useful knowledge in any of this but these are the sources that suggest why chemis became the root for chemistry and what alchemists have forgotten. It suggests an explanation for all human history and even parts of the Bible and Koran.

 

All I mean is what I say. I may not always say what I mean as well as I might but it is what I mean and no more.

 

There are no books. All we have is the Palermo Stone which is chiefly a list, the PT (incomprehensible), and the titles. These do not add up to the paradigm without a lot of assumption that makes the whole package illogical. I don't believe there is anything in the Sumerian literature that will change these equations.

 

 

 

 

I believe you are not taking into account that these city states and their cultural histories up to and during this "dark period" you define were highly militarized and engaged in wars of conquest, subjugation and punitive annihilation that involved vary little in saving and appreciating the culture and learning of the vanquished.

 

It's difficult to retain any lasting records of any means under these conditions. You are left with archaeological evidence of looted tombs and fragments of burnt pottery in most cases. It would be very unlikely that any type of written information that is not etched in stone would survive this period, let alone the following 4 millennia.

Edited September 9, 2013 by arc

[cladking]

Are you basing any of this on something you can point to as evidence or are you just making it up as you go?

 

The difficulty here is in no way the lack of evidence.

 

 

While there is very little evidence and it tends to be low grade evidence it's scope and range is very impressive. Meanwhile there is no evidence whatsoever to support the paradigms that say our ancestors were superstitious other than the projection of ideas and beliefs from thousands of years later. While the quality of the evidence tends to be poor, all of the known facts fit this interpretation and no facts support the paradigm. The paradigm leaves only mysteries and the idea the language changed answers all the questions including why this wasn't discovered previously. Truth to tell, I believe when (if) this is looked at in hindsight most would agree that the evidence is already pretty solid even though Egyptologists refuse to do the scientific work that would prove it or to allow others to do it. There is simply too broad a range of evidence for me to believe it's happenstance.

 

The fact that there is no recorded history before 2000 BC could be considered highly telling. This is the closest thing to high grade evidence until science is done. When you hear of battles before 2000 BC they are simply extrapolated from pictures on pallettes or a line on the Palermo Stone. There is no independent confirmation of such events. Since the language isn't understood even those things that seem obvious might not be real at all. No battlefields have been excavated and no cemeteries found full of young men who died at the same time. Everything is based on assumption wirth the least legitimate assumption being that nothing changed in the religion or culture for 1000 years.

 

The problem is that modern day culture is virtually gounded on the concept that our ancestors were superstitious and highly primitive so dislodging this belief requires not only that I show the facts of the matter but also how flimsy and insubstantial the basis of our beliefs are. People are married to their beliefs so they can't even entertain the notion that there are simpler and more rational explanations of the little evidence we do have.

 

The most damning single piece of evidence against the paradigm is its absolute inability to make predictions. They've been arguing ramp configurations for building great pyramids for countless decades but the the literature says exactly how they built it and it is in evidence; they pulled stones up a step at a time. The paradigm has failed to answer basic questions not only about the Egyptians and their practices but about all people. It has left even recorded history with no foundations and no precedents. It has come to seem natural to us that this should be the case so this is an argument that must wait but it does explain things like alchemy and the story of the Tower of Babel. It does explain other ancient (yet modern language) texts including some of the hermetic texts.

 

It certainly explains how superstitious and primitive stone age peoples could have competed with those who used observation and logic; they didn't. They couldn't have competed because the non-superstitious people would forever be eating their lunch.

 

Using the information in the ancient language has already been sufficient to debunk ramps as a means of lifting stones to build pyramids. This debunkment employs a significant amount of factual and evidential information but isn't relevant here. The point is that if ramps are debunked on the basis of the ancient literature then it probably follows that it is written in a natural language that hasn't been understood in the past. It also follows that these people put a lot of time and effort into all the natural sciences before 2000 BC but that their conclusions are largely lost (at least mislaid). This would account for how they knew that some dry land had once been in the ocean just as they actually stated. They simply would have known that the fossils which comprise the Great Pyramid could only have formed in the ocean. They could have written books about it and we wouldn't know.

