From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri May 23 2003 - 09:14:40 MDT
Anders Sandberg wrote:
> HG tribes are
> small and everybody is more or less in constant touch, so
> there is no need for internal memos. The shaman might benefit
> by noting down the sacred stories to give to his successor,
> but is that benefit larger than the effort to prepare the
> leaves and ink?
You keep making good points about how competition between humans and between
large groups of humans in the post-agricultural revolution world helped to
fuel advancements like writing and math. I agree. The greater complexity of
the new societies certainly must have accelerated our intellectual progress.
However it is important to realize also that the most remarkable
achievements of the human mind did not happen as a result agriculture or its
ramifications. The "Great Leap Forward" for humanity is better dated circa
40,000 BC. It was then that symbolism, art and other forms of communication
became widespread.
This is to say that we were already clearly on the path to the development
of math and written language long before we started sowing seeds, stealing
the milk of animals, and building businesses and cities. It would seem that
large complex competitive societies were as much a result of our symbolic
capacities as they were a cause of them.
-gts
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