RE: The mistake of agriculture (was: evolution and diet)

From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon May 26 2003 - 13:02:43 MDT

  • Next message: Mike Lorrey: "Re: Reminiscence and telling stories [was: Suns considered harmful]"

    Damien S wrote:

    > So, we hit that point 50,000 years ago. What's the evidence of progress
    > between then and the actual invention of writing, less than 10,000
    > years ago?

    I believe there would be fantastic evidence of the progress from 50k to 10k
    BC but for the fact that paleos were nomadic hunter-gatherers with
    relatively little use for written symbols.

    Obviously the human mind was already pretty well equipped for math and
    written language by the time of agriculture. Why is that, do you think?

    I think it was because verbal language was already well developed by that
    time.

    Consider that the spoken word is an abstract scribble on the listener's
    eardrums made by manipulating soundwaves with the mouth, much like the
    written word is an abstract scribble on the reader's retinas made by
    manipulating lightwaves with the fingers.

    After mastering the first skill, the second skill would have come naturally
    and without thousands or millions of years of evolution.

    -gts

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon May 26 2003 - 13:13:35 MDT