 

A far better question than do I have any evidence is do Egyptologists have any evidence that the ancients were superstitious bumpkins. When they start trotting out volume after volume be sure to filter out everything dependent on the assumption that the Egyptians never changed because there will be nothing at all left. There are no books so everything gets interpreted in terms of an era that there were books.

 

We need answers to some basic questions and these answers will point to more questions. The most important thing at this point is to determine how the pyramids were actually built with some simple infrared imaging. But in seven years this is happening. The past is held hostage by thoise who can't entertain the possibility they are wrong. This isn't to say there are no other ways to prove these points and in my opinion the logic is pretty strong as it exists. I simply don't know any other way at this point in time to prove ancient people didn't speak gobblety gook than to prove beyond doubt that they meant exactly what they said. They meant it literally and were accurate when the said the dead king watered the land after itr came out of the ocean. Just because we don't talk or think this way doesn't mean those who did were primitive and superstitious. It might merely mean they employed a science that we never even thought of. They used observation and logic rather than observation and experiment. This is probably the nature of nature itself. Man once was a part of and a force of nature as was his language. The ancient word for nature was "neter" which we mistranslate as "god" so in actuality they spoke the "words of nature". We speak a confused language. It is symbolic where words take their meaning from context.

 

I believe you are not taking into account that these city states and their cultural histories up to and during this "dark period" you define were highly militarized and engaged in wars of conquest, subjugation and punitive annihilation that involved vary little in saving and appreciating the culture and learning of the vanquished.

 

It's difficult to retain any lasting records of any means under these conditions. You are left with archaeological evidence of looted tombs and fragments of burnt pottery in most cases. It would be very unlikely that any type of written information that is not etched in stone would survive this period, let alone the following 4 millennia.

 

 

Excellent point. Thank you.

 

I'm dubious though this this could account for 100% attrition. You'd have to also postulate that all structures were inflammable and that they were all burned. Anything short of 100% attrition would be expected to result in a reprinting of the old texts but none of these were recopied later other than lists.

 

To me this is a strong suggestion that the old texts were untranslatable or incomprehensible. Based on the existence of what we actually see the suggestion is they were incomprehensible. It appears people tried to save the science in various ways such as the invention of religion (gods).

 

It appears that people 4000 years ago misunderstood this stuff in a very similar way to how we misunderstand it.

[Delta1212]

You keep saying that there is a great deal of evidence, but I'm not clear on what that evidence is.

[cladking]

You keep saying that there is a great deal of evidence, but I'm not clear on what that evidence is.

 

Ok, I'll open up a new thread later to deal with the physical evidence which is OT here.

 

 

 

 

We each have our own perspective and my perspective on this has evoilved over time to closely match what I believe is the ancient Egyptian perspective. I believe I have a fairly good understanding of the PT despite the fact it's written in natural language and poorly translated. I believe I solved the PT by discovery of referents through context and the writers were highly sophisticated and intelligent. They were very knowledgeable about nature and its nuances. I'm sure their knowledge exceeded ours in a few limited areas. It's really extremely extensive knowledge and it wouldn't have been solved without google and images that can be searched. They had a very very different way of thinking and expressing themselves.

 

It is the pyramids themselves which have been the focus of my study but as seen through the eyes of the builders. I've worked for years to get the Egyptologists to do any of the science but none at all has been done. No real science has happened at Giza since 1986 when it was essentially proiven ramps weren't used. But further research and data gathering is indicated anbd they won't do it and won't allow others to do it. Instead they continue to trowel for ramps and drill holes in the pyramid and under the Sphinx and filling important infrastructure with concrete.

 

Again though, you must bear in mind that the quality of the evidence is not so impressive as its scope and that it all supports a literal interpretation of the ancient writing. There is a strong implication that nothing changed in human beliefs or practices until the mother of all changes at the Tower of Babel. Some will want to discount this just because it's in the Bible but one can always just figure there were two separate events and the Bible version is wrong. Frankly I suspect even if it's right that it has the location wrong.

