down up contents guide
Neandertal and The Locket
January 1, 2001
- Introduction: Lucy, Neandertal, and The Magical Tomato
- Not an apple, silly, a tomato . . .
Lucy and Neanderthal:
Affection, Cognition, and The Magical Tomato
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By Neil Robert Miller
neil@imaginenine.com
neilrm@slip.net
http://imaginenine.com
draft edition and first posting:
November 30, 2000
(most recent passage, October, 2001)
- Earlier Site Update: September 6th, 2001
- Math, China, Women, Children . . . 67 titles (listings only)
- Bibliography Update - One-Page Adobe Acrobat *.PDF file, 200k
Clues . . . 25 titles (listings only) - August 18th, 2001
The five-page "Locket" section, which contains, perhaps, the 'punchline' of this proposal,
January 1, 2001
"Silverstructure" contrasts the two principle high-level frameworks, with the two primary low-level sets of issues, and sets the stage for the Logical Types explanation. It explains why the Logical Types explanation matters to persons interested in political, social, environmental, or personal issues.
"Engraving", is the sketch of the three-hour 'Logical Types' (© nrm) explanation itself, here mapped into 50, three-minute segments.
The five-page file, either in black and white for printing, or in color, are complete manuscripts, and include a title page, a bibliography page ('Diamonds'), and a summary page ('Pearls').
For the color Acrobat *.pdf version, click here. (about 700 k)
"Silverstructure" by itself is available in a *.gif image file, at 1020 pixels across.
Click here for 'Sliverstructure' only, in color *.gif format (about 300k).
Click here for 'Silverstructure' only, in b&w Acrobat *.pdf (about 100 k)
Related papers by this author at this web-site:
Neanderthal and The Locket --- Affection and Mathematics --- January 2001
The Silver Locket --- The Proposal (Acrobat *.PDF only)--- October 2000
Beyond the Wave --- The Warm Caress of Deep History --- November 1996
The Magic Sentence --- In Pursuit of a Simple Equation --- November 1999
Schema --- Science, Medicine, and Social Relations --- March 1985
Flying Blind --- The Politics of American Science --- May 2000
The Sky Buckle --- The Science of American Politics --- March 2001
On Elections 2000 --- American Politics --- November 2000
Summary --- Science, Cognition and Frameworks --- June 1992
Bibliography --- 120 Book Reviews --- 1978-1999
Autobiography --- Notes on Discovery --- March 1994
American Pearls --- 200 Word Summary --- July 2000
While the following paper is organized so as to begin with earlier things, and conclude with later things and is designed to be read as a whole, I suspect that some readers are not going to read through the whole thing right away.
So, I'd like to point out some sections that I think will be either of particular interest to readers, or that I think are particularly crucial to the purpose of this paper.
Although almost every section has its particular importance, in most cases presenting something new to most readers, there are a couple of sections that I think, or hope anyway, will be of particular, immediate interest.
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It is located at: V. On Upright Walking - Posture, Affection, Cognition, Intelligence, Solving.
In this section I summarize my understanding of just why "upright posture", "affection", and "attractiveness" led to increased brain size.
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The simpleness to understand, of each of their respective central discoveries, figures in prominently to this entire project.
That section is to be found here: XVIII. The Simpleton and The Rambler - Einstein, Darwin, Marx, and Freud
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It is located at XX. A Medieval Tale - Fear Of Cognition. It's got some major political relevance, I think.
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It is located here: XI. On Metaphors - Dangers of "Running With" Metaphors
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The following is the Table of Contents for this review. The round numbers to the left are the approximate word count in each section.
By clicking on a section, you can jump right to that section, and from it, hopefully, navigate to anywhere else in the paper.
Perhaps glancing over this table, may help give a sense of the rhyme and reason for the organization of this paper.
Lucy and Neanderthal: Affection, Cognition, and The Magical Tomato
10,000 . . . . A. Evolution, Affection, and Neandertal
1500 . . . . II On Reading Shreeve's Book - Setting The Stage
1000 . . . . III. Four Million Year Summary - Five Stages From Apes To Humans
2000 . . . . IV. Eve And Neandertal - Dispersal And Interaction
5000 . . . . V. On Upright Walking - Posture, Affection, Cognition, Intelligence, Solving
10,000 . . . . B. What's New In Sapiens
2500 . . . . VII. Type Two Logic - Tomato Magic
2500 . . . . VIII. On Politics and Science- Volitility, Rebellion, and Solving
1000 . . . . IX. Advancement in Evolution And In Science - Parallel Progression
1500 . . . . X. Reality, Including Systems, As Separate From The Observer The Internal Observer
3,000 . . . . C. On Understanding Natural Science
700 . . . . XII. On Extinction - Timely, and Untimely Passing
700 . . . . XIII. On The Cultural Explosion of 30,000 Years Ago - Meeting Up; Making Friends
1500 . . . . XIV. The Shrubs And The Trees Health and Harm - Accurate/Inaccurate, Not Intrepretation
2,000 . . . . D. As Time Goes By
1000 . . . . XVI. The Representative - Of Lucy, Martin, and Eve
10,000 . . . . E. Science and Heartbreak
5,000 . . . . F. Politics
3000 . . . . XX. A Medieval Tale - Fear Of Cognition
3,000 . . . . G. Proposal
C. On Understanding Natural Science . . . . 3,000
Bringing social and political matters into the clear-light-of-day, also makes clear a universally self-evident and consistant defination for what constitutes healthy courses of action, and what constitutes harmful courses of action.
Thus, just as arithmetic has made it possible to consistently measure amounts of physical objects, and so, to make accurate calculations regarding them, so Logical Types (© nrm) makes it possible to consistently measure and quantify combinations of physical things, that is, concepts and ideas, and determine their universal accuracy or inaccuracy, and universal helpfulness or harmfulness.
Unlike Arithmetic, in which solving is done by directly adding one quantity to another, Logical Types is more akin to piecing together piecies of a puzzle to come up with an accurate, larger solution.
In both cases, you wind up with a sum.
But in the case of arithmetic, it's a larger amount of the same thing.
In the case of Logical Types though, you wind up with a different thing entirely, a solution that is of vastly greater value to life, than "the sum of it's parts" (as the expression goes). A different "type" of thing altogether, but still holding to the same rules of accuracy and inaccuracy.
It might seem like magic at first, but like arithmetic, and even simpler to understand; it's just math, self-evident, same for everyone, entirely consistent calculations.
Arithmetic too, might seem like magic to someone who didn't know it, adding different amounts together to get an exact total number, all those funny symbols, +, -, x, /, =, and all those squggly numbers, what do they mean . . . but very very quickly, anyone can see that it isn't magic, but just obvious, simple logic, three plus two equals five. Not magic, just very simple and very convienent.
Rather than just adding numbers though like in arithmetic, logical types is more like putting together a puzzle, fitting things together, but it's still just logic and math. Less symbols than in arithmetic though, and easier to understand. And once explained, also, like arithmetic, just very simple and very convienent. Logical types makes social and political conclusions just as easy to understand, and just as easy to check calculations for accuracy, and helpfulness.
Previously, I'd had the math system down to about a one hundred thousand word book, but now I've got it down to a three hour talk, including about 50 wordless illustrations. The Whole Thing. Just Three Hours. Comprehensive.
And that's about all it takes for a person to learn it, and if they find it practical and in conformity to what makes sense to them, that's about all it takes for a person to be able to use it, and if desired, use it just automatically, and in that way, like arithmetic.
Most people can get the general idea in just a few minutes, but it takes about three hours to learn to use it in an accurate and healthy way, and to learn how to easily tell if the system is being used for harmful, or deliberately confusing purposes.
In other words, I need about three minutes to teach it, and about three hours to lock it up against abuse, and, of course, as always, locking it up against abuse is the most important part.
And for the 'lock against abuse' to really work, there has to be public awareness.
Anyway, this math system which I've discovered conforms to the general patterns of nature, and allows the much needed match-up for societal advances, a match up with the great technological advances that have been developed.
Again, from what I understand, it's not certain whether they are parallel branches, or one leading to the other.
According to Shreeve, the species difference is too big a gap, even if they physically could. Difference within species is one thing - difference BETWEEN species is another kettle of fish entirely. Both regarding desire, and regarding the physical chromosome combination.
Again, a different species. Similar to us, compared to other pre-Homo Sapiens Sapiens, but still, just too different from us to actually intermingle. Side by side living, in nearby communities, apparently yes, but not really structurally alike enough, to truly intermingle.
Perhaps this would be a good place to mention my own idea about why pre-humans developed upright posture, why "bipedalism" made such an important difference, which is entirely intertwined with why I think the brain grew so much, not just in size, but in depth.
A lot has been said about why upright walking developed in that 'advanced' ape creature, Ardipithecus, 4 million years ago, why he began walking far more upright than previous creatures. More and more, from there, to Lucy (3 million years ago) and Laetoli. And then Habilis (2 million years ago), by which time, that stunningly attractive, upright posture is a done deal.
It took two million years to get there, from 4 million years ago to 2 million years ago, but, over those two million years, maybe 70,000 generations (zowie! that's totally beyond my grasp, as to compare with everyday life 70,000 generations!??!!), but anyway, over that 70 thousand generations, the human line started out on all fours, and wound up bolt upright.
I mean, some people like to say, "and then some apes stood up", or some such. I mean, I suppose I talk that way sometimes too, but, there is a problem.
"Stood up", as usually meant, meaning to stand vertical, and walk on twos, as we understand it in every day life, well, "apes stood up" has just got to be a very different sort of thing, given it's over 70,000 generations. I mean, I guess it's ok as a metaphor . . . but . . .
(I mean, it takes me about a second and a half to 'stand up'. But, over 2,000,000 years? I mean, the dynamic has to be a little different, at least.)
Anyway, it took anywhere from 5 to 20 species changes to get there, and plenty of branches along the way.
So it was a pretty big deal. Pretty consistently changing, in that particular way, over a long period of time. Upright posture musta mattered a lot, I mean over the long term.
Seems like it took a lot of time; a lot of things had to fall into place, and keep falling into place alongside. Bone structure, circulatory system, lotsa stuff.
And alongside that increasingly upright posture, the brain size was growing enormously as well.
I look at these two things, upright posture and brain size, and I see them as twinsies, so to speak, intertwined.
So, anyway, among paleoanthropologists, they do talk a lot about the "reasons" for upright posture.
But I'm not so sure about all the reasons that they give. They give reasons for "bipedal walking" that are one or three percent, or ten percent factors at most, but I think that they're not the forty to sixty percent factors that they're cracked up to be.
I've heard of things relating to hunting, and predator/prey, the favorite theme of well-published authors, and, of course, the darling of political reactionaries everywhere.
Lessee "People stood upright so they could better see over tall grass, for hunting, and avoiding getting caught as prey". "For better grip and aim with the old javelin", for killing animals, and intimidating, and the like.
I mean, it's not like it's not easier to see better with upright walking; it is easier to see better. Sure.