 

Maybe it was Babel University in a different city.

 

The Pyramid Texts is comprehensible and I can show it but can't prove it until basic science is done.

[Strange]

There is not a single book or manuscript on paper or papyrus from before 2000 BC anywhere in thwe world. None exist. There are scraps and fragments of paper with a few words on them but no complete sentences. There are no books from before 2500 BC in any form at all. None.

 

Of course not. This is before the invention of writing.

 

 

Pretty much the only ancient writing that survives (and the only corpus) was inscribed in something. There were no books. The inscribed words are almost strictly (at least by percentage) incomprehensible gobblety gook.

Well, it is hardly surprising that stone or clay would last longer than vegetable matter.

 

And, with a few exceptions, they are not incomprehensible.

 

And the word is gobbledygook. GOBBLEDYGOOK.

 

 

I don't know what happened to all those books that no longer exist.

 

Here's an idea: they never existed.

 

As you have zero evidence that this books existed, then it is hardly surprising that they no longer exist.

 

I assume the reason that you think evidence would be off topic is because the topic of this thread is "stuff I made up".

[cladking]

 

Of course not. This is before the invention of writing.

 

 

 

 

The first writing dates back 1200 years earlier.

 

Some "proto-writing" may be even older.

[Delta1212]

The physical evidence for the subject under discussion isn't off topic. I'm pretty sure it's actually required by the forum rules.

[cladking]

The physical evidence for the subject under discussion isn't off topic. I'm pretty sure it's actually required by the forum rules.

 

 

It's not my thread. The topic is essentially whether or not the ancients had a concept or a memory of evolution. While my work answers this strongly affirmatively any other discussion borders on being OT. I am happy to continue the discussion as it is relevant and will start a new thread later (probably tonight) to support the proof that there was a distinct ancient language that described how the king and the stones ascended on the great pyramids. As such it's relevant but there's a great deal of discussion that could be engendered and I believe it would be considered thread hijacking.

 

I do intend to link back to this thread.

[arc]

arc, on 08 Sept 2013 - 10:43 PM, said:

I believe you are not taking into account that these city states and their cultural histories up to and during this "dark period" you define were highly militarized and engaged in wars of conquest, subjugation and punitive annihilation that involved vary little in saving and appreciating the culture and learning of the vanquished.

It's difficult to retain any lasting records of any means under these conditions. You are left with archaeological evidence of looted tombs and fragments of burnt pottery in most cases. It would be very unlikely that any type of written information that is not etched in stone would survive this period, let alone the following 4 millennia.

 

Excellent point. Thank you.

 

I'm dubious though this this could account for 100% attrition. You'd have to also postulate that all structures were inflammable and that they were all burned. Anything short of 100% attrition would be expected to result in a reprinting of the old texts but none of these were recopied later other than lists.

 

To me this is a strong suggestion that the old texts were untranslatable or incomprehensible. Based on the existence of what we actually see the suggestion is they were incomprehensible. It appears people tried to save the science in various ways such as the invention of religion (gods).

 

It appears that people 4000 years ago misunderstood this stuff in a very similar way to how we misunderstand it.

 

Let me suggest that the vast majority of the solders in the invading army were illiterate. Those that could read would be in a command role or as scribes in a military/diplomatic communication role between allied armies and their command, be it a general or king etc. This armies purpose is murder, rape and pillage in mass proportions. The invaders have little interest in saving a written language that is not their own. And if it was, almost all could not read it anyway.

 

Something that does not readily come to mind is how these ancient peoples were so much like modern people everywhere. A common practice by people throughout history has been to re-purpose all types of materials. Was this the fate of your missing body of knowledge. As a fire starter or bird cage liner, was it papyrus, vellum, parchment or clay?

 

Let's not forget the fate of most Sears catalogs during the late 19th century.

Edited September 10, 2013 by arc

[Strange]

The first writing dates back 1200 years earlier.

 

Some "proto-writing" may be even older.

 

I know. If you remember, I pointed that out to you. (Although for some reason you rejected that out of hand.)

 

There are no books that pre-date the invention of writing because, at that time, there was no form of writing. How hard is it to understand that?

 

If you believe there was then you will need to provide some evidence. But, as you admit, there is no such evidence. Therefore you are just making this up. It is fantasy, not science.

It's not my thread. The topic is essentially whether or not the ancients had a concept or a memory of evolution.

 

After 4 pages of your made-up stories about ancient writing systems and languages that didn't exist, now you worry about taking the thread off topic?

 

You have already hijacked the thread. You might as well provide some support for this nonsense.

By the way, there is a very interesting discussion to be had about the psychological and social effects that make societies very reluctant to adapt proto-writing to a full writing system able to fully represent a language. This is one reason why it has always taken a long time to go from proto-writing (lists of goods, accounts, basic calculations, etc) to full writing.

 

How much have you actually studied historical linguistics or the development and/or decoding of writing systems? I wonder because you make some grand claims (like having read all ancient texts!) that I don't think any expert in the field would make.

[cladking]

 

Let me suggest that the vast majority of the solders in the invading army were illiterate. Those that could read would be in a command role or as scribes in a military/diplomatic communication role between allied armies and their command, be it a general or king etc. This armies purpose is murder, rape and pillage in mass proportions. The invaders have little interest in saving a written language that is not their own. And if it was, almost all could not read it anyway.

 

Something that does not readily come to mind is how these ancient peoples were so much like modern people everywhere. A common practice by people throughout history has been to re-purpose all types of materials. Was this the fate of your missing body of knowledge. As a fire starter or bird cage liner, was it papyrus, vellum, parchment or clay?

 

Let's not forget the fate of most Sears catalogs during the late 19th century.

 

It's my opinion that the ancient people were not nearly so war like as is usually suggested. I doubt they even had the capability to fight at great distances due to logistical problems. My guess based on my understanding is that most battles were skirmishes and both sides were usually close to home. There were expeditionary forces sent out to Nubia and to battle "troglodytes" as recorded on the Palermo Stone but there's not substantial or verifiable evidence of extensive warfare before 2000 BC. Since no books survive this could be jumping to conclusions.

 

Even were there lots of wars and battles there's no reason to suppose every single copy of every book could be destroyed. Even a single copy could be preserved and duplicated so something should have survived barring an organized attempt to eradicate books or some other reason such as language change rendering them incomprehensible.

 

Here's a link to the physical evidence proving such a change. I have virtually overwhelming evidence though it is, unsurprisingly, mostly low grade. But there is one exceedingly high grade aspect to it; it has a very high predictative capability. This can really only be the result of the simple fact that it's generally true.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/78598-pyramids-through-the-eyes-of-the-builders/

[arc]

 

It's my opinion that the ancient people were not nearly so war like as is usually suggested.

 

Humans have been constantly at war with each other somewhere on this earth for all of recorded history. We find remains, fragments really, of prehistoric settlements that show signs of violence and burning. We are a warring and savage species.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

 

Keeley says peaceful societies are an exception. About 90-95% of known societies engage in war. Those that did not are almost universally either isolated nomadic groups (for whom flight is an option), groups of defeated refugees, or small enclaves under the protection of a larger modern state. The attrition rate of numerous close-quarter clashes, which characterize warfare in tribal warrior society, produces casualty rates of up to 60%.

 

He makes three conclusions which the New York Times considers unexpected:

• that the most important part of any society, even the most war-like ones, are the peaceful aspects such as art
• that neither frequency nor intensity of war is correlated with population density
• that societies frequently trading with one another fight more wars with one another

[cladking]

 

 

We are a warring and savage species.

 

 

 

 

I don't doubt in the least that there is some truth to this.

 

However, I believe that at least some conflict is mostly the result of poor communication.

[Delta1212]

 

I don't doubt in the least that there is some truth to this.

 

However, I believe that at least some conflict is mostly the result of poor communication.