But I don't think the main balance-of-operations throughout nature, is to be found in a drive to "get stuff to survive". I think that's very far under a 49% factor.
But most science writers seem to think that the "get-and-survive-first-and-foremost" idea is not only 80% of what nature's all about, but it's the only 'scientific' (but really anti-scientific) possibility on the table.
So anyway, one set of theories, is based on the paradigm that "stuff-your-face" is the way of nature, and that 70,000 generations in a row (almost) of our ancestors found it most very convenient to walk upright, because it made us better "hunters of prey", and better at avoiding falling victim to the "other hunters", big cats, and the like.
So this group claims, that for 70,000 generations, it really all comes down to "hunter/prey". I just don't think so; That's maybe a five percent group of things to take into account, but it doesn't "all come down to that", or anything. It isn't even a decisive element.
And then there are other ideas; a simple matter of more convenient transportation, over deforested regions.
I once read some comparisons, I'm sorry, I forget where (it was a paleoanthropology book I read about ten years ago), regarding 'efficient usage' of energy over long distances, in transportation, again, as a matter of long term endurance; comparisons between a horse, a big cat, a chimp, and a human. Somehow, the author's conclusion was that the human two-footed walk was, taking all things into consideration, as transportation-'efficient' or more so, as any of them.
But the current favorite of paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson (whose views I use as my own defaults, except in the few places where our views conflict), but anyway Johanson's favorite idea on the subject, and I think I recall Ian Tattersal, and maybe Shreeve, I don't remember exactly, agreeing as well, is the idea of "thermal protection".
Here the idea is that vertical walking made people's bodies less exposed to direct sunlight when spending long periods in open country. Less than half the body is directly exposed at any one time, and most of that at a steep angle, so there is less chance of the body "overheating", dying of exposure, when out in the open.
That shock of hair on top, insulates from the most direct rays, so, in the end, that small circle of profile under the direct sun has much less cooling and shielding work to do, than a horizontal animal.
Of the generally available theories that I've heard about, and there's a bunch more, the "better thermal homeostasis" idea sounds the most likely to me.
So, if that's true, or a major factor, it explains, or helps explain why Ardipithecus and Australopithecus began walking in the first place. Ok. That's seems reasonable.
But I think, that why that posture continued to evolve, once it got going in the first place, is for an entirely different reason.
And a reason that I think fits the comprehensive evidence quite well.
So I'll give my own idea about it.
So anyway how come? How come it turned out to be such a great thing for humans to walk upright? How come?
So. I have an idea about it. I don't think I've seen it, or the likes of it before. I first put it in as a paragraph in Vol. II in 1987, and mentioned it in the "Beyond The Wave" paper posted in 1996. There I was kind of excited to find confirmation and put it in as, 'as regards human evolution in particular', "In The Beginning, There Was Affection".
Or something like that. It seemed like a Biblical revelation, or something. And then, about two years ago, I wrote up a more detailed idea about it, in a private letter to The President and The First Lady, which I sent in 1999.
Here I'll try explain it in relation to the whole advance from Ardipithecus to Sapiens.
I think that the primary reason upright posture became so helpful, is because it made pre-humans increasingly attractive to one another.
When pre-human upright-walkers walked, or communicated with one another, they are standing with the most vulnerable parts of their bodies fully exposed, with faces increasingly flattened out, compared to other creatures, with faces flattened out to almost a two-dimensional, fully visible painting.
And that body form; pear-shaped, or hourglass, or round, or angular, or whatever else within the general perimeter, the attraction of it, the form itself, it seems to me, is quite likely a fundamental 'force of physics'.
And every bit as much, and in its own way, perhaps even more so, with that long-evolved "second skin"; clothes.
Well, to me, it seems quite likely, that the attractiveness that holds one proton to another, is directly manifested in the physical shape, the art, of the human body, as noticed, or received, by the central nervous system of another person.
The physics of gravity, even though it's several logical levels lower, might well turn out to be, again, in a mathematical sense, the same phenomenon as the art, and emotion, of attractiveness, in the evolution of the human form.
The physics of proton attractiveness, and evolution's sheer artwork of human attractiveness, might just very well, turn out to be one in the same.
As I used to write on the blackboard on the first day of my background classes at McAteer twenty years ago, "All Mass Is Attractive". I sensed it then and I sense it now, but I also think it now. Especially, since I've become aware of configuration.
It might turn out to be, sort of like E=MCsq.
People used to think that matter, and energy, were entirely separate realms, 'and never the twain shall meet', but there turned out to be a "translation/conversion" factor, one into the other.
As it turned out, "E" (energy) equals "M" (mass); easy to figure when you have the conversion factor, "C squared" (maximum velocity which is the speed of light, squared).
In that case, the speed of light, squared, was the conversion factor. It is how you translate the amount, in one form (mass), into the same amount, but when it's in a completely different form (energy).
Just multiply the weight of the thing, by the speed of light squared, and the numbers - how much energy is present - keep matching up with singular reality.
As it turned out, matter and energy are just different forms, of essentially, the same force.
Well, best I can tell, attractiveness, might just turn out to "translate", up and down the logical levels, "From Protons to Pluto".
Attractiveness (and it's close sister, so to speak, of course, configuration), attractiveness might turn out to be a fundamental 'force of physics', mathematically speaking the same, when comparing the whole bioecosystem, to attractiveness from proton to proton, and, well, even, the same force as in daily life, right here in river city.
I mean, art, and physics, just might turn out to translate - after all, they both have the same "grandparent", namely, mathematics.
"The survival of the prettiest", Not one person to another - that's not evolution; that's just variation; one person to another is absolutely required, equal, variation; and in evolutionary terms, from one person to another, it's all the same (the recent book by that "Prettiest' name from the department of neuroscience at Harvard, more or less proves that, or at least, shows that that's the case - we're all at the same logical level of attractiveness).
But rather, from one whole species to another; which is something else entirely, now that might turn out to be. Gravity, magnetism, attractiveness, affection from deep inside, and of course, so much more . . .
Attractiveness, and at the human level, even more, affection - from protons, to people, to pluto . . . Attractiveness, methinks, is a fundamental "Law of God", through and through . . . up and down the logical levels of this bioecosystem . . .
Like E=MCsq. . . . it just might be all connected . . . might be . . . seems to me anyway . . .
The long fabled 'theory of everything' . . . a song about the moon . . .
So anyway, the physical attractiveness face, body, vulnerability, posture - engendered a desire for one aspect of what we might call "intimacy", perhaps a desire to know something of what is in the other person's thoughts, and something of their feelings.
Perhaps to 'notice' them, I mean really, Notice them, and notice something of what's inside.
So if we discard the "survival-of-the-gene" idea, which to my mind certainly is scientifically preposterous scientifically speaking, anti-science if we discard that, then, why would such 'intimacy' be so helpful to all? Steadily and increasingly, over 70,000 generations?
What does intimacy do, that we need it so very much, over tens of thousands of generations?
If the increasing, personal attractiveness, and increasing brain size, together, is what "drove" upright posture, which I am definitely saying it is, then, why was the vulnerability, and attractiveness so decisively helpful?
And the vulnerability and attractiveness that I'm speaking of, was, of course, for and between all members of the tribe and species.
(I'd like to make no comment here about sex in particular, except to mention that I think that clothes evolved long before Sapiens - in other words, I think it's highly probable, that this species was born with its clothes on, so to speak - in order to keep sex specifically, out of the immediate foreground of most interactions, while preserving its major emotional functions, mainly manifest in selected relationships and circumstances.
(In other words, it seems to me that it makes sense, that the development of clothes, probably a couple of species back, would have allowed for ever-increasing intellectual and emotional attractiveness and closeness, among just everyone. In an overall attractive environment, with the development of clothes, non-sex relationships could become more intimate, and sexual ones, more closely bonded over time . . . or so it would seem to me . . .)
So anyway, why was what we might call, 'intimacy', among and between many people, among all, such a big deal; why did it matter so much? And what's attractiveness and intimacy got to do with the brain size advancing alongside?
My own idea is that other animals know what they know, either from what they're born knowing ('instinct'), but mainly, maybe to maybe a 70 % degree or more, know what they know from their own personal experience.
Besides genetic instinct, just about all of what they know, they've found out, through their 'personal' experience. One set of eyes and ears per animal.
They've found out things, through their own set of eyes and ears. They "see the world through their own eyes only", or pretty much.
What happened, starting at Laetoli (three million years ago), is that pre-humans began to notice one another as particularly attractive magnetic, physically attractive, to like each other as particularly attractive creatures, probably first on the inside, and then increasingly, on the outside as well.
In getting close to other people, we 'pick up' an understanding of what they know, what they've seen, their "angle" on the world. Sometimes it's information, sometimes it's feelings, sometimes it's other things, a whole 'point of view'.
But the point here is, we, "pick up another set of eyes and ears", or, of course, not the 'eye', and 'ear' organs themselves, but what they have seen, and how they see things.
That goes for friends, parents, children, companions, spouse, elders, lovers, strangers, ancestors, and everyone else.
I mean, that's what conversation is, isn't it? We are attempting to read the other person's mind, quite literally, and equally fervently, attempting to get them to read ours.
And as humans, we are all, real real good at that. In fact, mind-reading, again, quite literally, and making one's own mind readable, is, The, major, human skill.
I mean, it always seemed that way to me. And I think it goes way back, what people want want want. To read each others minds and hearts. And to oneself be read. Want want want. For 70,000 generations. That's a lot of want.
So, starting from about Lucy's time, as the result of that, a person had not one set of eyes and ears, but now, in effect, they have two. I mean, not literally of course. And not minute to minute.
But their mind is now taking into account the "point of view", and experiences, of two people. It gets digested.
My gosh. Where to put all the information gathered from this second set of eyes and ears.
But, "very quickly" (over tens of thousands of generations), it's not just from a second set of eyes and ears. Because we know a lot of people, even in the wild. It's, in each person, five, ten, twenty sets of eyes and ears.
But wait. Each of them have picked up thoughts and feelings and more from also five ten twenty people, or however many.
This can get to be a lot of stuff to store up, for one little girl, or boy. And, then there's the matter of coordinating all that information.
And, presto. More intimacy, more sets of eyes and ears to sort out and coordinate, more brain size, more brain organization.
I mean, ok. I can imagine looking at something, say, looking at a street and seeing just what I see and what I've seen. But imagining what's going on in the houses, and imagining what's going on all around, we think of it as knowing from our own experience. But I don't think so.
I think that, about 95 percent of what we know, we find out from other people, who, have in turn, found out 95% of what they know from still other people.
For example, every one of the 10,000 or so words that I use, was made up by others, and I was informed of that, by others. None of these words were created by me, but they were each created by someone, just not me.
Even this idea about "affection and cognition being the driving force of upright posture", even that, the low level information that makes up that idea, 99% of it, I got from others.
There is a little piece, at the top, the arrangement into the big picture, that is mine (discovering is my particular skill; others have other skills), but 99% of what went into it, what went into that 'big picture' 'reason', came from others.