Some of it, yes. Much of it results from fundamental conflicts of interest, such as "You have something I want." Most of the miscommunication boils down to situations where you didn't really have it, I didn't really want it, or I could have gotten it just as easily without killing you.

[arc]

Some of it, yes. Much of it results from fundamental conflicts of interest, such as "You have something I want." Most of the miscommunication boils down to situations where you didn't really have it, I didn't really want it, or I could have gotten it just as easily without killing you.

 

There is something special about absolute rule, that allows the use of a solder as an expendable utensil, a single use weapon if so desired. You could allow their dead bodies to pile up to fill a trench in antiquity or over barbed wire on an island in the South Pacific during WWII.

[Sayonara]

I believe things like dam building in beavers and fungus farming in termites is far too complicated behaviors to be the result of natural selection.

Your belief isn't really relevant though. There is a surfeit of academic material on such matters. It's not as if nobody ever came up with the idea of looking into a genetic basis for innate behaviours.

 

 

Nature can't select for those who build rockets until someone builds a rocket.

False analogy. The ability of people to build rockets is not in the slightest bit comparable to hard-wired instinctive behaviours in other animals.

 

 

I believe the simplest explanation is we are looking at the problem wrong. People tend to believe that humans alone are intelligent and that humans got here from highly superstitious ancestors who thought they could talk to gods and animals. Logic suggests we are mistaken. Observation suggests it's not intelligence that sets man apart but language.

Yes, language certainly does set man apart in some ways. But consider this: other species have language too. Some have both language and intelligence. Clearly it's not such a simple case as being down to just one or the other, and we are as we are due to a combination of intelligence and language, and considerable complexity in each.

 

 

I think it took a long time to domesticate animals and grow crops because it is extremely complicated. It couldn't begin until there was enough theory to support it which means man had to understand some genetics and the myriad other subjects necessary. Obviously they didn't understand DNA and the like but they had to observe how offspring were like and dislike their parents. They had to know how to care for the animals at less expense than their ultimate value as farm produce or meat. They had to know the hydration requirements or risk expending more effort than the value of the animals. A huge amount of knowledge was necessary. They also would require some sort of security or human marauders would make off with their handiwork. A great deal of sophistication was absolutely required abnd this sophistication is reflected in the evidence. It is merely opinion that the ancients were superstitious and this opinion is founded almost solely on what, I believe, is obvious misinterpretation of the written material that survives. The interpretation is simply illogical and not even consistent with the written material. In each case what is said is interpreted to mean something else.

I think you're getting a bit confused as to what I am proposing, so I will state it in as straightforward a way as I can:

 

- Civilisation exploded and became technological because the accurate, contradictable, and permanent recording system called "writing" largely replaced the old system called "remembering the stuff people have told you, whether it's actually useful or not".

 

This certainly doesn't contradict the idea that ancient people were not capable of surviving their own lives, and it doesn't necessarily contradict the idea that they had a degree of sophistication in their language (whatever form that took). But what it does do is show pretty clearly that an oral tradition is not terribly helpful outside small, proximal groups of individuals. Not if you expect to be able to hold them against modern standards or the collective output of civilisation.

[cladking]

Your belief isn't really relevant though. There is a surfeit of academic material on such matters. It's not as if nobody ever came up with the idea of looking into a genetic basis for innate behaviours.

 

False analogy. The ability of people to build rockets is not in the slightest bit comparable to hard-wired instinctive behaviours in other animals.

 

 

 

So far as I am aware there is no known means at this time to read behaviors such as dam building in the DNA of beavers. We say they are hard wired to this and there may well be some truth to this but it's unlikely that the first dam built by a beaver was "hard wired" into it. I'm not denying instinct by any means. I'm merely suggesting that any animal must have some basic understanding to function in unknown situations (other than fight or flight) and complicated behaviors must be learned after the understanding makes the behavior possible.

 

Gunpowder burned rapidly and exploded if it was confined. Perhaps it was an accident caused by the explosion not being completely confined that led to the first rocket but the individual who saw and perfected it had to understand the theory behind it rto accomplish the task. Nothing has ever really changed. What sets man apart is the ability to pass down very complex learning not only through apprenticeship, oral tradition, and various forms of writing but also our relative dexterity and some simple cleverness. It's much too easy to overestimate human cleverness since most of what appears to cleverness is actually learning.

 

There's no evidence other species have such complicated language as we do. Most appear to have no more than a few hundred words. Even if these are arranged in something like computer code the amount of information that can be passed and the complexity of the ideas must surely be rather limited. Perhaps there are other human characteristics that come into play as well but it seems most improbable that language isn't the primary source of our power. Human males have always had a need to impress the females for instance but this is probably not a strictly human characteristic.

 

- Civilisation exploded and became technological because the accurate, contradictable, and permanent recording system called "writing" largely replaced the old system called "remembering the stuff people have told you, whether it's actually useful or not".

 

 

 

This is exactly the point though. The first thing a writing system would record is all the knowledge, oral tradition, and history that existed at the time writing was invented. This simply doesn't exist. To my knowledge there simply is no comprehensible writing between 3200 BC and 2000 BC. I know there is nothing Egyptian from this era other than what is said to be religious writing but none of it is comprehensible. Every book fronm before 2000 BC didn't survive. A few ancient works were transcribed early in the 2nd millineum BC but in each case these works are primarily lists. Most of the other surviving writing are titles and labels. Are we to believe the ancients wrote only one word sentences and religious mumbo jumbo? This is most highly improbable.

 

It appears from the PT that the entire vocabulary might have consisted of about 15,000 words. This seems insufficient to express all the ideas we do today. Many words now are highly esoteric or archaic but most people use more words than this in everyday conversation.

 

To me it always comes down to the same question; where is the ancient writing and evidence for their extensive theory.

 

This certainly doesn't contradict the idea that ancient people were not capable of surviving their own lives, and it doesn't necessarily contradict the idea that they had a degree of sophistication in their language (whatever form that took). But what it does do is show pretty clearly that an oral tradition is not terribly helpful outside small, proximal groups of individuals. Not if you expect to be able to hold them against modern standards or the collective output of civilisation.

 

 

I'm not certain I see the connection.

 

I'm not certain I'm even impressed by most modern communication outside of math and science. It seem most communication is clumsy at best. It seems a miracle anytime two people are on the same subject and doubly so when I'm one of them.

[Strange]

 

The first thing a writing system would record is all the knowledge, oral tradition, and history that existed at the time writing was invented.

 

That is a ridiculous assumption. For one thing, we know from experience as well as history that when writing is introduced to a culture there has always been a reluctance to write down oral traditions. This is partly because the oral transmission process itself is considered very important and surrounded by many rituals (it has to be, in order to be effective) and also because the stories themselves are considered too important and/or sacred to be "cheapened" by being written down.

 

Writing is initially used for trade, administration, laws and recording the achievements of the king/ruler.

 

 

This simply doesn't exist.

The absence of something that no one (who has actually studied the subject) would expect is hardly evidence of anything.

 

 

To my knowledge there simply is no comprehensible writing between 3200 BC and 2000 BC.

And, as has been repeatedly pointed out, this is not true.

 

Are you now lying deliberately to try and maintain this fictional history?

 

 

It seem most communication is clumsy at best.

 

Yours frequently is, that is for sure. It takes a lot of interpolation and guesswork to understand what you are talking about.

[Sayonara]

So far as I am aware there is no known means at this time to read behaviors such as dam building in the DNA of beavers.

Nobody is making that claim. The claim that is made - and which is backed up by reams of actual science - is that it is empirically demonstrable that complex behaviours can arise from selection events.

 

We say they are hard wired to this and there may well be some truth to this but it's unlikely that the first dam built by a beaver was "hard wired" into it.

Again, that wasn't the claim. Go back and read. Selection events such as that work by incrementation, not sudden invocation.