I mean, the system/conclusion that I've figured out, is part of the 1% that does come from me, but that conclusion is made up of a zillion different pieces of information that I read in books, and got from other places.
So, back in the days of Lucy and Habilis, (for 70,000 generations or so), pre-humans were beginning, in a far more deep and profound way, to "notice" one another; more individualized, and flatter, more readable faces, and more physical vulnerability. More noticeable; more attractive, and therein gathering more and more "thoughts and feelings and more" from more and more "eyes and ears". More and more 'point of views' were pouring into each single person.
I don't know if anyone has seen those "3-D" pictures they had in books a few years back. "Stereoscopic Vision" I think they called it, or something like that, mostly from Japan, I think, which you could see from a regular page, without any glasses or anything,
I found it sort of fascinating. You look at what's just a flat picture, but then you can sort of adjust your eyes, internally, or for some people, it comes automatically I have to consciously work my eye and brain muscles to do it or I won't see it, but some people can just see it automatically.
But anyway, you just look at the flat picture, and then, after a few moments, "POP", it sort of 'pops into' 3-D.
It seems like magic.
I couldn't quite get over it. "POP"! Wow. It's like another dimension suddenly becomes visible. Seemed like something from out of this world.
But I've thought that maybe there's some analogy there (only an analogy, of course) to what happened with pre-humans. I mean, some comparison of some aspect of a sudden visual depth, to a "sudden" series of increases in intellectual depth.
Kind of like, you see the world just from your own experience (and genetic instinct), Ardipithecus, 4 million years ago, just his own eyes and ears, and then you "stand up", Lucy, 3 million years ago, and then you start to "notice" one another; 'inside', so to speak.
Then you start seeing the world from their 'point of view', via their eyes and ears as well.
Then you develop a kind of "3-D" "intellectual vision, seeing the world through many sets of eyes and ears, rather than just through one's own.
The brain grows in size, to store and coordinate and make use of all that new information.
By Habilis (2 million years ago), "POP", you're seeing the world through the eyes of three, five, eight different people.
By Erectus (1 million years ago), 'POP' again; now you're seeing the world through the eyes of twenty, or a hundred people.
And then Sapiens, effectively, us. 100,000 years ago (3,000 generations ago, and after 100,000 generations from Ardipithecus).
'POP', so to speak, again . . . a million-dimension intellectual vision.
For short, I've given the name of the whole phenomenon, "1000-d vision," or 1000-d intellectual vision.
Another metaphor, or analogy, might be to imagine looking at a tree that's in a clearing.
You can look at it, and you're only seeing the one side that's exposed to you. I mean you can walk around it, and see the other side, but still . . . I mean, it's only an analogy . . .
Then you can imagine a hundred people standing all around the tree, in a wide scattered circle.
And then maybe you wouldn't have to walk all around it to see it; you could see it all at once, from all around it, just from where you stood, because you had the view of a hundred sets of eyes and ears in your own mind, and their 'point of view' from all around the tree.
It's only a metaphor, remember, but maybe it puts in the reader's mind, something of what I have in mind about intellectual "1000-d vision".
So, then the next question, is why it would be particularly helpful, for people to see things from all around, "all at once", so to speak.
Well, according to what I've figured out, this was great, because then you could organize a system outside yourself, to ward off cold, and generate fire-warmth, you could develop a whole system of a shelter, for your companions, another system, to find and preserve food, to ward off predators and other exposures all things that were previously done in nature by advancing gene structure, over millions, of generations.
But here, now, increasingly, instead of evolving a thicker skin, or more fat to ward off cold, people could fashion a better coat, and shoes, and shelter, and build a fire. Wow, how convenient.
Instead of changing their digestive system to eat new foods, people could cut, and cook, and soften, and elaborately prepare new foods, that, as so prepared, would work fine for the current digestive system.
Instead of crowding into smaller and smaller 'pockets' of areas where the current bodily functions could work, pre-humans could create those protections, externally, and so, do well, and be helpful together, to one another, in the face of rapidly changing climate and terrain. "Like like like", "want want want", "it matters it matters it matters", "see see see", "Solve Solve Solve", and in increasing wide circles of solution. The "drive" to systemic thinking.
As it turns out, Mother Nature, via her gene system, built a neural structure in a creature, the human line, that could solve problems of mutual survival, not by altering genetic structure over millions of years, but by finding an External solution, in just a generation, or less.
Big change. Electrons, across neurons, across the mind and across the skin, at the speed of light, rather than genes changing, a generation at a time. Big advantage. Fun too.
"Survival of the loving, survival of the caring, all towards, Survival Of The Solving".
That's what I think happened.
And solving with 1000-D vision - required intimacy, and affection, for all that 'information' itself to come from, and required bigger brains, to store and coordinate it all.
And the "magnet", the 'desire' itself, was all greatly enhanced by increasingly attractive, even stunningly attractive, vulnerable social posture.
From Lucy and Laetoli, to Habilis, to Erectus, to Neandertal, to Sapiens Sapiens, increasingly, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, belly to belly, and soul to soul.
Over a hundred thousand generations (3,000,000 years, from Laetoli to now), the mind was increasingly able to see not just things (1-d vision), but "whole systems of things", 1,000-d vision.
Seeing all around things, and right through them, seeing, not just things, but "configuration", because we have all those other sets of eyes and ears going on, all those other "points of views" to look with.
Seeing something, seeing things, from many many 'points of view'. Seeing "systems of things", understanding "whole systems", learning how to create them, transform them, work with them. Again, 1,000-d vision.
This allows us to consciously create things that will help us, now, rather than rely on a million more years of genetic change to evolve some new bodily trait.
I imagine that Australopithecus at Laetoli, three million years ago, turning to see that volcano erupt, knowing that the terrain is going to rapidly change massively, and then looking to her companion, and "saying" (so to speak, of course), "honey, we can't wait a million years for no genes to set us up for this change that's a-comin'; we got to figure something out now".
The operative word is "we". And upright posture, is what made them flash on that, on each other, 'inside'.
Vulnerability, attractiveness, affection, intimacy, 10-d vision, cognition, 1000-d vision, intelligence.
And always, more and more, physically creating solutions that are external to the body. That was what was so adaptable, so almost, in another dimension, from all other creatures.
And, "In The Beginning, There Was, Affection."
That's why Laetoli means so much to me.
So.
What do I make of all those "theories of 'consciousness'" that focus on "the" (purported) "ability to see oneself"?
Well, I think they belong in the same dusty archives to which we ought to consign almost all of what is euphemistically called "self-help" literature.
"Self self self" I know it conforms so seamlessly with what the deranged ones who run the large corporations and their right-wing 'theorists' would like us to believe about what matters.
But, "self"? As an evolutionary concept? Or as a high level pattern of nature? Well, there's just no math in it; it's not very scientific. It makes you crazy, and it's something of a bore to boot. "Self"? I don't think so. I don't think the purported 'paradigm' from which that whole idea derives, makes any scientific sense at all.
95% of what makes up any person, comes from other people. I mean even besides every atom and cell in one's body, from farmers and teamsters and clerks from all over the world, every stitch of clothes on our back, comes from maliquadors in Mexico, The Philippines, Brazil, and everywhere else, every tool that we use, from Japan, and Africa, and every thing else.
In fact, people slave away every day, in fields throughout Africa, Asia, and The Americas too, and everywhere else, just to keep replenishing, daily, all the little atoms and molecules that make up our faces, our hair, our toes, and everything else.
In fact, as for our physical 'self', it's more like one hundred percent comes from the efforts of other people, from the world outside, every day.
But even besides our physical self, even our thoughts and feelings are at least 95% coming from others. 95%, at least. These 'theories' that revolve around "self", just go nowhere, almost by definition.
So. My idea about why upright posture proved so enduring, involves no "hunter", no "prey", no 'chaos' nor 'complexity, no "flat-as-a-pancake" 'survival-of-the-gene', which is sort of the 'low-level' "Fundamentalist" version (as in "Religious Fundamentalism") of 'science' (anti-science, of course).
No hostility, no competition those things are present in nature no doubt, but certainly not to a 60%, or 51% degree of the high level patterns, nor a 40% nor a 10%, nor even a 1% portion of what goes on in nature. Hostility, is not the high level of anything, really.
No 'hostility', no 'hunter/prey', no 'stuff-your-face', no 'tunnel vision'.
I think that the 'hostility'/ 'aggression-against-humans'/'eternal evil' 'paradigm', is essentially the product of abused children, growing up in punishing, maybe even apocalyptic households, and "learning" to 'dread' what's coming, first later that day, and then in life altogether, with intense emotional permanence.
And, also, being in deeply terrified denial about what their life-threatening parents might do, if told that they were all wrong in the first place, about how nature - or even 'God', if you will - works. I mean, those fears can kinda stay with a person, in the background . . .
In fact, I think that that's the real reason there are so many guns in America. Bluntly speaking, in the end, I think people have them to intimidate; to, "cut off the conversation". Most of the desire for guns, in the context of present society certainly, I think, is the result of so many people being scared of being "entrapped" by words, and by thoughts.
The fact that they are wrong, in fact, about the way life altogether actually works, is the real terror that drives people to guns.
It's a very intense, and sometimes physically armed denial system. So anyway, that's what I've always thought the guns were for, really - to cut off the conversation. But anyway . . .
So. The prevailing 'paradigm', which comes from that - again, 'eternal evil'/'hostility'/'hunter-prey'/'aggression against humans/'tunnel vision', and all the rest - set of ideas, even though it is crowed from the rooftops of Harvard, and all academia, and The New York Times, and all media, AND EVERYWHERE ELSE, a 'wet blanket' so to speak, over us all, even though all that, it just makes no sense at all.
Scientifically speaking, it's just a child-abuse-driven, desperate-denial-driven, ethereal 'spaghetti' of 'complexity', so to speak; 'black smoke and mirrors', satanic fantasy, and all the rest.
It's essentially an "abuse/punishment/denial" based 'paradigm', mirroring society, yes, but bearing no relation whatsoever to how nature, or basic human behavior, actually works.
I work from a different paradigm. I think mine is actual science. And is in actual, knowable, conformity with nature, and basic human behavior.
Mine, is based upon "Solve Harm and Potential Harm", and "Maintain Healthy Systems", as the overwhelming, 'driving force' of human evolution.
And, do it "In Consort, In Council, In Complement, In Public, and For Everyone". Solve. And, in particular, solve problems of harm, and potential harm, to humans. Again, solve.
That's the 51 plus %. And all that "hostility/hunter/prey/aggression" stuff doesn't barely come to 5% between them.
That's what I think a scientifically based look, shows clearly, regarding the actual paradigm under which nature actually operates.
Again, the overwhelming, key mechanism of human evolution has been: "Solve problems of harm and potential harm, in consort, in complement, in council, in public, and for everyone".
In regard to Human evolution in particular, I think it could be said, that that's what it's all about, and that's what it's been all about, at the highest relevant level, for three million years.
So, to return to the basic theme of this section, from what I've figured out, upright posture turned out to be so very helpful, because it created a kind of an affection; it was an "attractiveness" "magnet" between people; it got people to want want want to know each other, to get close, as individuals with a different 'point of view' (combination of differences the basis of intelligence development), which, in turn, fed that 1000-d vision, which was, in turn, put to the service of building protections, for all.
No 'hostility'; that doesn't figure importantly into all this.
Just nice. What everyone wants, and what everyone's always wanted.
And I think it is not only better science, by any criteria, but, unlike the other, Brand X, prevailing "paradigm", the work-out-well-for-all one is science, straight up. Math. Easy. Simple. Accurate. Totally, scientifically consistent, at all relevant logical levels..
The three million year history of human kind: from Laetoli to Sapiens, increasing affection, intelligence, and external solution.
So anyway, that's why I think upright posture turned out to be so helpful. Because it's so stunningly attractive. And all the rest.
D. As Time Goes By . . . . 2,000
E. Science and Heartbreak . . . . 10,000
F. Politics . . . . 5,000
G. Proposal . . . .3,000
In the second case, you can add, by reconfiguring just soil, into something nutritious. (Reconfiguring soil, also adds one tomato - 'systems' logic)
In the first case, it's Arithmetic, which uses just one logical type, 'elements'. (Just get more.)
In the second case, it's Logical Types (© nrm), which uses three logical types, 'elements', 'configuration', and 'system'. (Create something.)
The resulting increase is the same. The addition of one tomato of value to life.
Math, in both cases. Just different math systems.
Since the right-wing has Absolutely Nothing that can be called the least bit useful or inspirational, they tend to grab anything produced via the progressive framework, sometimes destroying - and even killing - the producer, then distorting the originally progressive idea in a confusing manner, attempting to use it to promote their own, destructive idea, and then, in most perverse fashion, calling it their own.
In a "work-out-poorly" world, you don't expose the "work-out-poorly" system, in stark contrast to the "work-out-well" system. Again, too much very real risk of reaction by all those who are trying to get along. In a work-out-poorly general societal circumstance, such exposure is "automatically" (strongly, but again, not completely automatically) repressed. And no one, or almost no one, is prepared to be on the wrong end of that.
B. What's New In Sapiens . . . . 10,000
E. Science and Heartbreak . . . . 10,000
F. Politics . . . . 5,000
G. Proposal . . . .3,000
(1) that the cultural "explosion" is a misreading of the record, that it didn't really happen quite that way at all;
(2) that it was just a result of the long accumulation of knowledge, inevitable after such a long period of time (2,000 generations);
(3) that there was some sudden Sapiens Sapiens neurological advancement, advancement in brain structure (which he dismisses, as do I);
and (4) that it derived from the sudden development of organized language.
He goes over each of these possibilities in turn and expresses skepticism regarding each of them.
. . . that various climactic and other circumstances gave rise to people from diverse areas coming more and more into contact with one another. As he likes to put things, an 'explosion' in "making friends". The way I would put it is, a major increase in "combination of differences" shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart combination of diverse personalities, and peoples. Yes, here "we're on the same page", so to speak.
. . . in the very next line, he sort of, well it seems to me anyway, takes it all back, with the line "In the end, it all comes down to survival." In the general context given, this harks back to the "stuff-your-face" idea, first and foremost. But it's ok; by this time, I'm getting a sense of Shreeve's good ideas about things, as different from what he has to say, in order to get along'.
I suppose Thomas, having done his earlier, popularly published work very close to the 1960's, had considerably more room than that afforded nowadays to top professionals who wish to remain insiders and who wish to be published.
B. What's New In Sapiens . . . . 10,000
C. On Understanding Natural Science . . . . 3,000
F. Politics . . . . 5,000
G. Proposal . . . .3,000
. . . or whether they noticed the major advances of Sapiens Sapiens, in some ways, disassociated it (as Shreeve suggests), felt a vague, even warm satisfaction at the wondrous advances of Mother Nature of which they were part, and went about their way much as before, but with fewer and fewer in number over tens, or even hundreds of generations. Which might have also happened.
If the 30,000 year old findings are ever confirmed, then I would presume that they would have been from ancient Sapiens Sapiens sailors, reaching out from Africa to Brazil on the east coast, and The Pacific Peoples, finally reaching California on the west coast. But again, those 30,000 year old dates are not, to my knowledge, confirmed.
. . . I mean, I know it might be proven unlikely or impossible to have happened, I'd be interested to know, and it does seem probable that there is some good evidence, one way or the other, but I just don't know of it . . .
. . . but still . . . even so, just maybe . . . Neandertals . . . 'trail blazers', in maybe one sense or another . . . somewhere . . . somehow . . . in some way . . .
B. What's New In Sapiens . . . . 10,000
C. On Understanding Natural Science . . . . 3,000
D. As Time Goes By . . . . 2,000
G. Proposal . . . .3,000
"An idea", it is said, "is just an ethereal 'perception', only existent in the person who holds it". "If a 'strong' person can keep 'convincing' others, sure it'll hold, but it's not like a physical object; it's not part of singular reality, outside of a person".
And, my "Logical Types and Logical Levels" diagrams and explanations, are designed to bring this matter, Publicly, most important, Publicly, out of the blue, and into the clear light of day.
Indeed, as mentioned above, "three plus two equals five within the simple arithmetic system" is an idea (the calculation), and a system (Arithmetic) that is, perhaps even More constant, and steady, and even real, than a block of concrete.
And how long does "three plus two equals five within simple arithmetic" last?
And how real can we say that the arithmetic calculation, and the arithmetic system, is? Again, Entirely real.
By any definition of reality, singular reality, the primary reality of this bioecosystem.
An idea, and a system, if it is in full conformity to the primary reality of this bioecosystem, is as solid as any object, indeed more so.
And it exists in nature, just like a solid object, outside of the person who discovers it, or perceives it.
I call this phenomenon, that is, believing that accurate ideas are not as solid parts of reality as physical objects, "The Messiah Syndrome".
If they are a "strong" person, again, according to this tragic "Messiah Syndrome" belief, then they can "convince" others; "put it" in the mind of others.
If they "lose" the idea, or if they're a "weak" person, then the fact, again, according to this tragically mistaken belief, doesn't exist at all.
Again, according to this terribly mistaken belief, ideas don't really exist, as a part of primary reality (whether they are discovered or not).
But they do. Just as if one points out the existence of at tree, and an observer can check for themselves to see whether the tree actually exists, whether the person who points it out is present, or even continues to notice, or to care, one way or the other, or not, matters not. The tree is still there.
It was there, along with every other large and small system of that forest, whether anyone ever saw it, or heard it, or smelled it, or touched it, or not. I think most people have figured that out by now.
Or if we say that every child is born with an attachment system, mechanisms within their central nervous system that seeks proximity with an attachment figure. We can define these things, as a matter of specific, constant, measurable absolutes, just like we can define the quantity of a physical substance.
Or that every person is designed, by nature, to enact a little more caretaking for the world, on some mathematically calculatable logical level, than the caretaking that they receive from the world. That's a system. Different from an object, yes.
But, if it is true, then that system, is, in this way, very much like that object, that tree, or that house or that block of wood or metal, then it exists as primary reality, whether it is discovered or not, and even after it is discovered, it exists as primary reality in the world outside the discoverer, independent of the discoverer.
This is certainly well known regarding ideas throughout the technological world. And it is well known, regarding the everyday things that we have to handle all the time.
He or she will check many sources, some of which will be wrong, will run across many factors regarding the stress properties of this or that sort of tie, or fastener, and reach an overall conclusion regarding the strength of this or that part of the structure, as a matter of singular reality.
And the stress capacity, of that system of rivets, and girders, and concrete; the stress capacity of that combination of properties and factors, is an idea. It is a system. Not an object, but a system.
What stress that bridge can hold is not an ethereal, spiritual, idea, different for everyone. No no. It is true, singular reality, again, an idea, a system that is true, outside the person who holds the idea.
Otherwise we'd have no bridges to cross. I mean literally. And, as a literal matter, that is why Habilis couldn't build them. Certainly not the way we do. Because for that, they would have needed the brains to understand systems.
Understanding systems, as constant singular reality, outside a person, be they of combinations and properties of physical objects, or be they combinations and properties of social matters, is something that even Homo Sapiens Neanderthalisis could not really understand.
But understanding systems, accurate ideas, and systems; understanding them, seeing them, proving their existence and constantness, showing their relevance and their relationship to other systems, specifically quantifying and describing them, is fully within the physical capacity of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Each and every one of the six billion of us. This is a point never to be forgotten.
But. Ten thousand people in a row, every hour, see it exactly the same way, messiah or no messiah, day in and day out. Otherwise, Highway 101 would be a mass of twisted metal and corpses, in about ten seconds flat. Obviously.
Be it the map of the solar system, or the periodic table, or the relation between energy, mass, and velocity, or arithmetic, or logical types all solid, solid as a rock, and outside the person holding it.
This is what earlier species could not understand, that we, can understand. This is the great advance.
So many things would seem 'impossible', which then becomes so easy to comb out, once a calculating system for it is discovered and developed.
It did look 'crazy', until someone figured out the system of it. After that, then, navigators could look up in the sky, at the orbit of the planets, and, well, they could see that there was nothing 'crazy' about it; it all made perfect sense. Entirely understandable, and, in the case of the planets, reasonably predictable.
But, of course, that goes for what was said prior to every single discovery ever made, throughout the history of science
To paraphrase the words of the great historian Kenneth Neill Cameron - 'How many Homo Sapiens Sapiens tribes froze to death on beds of coal', because they didn't know that some rocks could yield fire, and life saving warmth?
Again, it's an analogy, and again, as with the earlier severe warnings, it's nothing to run with, and please don't - it's just a note about the sometimes loss-filled nature of delays in scientific exposition.
But when it comes to carrying it, be it an understanding of an object, an accurate idea, or an accurate understanding of a system, it takes the cognitive mind of human beings generally.
When it comes to carrying it, if it's accurate, useful, clear, and relevant, it's no good to have it depend on a "strong" person. No one is superman. And, after all, as will be seen in the following section, if we rely on even the best of us, we can be led astray. No no.
The cognitive mind of human beings evolved for the specific purpose of carrying ideas, of evaluating them for accuracy or inaccuracy, for helpfulness or harmfulness, for relevance or irrelevance, of understanding them, of knowing them to be true - whether the discoverer is strong, or weak, or present, or absent, or anything else. This is something few seem to grasp, but is something that must be understood.
For then, like Darwin's discovery being used to promote racism, like Freud's discovery being used to justify abuse and war, like Einstein's discoveries being used for atom bombs, my own Logical Types discovery, if "bled out" quietly, in little pieces, out of context, can be used to confuse and destroy, rather to enhance intelligence and confidence, and to heal.