 

I'm not denying instinct by any means. I'm merely suggesting that any animal must have some basic understanding to function in unknown situations (other than fight or flight) and complicated behaviors must be learned after the understanding makes the behavior possible.

We know that there are many animals that can perform apparently complex tasks. For example, an octopus learning how to access reward items inside a screwed-shut jar. Many bird species can perform similar tasks and adapt to condition changes in the scenario. As I said, there is a surfeit of material available about these behaviours. Then there are more advanced animals like chimps and dolphins that have highly complex interacting behaviours from which social interactions and linguistics have emerged. They could be viewed as the transitional phase between "selection-invoked" behaviours, and the more heuristic, situation-dependent, apparently "free-willed" behaviours that we display.

 

I'd strongly suggest reading up on the behavioural sciences in biology prior to attempting to speak on it with authority. It's relevant to what you're talking about, and knowing the material will prevent faulty assumptions.

 

Gunpowder burned rapidly and exploded if it was confined. Perhaps it was an accident caused by the explosion not being completely confined that led to the first rocket but the individual who saw and perfected it had to understand the theory behind it rto accomplish the task. Nothing has ever really changed. What sets man apart is the ability to pass down very complex learning not only through apprenticeship, oral tradition, and various forms of writing but also our relative dexterity and some simple cleverness. It's much too easy to overestimate human cleverness since most of what appears to cleverness is actually learning.

I think it's easy to confuse, and thereby treat in the same way, two critically separate ideas:

• That humans see something happening and learn to duplicate it consistently,
• That humans understand why that thing happens and how their consistency is obtained.

 

There's no evidence other species have such complicated language as we do. Most appear to have no more than a few hundred words. Even if these are arranged in something like computer code the amount of information that can be passed and the complexity of the ideas must surely be rather limited.

The more we come to understand dolphins, the more complex we find them to be. Their vocabulary might not have anywhere near as many symbols as ours does, but the thing with symbols is that they can be recombined. And recombination frequently leads to novel usage.

 

This is quite an interesting talk on the matter: http://www.ted.com/talks/denise_herzing_could_we_speak_the_language_of_dolphins.html

 

 

Perhaps there are other human characteristics that come into play as well but it seems most improbable that language isn't the primary source of our power. Human males have always had a need to impress the females for instance but this is probably not a strictly human characteristic.

I think possibly language in its own right is not the super-ultimate-key, but as I alluded to earlier it's quite likely how we have used it that has made such a rapid difference to our species.

 

 

This is exactly the point though. The first thing a writing system would record is all the knowledge, oral tradition, and history that existed at the time writing was invented.

That's an assumption.

 

This simply doesn't exist. To my knowledge there simply is no comprehensible writing between 3200 BC and 2000 BC. I know there is nothing Egyptian from this era other than what is said to be religious writing but none of it is comprehensible. Every book fronm before 2000 BC didn't survive. A few ancient works were transcribed early in the 2nd millineum BC but in each case these works are primarily lists. Most of the other surviving writing are titles and labels. Are we to believe the ancients wrote only one word sentences and religious mumbo jumbo? This is most highly improbable.

Why should people not have used this new technology to record what was important to them at the time? Why should every literate person suddenly think "ah ha! time to record all of our knowledge for posterity"? New technologies aren't always immediately applied to the aim that they will best serve. That is true now, despite us being in the age of design, and I don't see why it should not have been true when writing first appeared.

 

 

I'm not certain I'm even impressed by most modern communication outside of math and science. It seem most communication is clumsy at best. It seems a miracle anytime two people are on the same subject and doubly so when I'm one of them.

 

For the purposes of modern man, you could take the design of a micro-processor to be a form of communication. Or the mapping of the genome. Those are pretty awesome practical consequences of our ability to communicate precisely. I think you grossly undervalue this ability, although based on the way some people communicate I can't necessarily say I blame you.

[cladking]

Nobody is making that claim. The claim that is made - and which is backed up by reams of actual science - is that it is empirically demonstrable that complex behaviours can arise from selection events.