Let's take another look at Einstein's famous discovery. E=MCsq.
So you can measure the amount of clay displaced, which gives you a number for how much energy was released.
Thus, it was already known that, when measuring the amount of energy released by an impact, you have to not simply multiply by the speed, but multiply by the speed Squared. This was already known. Just by simple experiments that people had already done.
Hmmm . . . Mass (M), times the speed of light (C), squared (sq.), equals the energy (E).
E=MCsq. Simple.
But BEFORE it's figured out, it's the most complicated, seemingly craziest thing in the world.
I mean, you have to know huge amounts of stuff, dream up huge amounts of stuff, calculate huge amounts of stuff, and you have to keep knowing, why you want to know in the first place . . . why it matters . . . now all that, takes an Einstein . . . of course . . .
But in this case, it's so complicated, that only university or professionally certified experts, that is, only a corporate certified expert, can sort out what you're saying.
Most others will just note that you are talking about something so complicated, that no one is ever going to know what you're talking about.
All these pages and pages of impossible 'complexity' doesn't really mean anything. Again, the ramblings of an obsessed idiot.
So only if you can get corporate certification, that is, the seal of approval from those who have, in the overall, a work-out-poorly-for most, anti-science, anti-nature frame of reference, can you present your findings to the general public.
In other words, proved the distinction between the context of pure physics, and the context of human health and harm.
That is, kept going until E=MCsq. was but one element in a larger proof concerning helpfulness to life.
And proved it to such an elementary degree of self-evidence, that it became impossible to use E=MCsq. in a toxic or harmful manner, or at least got an overall equation, and an overall proof, such that anyone would know that to use a small part of it, say "E=MCsq." for bombs or toxins would be delving into the realm of deranged and crackpot science, which is exactly what it is.
Which would make it impossible to find intelligent people to work with for toxic or harmful purposes, or funds for any such project.
I don't know exactly what the "locked up against abuse" proof, in Einstein's case, would have been, but I can imagine the lines along which it might run.
but, as per the math examples in an earlier section, under certain configurations of that matter and energy within the bioecosystem, value to life increases.
If he had said that, instead of just E=MCsq., he would have been making it clear that everyone is supposed to get that increasing value (get security and protection from the world), and everyone should be in a position to create increasing value (get vitality and create for the world).
In other words, in the full, "locked up against abuse" equation, it would become obvious that E=MCsq. was only part of a larger equation that spells out the 'blueprint' for advancing value to life, and for reconfiguring society so as to put that now known "advancing value" equation to the service of all.
He could have worked it out so that it could be seen that E=MCsq. is just the part of the larger equation, the larger equation showing that the overall amount of matter and energy does not change, while, given that constant quantity, the larger equation would show that the value to life is perpetually increased, again, within that constant, overall, quantity.
There's obviously a physics equation for that two, again, of which E=MCsq. would be one small part.
So, if he had made the larger equation, of which E=MCsq. would be only a small part, that would have translated out politically as "there's plenty of resources for all; world problems of humanity - lack of resources and room to create, for all, are just a matter of reconfiguring societies".
Finding out that they are all wrong, indeed that they are unnecessarily raping, killing, and destroying the world's peoples, and bringing the planet to an unnecessarily suicidal continuation is that last thing in the world they will tolerate.
Finding out that it is absolutely unnecessarily suicidal even for themselves and their own families, is something that, apparently their childhood training, and therefore, their adult denial, is seemingly too thick for.
Having been raised from childhood, and throughout their lives to date, on that "beat down", rip, tear, lie, grab, war, steal, insecurity ethic, they are in desperate denial regarding finding out that they are all wrong, from every scientific, human, and nature angle conceivable.
So instead, the most reactive sectors of the corporate university, professional, media, and publishing tentacles - and it is the most reactionary sectors, which are generally in the minority, but which are in major command - the universities, media, and publishing tentacles, find it only acceptable to get a tiny little piece of the human equation, in this case, E=MCsq., rip it out of the larger "work out well for all" equation, or stop that larger "increasing value" equation from being made in the first place, and then claim that that tiny piece, E=MCsq. IS "the high level of science" of the current day.
And then claim, "see, matter equals energy; there's only a constant amount of resources available, and it's 'inevitable' that we're all going to tearing each other to ribbons for a piece of that 'constant pie'"
Not to mention other scientifically crackpot notions such as "no real value - it's all 'relative'", "nothing really changes", "dust to dust", and a million other absurdities most falsely alleged to have derived from Einstein's ideas, that allowed the denizens of finance capital to claim that capitalist society was in some way a "scientific" idea, when, in fact, it bears no relation whatsoever to a scientific approach to life.
If Einstein had "locked it up" as just part of a larger "increasing value to life" equation, anyone who had tried to rip out one piece (E=MCsq.) for bombs or toxin producing things, would have been seen by all as obviously deranged.
And, because, then, it could NOT be used "out of the context of the larger equation" it would have been much better science, in a strictly scientific sense, "better science", by far.
So, what if it was known that Einstein was the sort of person who would have carried the proof, "all the way" to higher level value for life ONLY. Much better science, of course . . . but . . .
And Einstein himself would have wound up a wino, a babbling homeless person, living out a shortened life in doorways and skid rows, or mental institutions. Or, in his case, maybe even a gas chamber.
Because Einstein was a German Jew, most grateful to be allowed to live at all, given the world of early and mid-twentieth century Europe, he was not about to delve into matters that could easily get him destroyed or killed. In other words, he was "reliable", for capitalist war and toxin purposes, that is.
It's not that he wouldn't have liked to go "all the way", to an equation, and a proof, that "locks the whole thing up" against harm. He was capable of doing it, and he would have loved to.
As he himself once put it: If I had known that Hiroshima was coming, I would not have lifted one finger for this project, not one finger!
I guess my problem is, with "Logical Types and Logical Levels" (© NRM), I know darned well, what's coming, if I don't "lock it up against harmful use" before release. So, well, forty years of this, so far. And that's where it sits.
Einstein knew, instinctively, the fate of people who do insist on "locking their work up" in that way, and he saw no way around it. He was 'caught' in a tight, harmful system, and could see no other way to survive, and be the great, "Albert Einstein".
The problem that Lamarck's work presented, was that he didn't quite know the actual mechanism of evolution; he figured that an organism tried to change into something else, and as a result of all that trying, over generations, it would become something else.
This works in some ways regarding educational, technological, intellectual, and social life within the human species, yes, but it is Not how species-to-species advancement works in evolution, and most scientists knew that.
Most times, the beetle, or bird, or fern, or whatever that comes next, is pretty much like the plant or creature that gave rise to it, but sometimes this or that organism in the next generation is a bit odd.
So the way new things come about in species-to-species evolution is, that nature, the overall ecosystem, does the selecting, for whichever, among the new odd things, whichever seems to work well in the overall situation. If it's a new situation, climatically, or a changed local ecosystem, or whatever, then something that was odd at first, might work even better. "Natural selection".
Something that works, lasts. I mean, that's pretty simple. This takes a Darwin?!!??
But if you first explain it in simple terms, well, then, "this doesn't take a Darwin"; any idiot can see that.
And if you explain it in the context of all the surrounding evidence, whole books worth of minute observations and calculations, it will be seen as just overwhelming complicated ramblings, indistinguishable from the thousand actually crackpot "theories" being propagated everywhere.
Again, if you present it in simple terms, then, well, no big deal, a person might think that anyone could figure that out, and if you explain it in its full context, well then, it's too complicated for anyone to bother with.
And in Darwin's time, the financial establishment happened to be holding their power via slave-trading and the decimation of the world's peoples from India to Africa to the whole world over.
Although Darwin was quite sympathetic to the anti-slavery, anti-colonialism view, being financially, professionally, and even medically dependent, quite directly and forcefully, on the financial establishment of the day, it was well known, from early on in his career, that he would tailor his writings in such a way so as to skirt the large scale social and political issues.
If he had had the political space, or moxie, that would have allowed him to write so as to match up his evolutionary findings, that new organisms that fit in well with, and strengthen, the overall ecosystem come to last into future generations, if he had been likely to match that up with the progressive social and political views that he held - if he'd been the sort of person that would have naturally written in that context, then he never would have been trusted enough by the financial establishment to be recognized, and would have lived out his probably short life as an obscure, impoverished, and sickly country parson.
Because the financial establishment of Britain of the day - the slavers and colonialists - knew that he was safely kept on a tight string, financially, professionally, and medically, they knew he could be "trusted" to allow his views to be grotesquely distorted into a seemingly 'scientific' (anti-scientific in fact) 'justification' for slavery and empire.
It broke Darwin's heart to realize that, but, well, like Einstein, he was caught . . .
Marx figured out that "work", by laborers, creates new value to life (as nature does, in the tomato example given above), and that those who do the creating of such value are robbed of it by those who exercise financial, propaganda, and police/military power over them by keeping workers, even as they create value, in a desperate state of mind and heart.
Again, explain it simply, "workers, who create all value, are exploited by bosses, who keep them oppressed and consume that value", explain it simply, and people say "This takes a Marx?!!?? Anyone with eyes can see that!" But explain it in all its vast implications, and, well, who will read it?
In fact, this turns out to feed straight into the most vicious sector of the ruling class' view of itself. After all, it tells them, that, according to Marx, that's what they're supposed to do - fight for their 'class interest'. This, it is allegedly claimed, is 'inevitable'.
Under such circumstances, whosoever is in control of the great financial, communications, and violence (police and military) power, are told that they are supposed to continue to keep operating in their "class interest".
Thus, as long as you put things into some sort of "eternal" 'class struggle' framework, then the rulers feel that they are being told that history proves that they must, or 'inevitably' will, do whatever violence and manipulations are necessary to defend their "class interest".
And, of course, if you have a thousand starving workers, with sticks and clubs, arrayed against five industrialists, and a hundred police or soldiers (who would otherwise be starving themselves) armed with the most sophisticated weaponry, and all the most advanced propaganda organs to boot, then you can be sure that the "ruling class", who is being told that, by history's measure, that they must defend their 'class interest', then, they feel assured of being able to maintain their circumstance. It's really no contest.
The way that hierarchy in nature works, and the way humans were designed through evolution to work, and the way society, in conformity with nature and basic human behavior is supposed to work, is in a work-out-well-for-every-person fashion, at every level of hierarchy, with caretaking and protection moving mostly DOWN the hierarchy, and anxiety and difficulties moving mostly UPWARDS.
Thus, in nature, it is not the case that that which operates at higher logical levels are oppressive or destructive of that which operates at lower levels.
And, in analogous parallel among humans, the idea that those who operate at higher levels are necessarily oppressive, is preposterous.
It is the case that there is a natural flow of protection, and caretaking, and strengthening, and pain and difficulty absorption, up and down the hierarchies. It works that way in nature, and humans are designed, in parallel for that sort of operation as well.
However, among humans, human cognition evolved, specifically, in every person in complement with others, for arranging and maintaining that flow - again, caretaking and protection mostly DOWNWARDS, and pain and difficulty mostly UPWARDS, all up and down the hierarchies, such that only the most helpful things are produced, and that Everyone, again, up and down the hierarchies is strengthened, again, among humans, according to their desires, and abilities, and capabilities.
In other words, nature regulates that flow of 'protection' and 'potential harm', up and down the hierarchies of nature, automatically, but human cognition evolved, specifically, to regulate that flow among humans, cognitively, deliberately, and consciously.
That's what cognition is for - to comb out, via conscious awareness, what was previously handled automatically by nature.
That's what this mind, this human mind, evolved for; why it turned out to be so useful under conditions of vastly changing terrain and climates.
Instead of genes evolving our bodies and behavior internally, to meet swift external changes, instead of that, our observations and minds evolve solutions, larger-scale technical protections, and larger-scale social systems alongside, to meet external changes.
As I've mentioned in earlier papers at this web-site, genetic change "outdid itself", by producing a mechanism - human cognition and intelligence In Complement With Others - that serves the old adaptability function that genetic change used to serve, but does it Not over millions of years, but rather, over lifetimes, decades, and even days.
And when conflict arises, that very same property of that very same mind that produced technical configurations of objects, is supposed to be used for, and for thousands of years, was successfully used for, and is designed to be used for, combing out the factors for all-around strengthening of EVERYONE, UP and DOWN the hierarchies, consciously arranging that one-in-a-million social configuration, in analogous parallel regarding figuring out processes, with what we do to build successful technological structures, and in analogous parallel with nature's own hierarchical structure.
Some things, high logical level patterns, such as "strengthening and nurturing" go on across the board throughout nature. Other patterns, such as "predator/prey" as it's called, operate BETWEEN certain species, but are not generally present AMONG a single species, and certainly are not part of any natural pattern among the human species.
Again, the reader is reminded to use extreme caution when observing analogies, as per the earlier warnings in this paper.
The 'sociobiology' "flat-as-a-pancake" view of life, and other right-wing anti-'sciences', tend to insist on a confusion of, or erasure of, differences of logical level in observing nature and other areas, and they often insist on "running with" metaphors and analogies, in an anti-science, anti-math, and anti-life, and obviously preposterous manner, claiming "analogy" of pattern one minute, and deceitfully 'springing' "overlay" of pattern the next.
"Analogy", and "overlay" are obviously two opposite things, and the confusion can be deadly.
As in the deceitful "one plus one equals five" example in the earlier math section of this paper, one group of sticks, may well contain three sticks, BUT, as per the example given earlier one is never three.
When the logical level changes, either in the arithmetic example, i.e. "class" to "members", or in nature, i.e. "species-to-species" hierarchies on the one hand, and "within-species" hierarchies on the other, some things are quite similar, and other things are not at all similar. Analogies are NEVER overlays.
As it turns out, so much of what is presented in the major universities as "science", (not to mention the mass media, ugh!), is not science at all, but a crackpot, even criminally crackpot, and right-wing inspired confusion and erasure of logical levels differences, so as to turn what should be intelligent thinking regarding biology and work-out-well-for-all social solutions, into hopeless hostility, imbecility, and apathy, both among the university population, and among the public at large.
And, of course, one of the major functions of the "Logical Types" system © nrm, referred to throughout this document, If I Could Ever Get To Publicly Display It, Intact, And In Context is to clarify logical level differences, so as to end confusions for all, regarding the distinction between "analogy", and "overlay".
To suggest that there can ever be "no hierarchy" of power or influence, is to suggest an impossibility of nature, and of human life. And, alongside, to suggest that hierarchy, that is, different logical levels of influence and power among people must necessarily be oppressive, is not only untrue, but a preposterous and deadly (alleged) 'formula'.
This sets up an enormously dishonest and manipulative circumstance among those attempting to follow a 'Marxist', or allegedly Marxist sort of system, which turned into the most tragic of problems, particularly for the Chinese revolution, not to mention for the women's movement worldwide and for revolutionary movements everywhere.
It goes alongside the idea that any person exercising influence over others, is necessarily corrupt, an old, crackpot Capitalist notion, still "taught" in some colleges.
In fact, of course, every single person, without exception, exercises enormous influence over persons who have less influence, power, and expertise than they do, and every single person, again, without exception, operates under the influence of persons who have more influence, power, and expertise than they do. Again, among humans, there can be no exceptions. This is IN NO WAY an unhealthy circumstance; quite the contrary, when it is understood clearly and openly, and handled in a vital, and healthy for all manner, it is one of natures many great wonders. When it is handled in a hidden, corrupt, manner, it becomes the ugliest and most horrifying tragedy under the sun.
Power does not corrupt. Rather, in fact, keeping the distinction between the principled use of power - caretaking and protection mostly flowing mostly downwards and problems and difficulties flowing mostly upwards - an the unprincipled use of power - caretaking and protection flowing mostly upwards, and problems and difficulties flowing mostly downwards - keeping that distinction hidden, that hiddenness is what engenders and maintains corruption.
And again, the neurological advance from Neandertal to Sapiens, is the advance that allowed us to understand these distinctions, these systems of social operations, alongside systems understanding in the technological fields, which are understood quite well.
It is anti-nature, "out of synch" with nature, so to speak, to use that brain power in one way, to scientifically sort out technology systems, while at the same time, neglecting to use that same brain power in another way, to scientifically sort out the social systems that accompany those technological changes.
Thus, instead of delineating "principled" operations, work-out-well-all-around, up and down the hierarchies type of operations, Marx (apparently) left the impression, so near and dear to capitalist 'thinking, that you can't have principled hierarchies - that any difference of power levels at all is necessarily corrupt. This idea, "either-no-hierarchy-or-corrupt-hierarchy" as the only alternatives, is one of the great tragedies of Marxism as usually understood.
One, is the idea that it is possible for there to be no hierarchy, either in nature, or in human societies. This has stifled all attempts to sort out the crucial distinction between a work out well for everyone type of hierarchical social arrangement, and a corrupt, work out poorly social arrangement.. This inability to focus on a scientific, mathematical understanding of principled hierarchical arrangement, is the central, most tragic misunderstanding that has stymied, both the Chinese revolution, as well as the modern women's movements world-wide.
Second, is the implication that there is some sort of "eternal conflict" between people, or more specifically, between "classes". This misunderstanding only fed into, ever more ferociously, the capitalist view (and provocateur view) that oppression of lower classes by the ruling class is an historical inevitability.
And third, "historical determinism", a misunderstanding that the cognition of every human is not needed for the continual sorting, adjustment, and maintenance of healthy hierarchical relations, ongoing. This was the great flaw in the Soviet understanding of revolution - the idea that the people could just "trust" that history would make their revolution for them.
I'm guessing, however, that if Marx had put his work in the larger context of "principled hierarchical relations", again, "caretaking and protection flowing mostly downwards, and difficulties and problems flowing mostly upwards", and in the context of oppressive, war-like, and 'eternal conflict' operations being in the interest of NO ONE up and down the classes, and logical levels of influence, and clearly stated that naturally-derived historical trends most definitely will not work in the absence of intelligent, cognitive, organized, mathematical figuring and sorting brain power on the all members of the population, that he would have found himself scorned entirely by the very persons who supported him both financially and regarding popular support.
He too, like Einstein and Darwin, was 'caught out' having to accommodate the overall frame of reference so bitterly enforced by the most anti-science, anti-life, and oppressive elements of the ruling class.
I should mention that he was the first of great 19th century "all-life" theorists, the pioneer, and perhaps the greatest of them all. After all, his formative years preceded the others, and he did not have the benefit of an understanding of Darwin's "natural selection" discoveries, did not have the benefit of the great "systems" understandings pioneered by Einstein and Russell, and did not have the benefit of an understanding of unconscious influences on people's thoughts and actions, only later scientifically revealed by Freud. and mapped by Bowlby.
His work anticipated all of them, but alas, the actual, specific science and math of it just wasn't present in his day.
Still and all, from what I've seen specifically elsewhere, I must presume that Marx's omissions were not merely a product of the unavailability of the specific discoveries that came later, but were very much a product of his having to accommodate to prevailing capitalist notions of the day, in order to survive and be recognized.
Again, like Einstein and Darwin, had he hit it all squarely on the head, just as if the others had done so, he too would have been seen as a mere simpleton if he had explained his ideas simply, and an incomprehensible babbler, if he had attempted to explain it fully.
What is so astounding about Freud, is that, initially, HE DID put forth his work, in a work-out-well-for-all-manner, and then soon thereafter, decided to spike it, with an absurdly anti-science, anti-human twist.
But of vastly more significance, the French physicians brought their promising younger charges to the Paris morgue, and had them examine the child victims there that had died sudden, "accidental" deaths.
In fact, what the visiting psychiatrists were stunned to see, was the marks of severe sexual abuse on the bodies of the deceased children, the deaths having been listed as "falling down stairs", "run over by a carriage", this or that natural 'illness', and so forth.
On the train ride back to Vienna, Freud put it together in his mind along with all the psychiatric interviews and reports that he had accumulated in his earlier practice.
It dawned on him that much of the 'hysterical' symptoms in adulthood, that he was seeing in his female patients, were the result of unconscious memories of child abuse, coming out, again unconsciously as symptoms in the adult, and now governing the person's adult life.
He could now describe the unconscious as a definable entity as there was now evidence of specific memories that were held there, unavailable to consciousness, but governing behavior all the same. And with the function of, in however subtle and metaphoric ways, bringing damaging experiences to the surface in the later adult years.
He expected that, in delivering this paper, with this great, new discovery, there would be great applause, and he would be lauded as the greatest, and most promising professional in his field, indeed, in all Europe.
He delivered the paper, from the podium of the conference, but the conclusion, was greeted with . . . absolute silence. At first, he might have thought everyone was just stunned by the absolute brilliance of his work. (And I suppose they were, in a sense.)
When he took his seat, and asked what colleagues thought, why, they looked right through him, acted like they didn't even recognize him. His name was even removed from certain versions of the conference program. Whaaa . . . ??!!??
In subsequent consultations, and correspondence with colleagues, it became apparent that the bourgeoisie society would have no part of public exposure of their abuse of their children, and particularly the sexual abuse of their daughters. He was told, in no uncertain terms, that if he persisted in such theories, he would be killed, certainly professionally, and perhaps literally.
This time, at the conclusion of his delivery, the assembled professionals broke into wild applause, hailing "The Great Sigmund Freud" as the most promising young psychiatrist of his time. Bravo, and fame and fortune, and all the tools and assistance, and finance needed to continue his 'work' followed him forever after. As long, of course, as he continued to promote his idea in that deadly, crackpot framework.
Again, with Freud, like the others, explain it simply "childhood harm stays with you into adult disturbances", and they claim you're a simpleton; put it out in the with all its evidential context, and no one is interest in all that boring blather.
But take some pieces and jam them into an anti-science, capital accumulation framework, and falsely call it science, well then, and only then, could he become, "The Great Man".