 

Again, that wasn't the claim. Go back and read. Selection events such as that work by incrementation, not sudden invocation.

 

 

 

I'm unaware of such research. I know from experience that just a few generations of insects are sufficient to cause changes in their behavior through selection. But none of these behaviors I've observed can be considered really complex like dam building. Just a few generations of swatting flies on tables will create a generation that will land on the bottoms of objects rather than the tops.

We know that there are many animals that can perform apparently complex tasks. For example, an octopus learning how to access reward items inside a screwed-shut jar. Many bird species can perform similar tasks and adapt to condition changes in the scenario. As I said, there is a surfeit of material available about these behaviours. Then there are more advanced animals like chimps and dolphins that have highly complex interacting behaviours from which social interactions and linguistics have emerged. They could be viewed as the transitional phase between "selection-invoked" behaviours, and the more heuristic, situation-dependent, apparently "free-willed" behaviours that we display.

 

 

I believe animals are nearly as intelligent as humans and that in some ways some are more intelligent than humans.

 

There have been stories of tremendous intelligence in octopi for centuries, if not longer.

 

Why should people not have used this new technology to record what was important to them at the time? Why should every literate person suddenly think "ah ha! time to record all of our knowledge for posterity"? New technologies aren't always immediately applied to the aim that they will best serve. That is true now, despite us being in the age of design, and I don't see why it should not have been true when writing first appeared.

 

 

Yes, that they would write things down is an assumption. If there were any history from the early days of writing then we would know if they wrote things down. The blackout before 2000 BC is indicative of the concept but hardly proof. It's not like the first writing is a treatise on the unimportance of recording oral history. It seems logical enough that everything important would be recorded in the first few centuries and nothing like this survives. Let's just say it is an assumption based on my understanding of the people and can't stand unless I'm right.

 

 

For the purposes of modern man, you could take the design of a micro-processor to be a form of communication. Or the mapping of the genome. Those are pretty awesome practical consequences of our ability to communicate precisely. I think you grossly undervalue this ability, although based on the way some people communicate I can't necessarily say I blame you.

 

When it comes to math and science our ability to communicate is superb. Two computer programmers can communicate complex ideas precisely. People are intelligent, just not nearly as much so as we all think. Most everyday communication is poor.

 

That is a ridiculous assumption. For one thing, we know from experience as well as history that when writing is introduced to a culture there has always been a reluctance to write down oral traditions. This is partly because the oral transmission process itself is considered very important and surrounded by many rituals (it has to be, in order to be effective) and also because the stories themselves are considered too important and/or sacred to be "cheapened" by being written down.

 

 

Modern people wade into an indigenous population who speak a modern language and try to force them to accept a written form of that language. How can this possibly be relevant to the inventors of writing?

 

As I mentioned earlier if you had read my post, people don't like change. They resist it but there are various leaders from government to business who have interests in change. While the changes that drive history go from the bottom up, the changes that drive change come from the top down. Demand drives history, leaders drive change.

 

You are trying to force your perspective onto all other people at all other times. This is the same mistake the Egyptologists make. They don't understand the language so they assume the writers must have been stinky footed bumpkins. Since they believed evwen their gods needed to be told not to walk through corpse drippings then they were very superstitious. Everything flows from these misunderstandings.

Edited September 15, 2013 by cladking

[Strange]

 

I'm unaware of such research. I know from experience that just a few generations of insects are sufficient to cause changes in their behavior through selection. But none of these behaviors I've observed can be considered really complex like dam building.

Great. Because you are unaware of the research and you haven't seen it happen, then it is impossible.

 

 

Let's just say it is an assumption based on my understanding of the people and can't stand unless I'm right.

But you have already shown that your understanding is woefully inadequate. Or, to be generous, highly selective.

 

 

Modern people wade into an indigenous population who speak a modern language and try to force them to accept a written form of that language. How can this possibly be relevant to the inventors of writing?

Strawman.

 

 

They don't understand the language

You mean they do understand the language but, oddly, their understanding contradicts your made-up meanings for words.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Strange