Because, it has been falsely claimed, that "science" has brought us all these terrible ills, we, it is said, if we wish to caretake the world towards a healthy-for-all - six-billion-ten-billion-or-however-many-persons-wide - a healthy ongoing future, we must turn away from science.
Instead, it is claimed, since 'science' (anti-science, really) has led to such evil, we are supposed to rely on an unfathomable spiritualism, a disassociation of suffering, an unknowable religious god, or a child-abuse-based apocalyptic inevitability, for our guidance.
But that is patently ridiculous, and worse. And none of that is what the evolution of human beings from earlier species was driven by.
Rather, instead of falsely claiming that actual science has led to ill, it must be recognized that it is the demands of capitalism to slam together smaller, actual scientific findings, into a crackpot, capitalist frame of reference, and then absolutely falsely call that "science", that has created these terrible problems..
Certainly neither the anti-science of capitalism, nor of religion, will solve anything, indeed, both have their absolutely unnecessarily deranged, suicidal, and apocalyptic continuations.
But if you put together the smaller equations, E=MCsq., natural selection, increasing levels of value, unconscious memories, logical types, and all the rest, if you put them all together in an actual science frame of reference, you get "work-out-well-for-every-person".
Again, it is only when such smaller pieces are ripped asunder and slammed into a crackpot capitalist formulation, that the great horrors of the world are caused.
I can state things extremely simply and clearly, I can state them comprehensively, at moderate length, and I can state them in full, lengthy detail. But when I state them, I always state them in an actual scientific context - the "work-out-well-for-every-person-in-the-here-and-now-no-tricks" framework. That is, as driven by the evolution of increasingly healthy adaptability, is the top logical level of actual, logical, mathematical, cognitive, conscious Science.
And it is because people are so used to thinking of the way societies, and its technological achievements, are currently organized, because people are so used to thinking of that crackpotism as science, that constitutes some of the explanation of what the difficulty has been regarding the publication of "Logical Types" system, an all of its contextual materials.
But I can present some relevant derivatives, which I will do in the following.
That's followed by yet another analogy, this time a kind of tragic "short story" that I just made up, a piece of fiction meant to bring to mind something true.
I've decided to leave off here for the moment, and attempt to include the concluding portions in the coming days.
Thus, from here on down, for the moment, I'm just going to leave things as I originally wrote them over the last few weeks and days, and try to smooth them in a little later on . . .
Politics, Continued
So, here we go to "political frameworks", which are also social and conversational frameworks.
If the transition is a bit "rough"; I will try to get back to working on this paper shortly . . .
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B. What's New In Sapiens . . . . 10,000
C. On Understanding Natural Science . . . . 3,000
D. As Time Goes By . . . . 2,000
E. Science and Heartbreak . . . . 10,000
Furthermore, when they hear that you're not supposed to trust TV, they repeat that too, in the previous and next lines, in classic Orwellean fashion.
As it turns out, the studied avoidance of considering what's actually likely to be true, is one of the "great", and most thoroughly tragic, "secrets of success" in our society as things currently stand.
Again, it's not that people lack the physical structure of intelligence - that's not the problem, because everyone has, physically, approximately the same amount of intelligence capability.
The problem is that there is no generally available system for a person to use, to determine accuracy regarding social and political matters in the first place, and also that, given the conventions of society as it stands, again, people are, quite literally, in social and economic terror of using their intelligence. That's the problem.
In fact, in any given circumstance, a helpful, as different from a harmful approach, can never be determined on the basis of "new vs. old", nor "established vs. unique", nor "confidence vs. lack of confidence", nor "friend vs. unfamiliar", nor anything like that.
In many cases, indeed, in most cases, by far, the "familiar" approach is most likely to work best, although, as in the above, and in many other cases, that familiar approach can turn out to be extremely harmful, and worse.
The real problem, the overall problem, in the story above, and for so much health/harm decision-making throughout society, then, and very much right down to this very day, is that the people involved had no procedure, for determining actual accuracy from inaccuracy, and for determining likelihood of healthy continuations from likelihood of harmful ones.
Rather, all they could do was determine who had the political power, and social confidence, and economic muscle, and external protection, and so forth, and go with that. While such things do have to be factored in, in predicting general continuations, they are, and this is very important, they are only factors, not determinants.
Thus, in any given situation, an "alternative" approach might well turn out to be still worse than the established one - that's very common (although not the case in the story given above, it is still very common).
The key to solution in the story above, and for current circumstances (political, social, or otherwise) for which the above story is an analogy, is the establishment of a clear, easy-for-anyone-to-understand, and straightforward system for determining accuracy, helpfulness, and health, that supersedes the "who's-got-the-confidence" approach.
The problem was not that they "chose the wrong person", no no. The problem was that they did not have, and there wasn't (and isn't) a good procedure generally available, for determining accuracy/inaccuracy, and health vs. harm in the first place.
B. What's New In Sapiens . . . . 10,000
C. On Understanding Natural Science . . . . 3,000
D. As Time Goes By . . . . 2,000
E. Science and Heartbreak . . . . 10,000
F. Politics . . . . 5,000
They are:
Page Two, Engraving on A Locket: With All My Love
Page Three, Diamonds from the Gods: Fifty best books
Page Four, American Pearls: Simple and Accurate
Locket - in color (about 700k, Acrobat *.PDF, in color)
Neanderthal and The Locket --- Affection and Mathematics --- January 2001
The Silver Locket --- The Proposal (Acrobat *.PDF only)--- October 2000
Beyond the Wave --- The Warm Caress of Deep History --- November 1996
The Magic Sentence --- In Pursuit of a Simple Equation --- November 1999
Schema --- Science, Medicine, and Social Relations --- March 1985
Flying Blind --- The Politics of American Science --- May 2000
The Sky Buckle --- The Science of American Politics --- March 2001
On Elections 2000 --- American Politics --- November 2000
Summary --- Science, Cognition and Frameworks --- June 1992
Bibliography --- 120 Book Reviews --- 1978-1999
Autobiography --- Notes on Discovery --- March 1994
American Pearls --- 200 Word Summary --- July 2000
Bibliography Update - html
also: Cast for 'Just Yesterday' (appended to 'Flying Blind') - June 7th, 2001
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Important Note: The document on this page is the Introduction for a larger manuscript/proposal
entitled "Neandertal and The Locket".
is available by clicking on one of the four files listed below.
Title Page
with pointer to 'Neandertal'
Silverstructure:
Issues, Frameworks, and A Proposal
Engraving on A Locket
Just Three Hours
. . . with all my love
Diamonds from the Hands of the Gods
Fifty Best Books
American Pearls
In Just 100 WordsOf Lockets and Rockets
Silverstructure and Engraving
These two pages are the heart of this project's current explanation - as of early January, 2001. They are the conclusion reached in the 'Neandertal' paper, on this page, and a succinct statement of my proposal.
The five-page "Locket" section of this manuscript, as above, is available in Adobe Acrobat *.pdf only.
For the black and white Acrobat *.pdf version, ideal for printing, click here. (about 600 k)
Note:
You have to scroll around a bit with smaller screens, but it's fully readable.
in just about any web-browser, and it explains the reason why.
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__________________________________________Silverstructrure --- Issues, Frameworks, and A Proposal (Color 1024 *.gif [ 300 k ], or Acrobat *.pdf B&W [ 100 k ])
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Note Regarding Some Special Sections:
I suppose first of all, the section on "Affection and Evolution", may be something that is new, easy to understand, and may spark the interest of some readers.
Second of all, I am most anxious that readers take a look at the section, which shows in very simple, easy-to-understand terms, what the central finding of each of four famous discoverers was Einstein, Darwin, Marx, and Freud.
At the moment, in my mind, those two sections take prominance, but for two different reasons.
The third section that comes to mind, and which I think will be particularly easy for a person to understand is the little metaphor/story near the end.
Fourth, the two sections "Classroom Magic", and "Tomato Magic" while perhaps taking a bit of thinking to read through, constitute the real heart of what I'm trying to present.
Finally, the very short section, warning against the careless application of metaphor, is, I think, also very important.
Basically, the paper is designed to be read as a whole, single piece. But if you want to sample certain sections, it might work to start with the above.
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1500 . . . . I. Introduction - The point that this paper is making
2500 . . . . VI. The Class/Member Distinction - Classroom Magic
500 . . . . XI. On Metaphors - Dangers of "Running With" Metaphors
1000 . . . . XV. Neandertal Bows Out - Gracefully
500 . . . . XIX. Two Frameworks - Helpful, Harmful
3000 . . . . XXI. Proposal - Locket
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The following is basically, a book review, regarding:
The Neandertal Enigma
by James Shreeve
William Morrow, New York 1996
342 pages, plus bibliography and index
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Note: The following paper attempts to bring together some ideas regarding where humanity's been and where it's going . . . .
Some readers may find that the introductory paragraphs may take a bit of thought to get through . . . hopefully, that might serve as a kind of 'tune up', so to speak. It does get a bit lighter, and, I hope anyway, kinda interesting, a little further on . . .
. . . so anyway, please, just put your thinking cap on . . . and barrel on through . . .
And, as always,
lots of love,
and best wishes,
to us all . . .
---- neil
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Section Titles in the following paper:
Part I Introduction
Part II Neandertal
Part III Math
Part IV Politics
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Thoughts upon reading:
The Neandertal Enigma
by James Shreeve
William Morrow, New York 1996
342 pages, plus bibliography and index
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guideA. Evolution, Affection, and Neandertal . . . . 10,000
(You Are Here)
B. What's New In Sapiens . . . . 10,000
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I. Introduction - The point that this paper is making . . . . 1500
The following started out as a book review, the most recent of more than 120 posted at this web-site, but the first I've posted in more than a year.
It's not that I was particularly enthusiastic about this book in particular, although given the context in which I read it, I certainly did get a lot from it. But anyway, the general subject of human origins has held some considerable interest for me.
My Real Agenda
But, because I've just gotten my "Logical Types" (© 1983 nrm) explanation down to an extremely succinct little rendition, and given the volatility of the current political circumstance, I got to thinking about just what was the big mental advance from pre-humans, up to, and including Neandertal, the big advance in mental organization from earlier species, to Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
I mean, it seemed like figuring something out about Neandertal, might have some significance for the work I do, and for the current political situation.
Objects Low Level; Systems High Level
Anyway, I suddenly realized that while Neandertal could probably understand that the objects he was seeing, were part of singular reality, separate from himself, a deer running across his line of view is probably something he understood to be not only in his mind, but in the world "out there", he probably could not understand "ideas" and "systems" as part of singular reality, again separate from himself.
Thus, because they could understand objects, but not ideas, as physical entities outside themselves, they couldn't combine objects in complicated ways into something, into a "higher level" "system" of much higher value to life, something that comes naturally to the bioecosystem as a whole, and something that comes naturally to Homo Sapiens Sapiens (that's us) as well.
"Hard" Sciences And Social Sciences
Then, it dawned on me that while we, as Sapiens Sapiens can access universal ideas in science the periodic table of elements, or the map of the solar system, or the relationship between seed, soil, water, sunlight, and a fruit tree, or the relationship between matter and energy, and so forth while we can understand universal ideas as constants, outside ourselves, we do not use that ability to access ideas and systems in the social fields also as singular reality, separate from ourselves.
Rather, social and political ideas are treated as ethereal, "indefinable" things, "just perceptions", rather than as specific, natural constants, singular, same-for-everyone reality, outside ourselves.
Ideas as "indefinable ethereal" things, would indeed be how a Sapiens Neandertal would see things, but wholly beneath the Sapiens Sapiens mind.
In other words, while we have the brain power, which Neandertal did not, to comb out all the problems of very large societies, and of complicated social relationships, with much the same concreteness and consistency as what are now called the "hard" sciences, we don't use that brain power for those social purposes. It's not that we can't. It's that we don't and can and should, and indeed, must.
Sapiens Neanderthal's Proper Context
Neandertal did not have the ability to build high technology, and so could not build vast societies, and therefore did not need to apply advanced thinking to vast social systems, and to more complicated social problems, either personal or large scale.
Sapiens Sapiens' So Far Improper Context
Homo Sapiens Sapiens, on the other hand, did apply the ability to conceptualize singular reality regarding ideas and systems, did apply that ability to the "hard sciences", and built these technologically based societies, but did not use that very same ability, which we all have, in application to the social sciences and to the social difficulties that necessarily develop alongside.
Since Mesopotamian times, we've had the technology of a Sapiens Sapiens, but the political ideation of a Neandertal. This is not due to any lack of intellectual acumen on our part, but rather a simple lack of the proper mathematical tools.
Sapiens Neandertal got along well with one another, with other pre-humans, and with nature, because the technology and social organization that their mind allowed them to develop, matched up. Their technological level matched up with their social level.
The Proper Math System For Social And Political Relations
The problem for Sapiens Sapiens is that, while our mind is fully capable, and the math for technology has been available, allowing us to create vast societies, at the same time, the math for the parallel social organization that necessarily thus develops, has not been previously available.
While we have the brains to solve the big stuff, socially, not having the math system for that specifically, leaves that particular brain power, which again, is in each of us, lying dormant.
Spiritualism Doesn't Sort Out Complicated Social And Political Relations
It is said that we're supposed to rely on some sort of "spiritualism" or "religion" for the social and politics part, because, it is falsely claimed "life itself is 'just crazy'" or basically unfathomable, so overall human solutions, it is alleged, cannot be known or found.
Life Is Not Crazy; Only A Mis-Directed Society Seems Crazy, Because It Is
We are supposed to 'think', it is said, that "there are no 'real' solutions to the great problems of harm to humans, because, again it is falsely said, that "everything is just too crazy". Or, alternatively, we're supposed to rely on an unfathomable set of "laws", handed down by some sort of non-cognitive "spirit".
Humans Have The Brains For It, Just Not The Tools
Well, some sort of "religious" or "spiritual" understanding perhaps could, and maybe did work fine for a non-technological Neandertal society, but for a vast technological society, while the brain power is obviously available in every human for sorting things out in a healthy manner for everyone, there is no healthy system for political and social relations currently in use.
And in fact, there can't be a way to sort things out all around in a healthy and universal manner, without the proper math system.
The (Sort Of) Fabled "Three Hours Of Fame" (appended October 7, 2001)
Again, since about July of this year (2000), my mind has been focusing sharply on a new, simple, clear, succinct, and most important, comprehensive, rendition of the math system for social matters that must go alongside a vast technological society.
The Logical Types System (© nrm - 1983) shows that there is an accurate description and an inaccurate description for every matter of social and political importance, just as there is an accurate and an inaccurate description regarding a solid object. And it shows just how to figure out accuracy and inaccuracy as regards social and political matters. And calculate by a standard that is constant for everyone, like in other maths.
Just Three Hours (appended October 7, 2001)
Not The "Missing Link" of Species, But The "Missing Link" of Math
In this review, I naturally thought about the development of humanity from Sapiens Neandertal, to Sapiens Sapiens, but in my mind, I was really thinking about presentation of the "missing link", so to speak, in Sapiens Sapiens mathematics.
Too Late For Some Things, But Not Too Late For Others
Anyway, I realize that, if someone does give me the facility to present this math system, it's still too late for its ideal timing these past ten years, or even for this election season these past months and weeks. Too late? What's new? Same 'ole same 'ole, for me anyway.
So, It's All My Fault, But Really, Only Partly My Fault
But sometimes I console myself that, although I'm always a few minutes, or a few days or weeks or months or years or decades late (I could have and should have had this back in '65, not to mention, should have been able to bring it out in '84, and '95, and '98 and . . . etc.), the idea itself is 9,000 years late, and the first 8,950 years is not really completely all my fault, well, directly anyway. So I'm not the only one to blame . . . well . . . basically . . .
Oh well, I sure hope we all survive what seems to be coming, even though I know we may not. But anyway, onwards . . .
A Note On Spelling, Abbreviations, And Gender
Shreeve notes that the real spelling, for general usage, is Neandertal, without the "h" near the end (not Neanderthal). Naturally, my having seen and spoken the term with the "h" so much, Neanderthal comes so much more naturally. To confuse matters even more, the actual full technical name is Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis (which includes the 'h'). So, I've decided not to think too much at the moment, about which is better, so I'm just going to go with Shreeve's idea about it (mostly), that is, without the 'h', and figure it out later.
Another difficulty may arise in that the full scientific name of Neandertal is, again, "Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis", while the scientific name for us is "Homo Sapiens Sapiens". In this piece, I sometimes abbreviate it to Neandertal (for Neandertal) and Sapiens (for us). The fact that the word "Sapiens" is used in the formal name of both species may lead to some momentary confusion for the reader, however, hopefully, the context of the sentence or paragraph will make clear which species I'm referring to.
I should also make note of the fact that I stopped using "he", and "man" and "mankind" as generic words for people, back in the early 1960's, and have pretty much stuck to "them" and "they" as non-gender singular in all the years since, or used the words "humankind" sprinkled with "she" for generic references.
But in this work, for reasons I don't quite understand, it has seemed easier for the moment, to revert to "he", and "man", as generic terms. I am well aware that it might "grate" some nerves, in fact, it certainly grates on mine. I just can't think of any other way to state certain things right now. I hope the reader will allow those terms as generic terms in this particular case.
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Neandertal and Beyond
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The Neandertal Enigma
by James Shreeve
William Morrow, New York 1996
342 pages, plus bibliography and index
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II. On Reading Shreeve's Book - Setting The Stage . . . . 1500
Sleeping My Life Away; While Rome Burns, In Florida And Other Places . . .
I've read some thirty-five or so books (I think about that) since the last time I updated this bibliography, which may seem like a lot, but, considering my pace over the previous years, and how little I've written, or talked to anyone, it sort of feels like I've read almost nothing at all. In one ear and out the other . . . or something like that. I can't even read my favorite journals anymore . . . all that anti-Clinton, anti-Democrat stuff has seemed so impossibly dumb and so enragingly irritating, I just can't focus any more . . . In fact, I've been slowing down to what for me is almost nothing, having, at this point, read just two books, in the three months from early September to now (late November). These two most recent are Hilary Clinton's "It Takes A Village" (an excellent book which I wish I'd read years ago), and Shreeve's "The Neandertal Enigma", both published in 1996.
I haven't got it right now to organize my thoughts regarding much of it - or, looking around at my so-called 'life', to organize just about anything at all for that matter - but having, finally, just finished Shreeve's book in a little cafι on Church Street last night, I'm of a mind to write a little about it. Or, more specifically, to write something regarding "What did happen to Neandertal anyway?" Not that I know. I absolutely don't. But I do have a lot of thoughts about it at this moment, and, well, for some reason, it's what's coming to mind right now.
Of Johanson, Tattersal, and Shreeve
I hadn't picked Shreeve's book to read - it was Ian Tattersal's book on Neandertal that I had really wanted - but, having no money for books (nor for food or much of anything else these last several months), and having run across this one at Aardvark for just five bucks, I sort of just grabbed it, figuring it would have to do.
Shreeve had co-authored "Lucy's Child", with Donald Johanson (author of what is still my favorite book in this field, "Lucy") but I was not so enamored of "Lucy's Child" - it seemed a little too disassociated to me. Still, Shreeve, having worked closely with Johanson, gives him lots of credibility with me, so I decided, what the heck.
350 Pages
It turns out to be a long book, packed with much state of the art information regarding where the field of paleoanthropology - roughly, human origins, "paleo" for bones, "anthro", for humans, and "ology" for study of, "Paleoanthropology" - is at now, or rather, as of 1996, just a few years ago.
'Beyond The Wave', 'Schema', 'Summary', 'Truth', 'Flying Blind', 'American Pearls', And . . . (pray, pray) The Soon To Be Famous (God Only Knows How), 'Logical Types' . . .
Shreeve's "The Neandertal Enigma" predates my own "Beyond" paper, especially the several hundred or so visits to that site received over the past few months, and predates a series of private letters I wrote and sent out in 1999 addressing some of the main issues, so there's not so much of a whisper of my own framework of understanding in it. (Not that he'd include me, even if he had read my work - no one ever has, overtly anyway, in the fifteen years since "Schema" went out to 450 academics and professionals in the field, world-wide . . .). Still and all, I did find much of the low and medium level information Shreeve reports quite enlightening.
Grunt Grunt
He starts out reporting what was the original idea about Neandertal, from the time the first finds were made about a hundred years ago, namely that these were the original "ape men"/"cave men", grunt grunt, wandering around with club in hand, bopping things over the head and mindlessly grabbing at them. I remember when I was growing up, the term "Neanderthal" was synonymous among my elders with a stupid, brutal, sub-human of an alleged person, a term often applied to fascists in general.
Sweety Pie
Anyway, Shreeve then mentioned that there had been a major change of understanding in the professional (and literary) world, Neandertal coming to be seen as a warm, sweet, gentle, if somewhat naοve and 'quainter' version of us full-blown humans.
The Seventh Avenue Express
And, of course, he mentions the ever-present scenario that is so near and dear to my heart; the matter of 'if you gave him a shave and a shower and a businessman's haircut, and dressed him up in trousers. and a shirt and jacket and shoes and socks from Macy's, and handed him a New York Times which he'd then scrutinize in its most useful form, namely upside down, would he pass for anyone else on the New York City subways?"
As it was traveling alone everyday on the IRT, through Brooklyn, Manhattan, and The Bronx, from the age of about five to about thirty, that I first came to be fascinated with looking at people altogether (and returned the compliment by being quite a sight myself in my hippy days - 'yowiee mama! what's that?') my own answer is, of course not, he wouldn't pass for just anyone. He'd no doubt look, and act, a lot more normal and reasonable and human than most New Yorkers. Boooorrrrring, as they say in that town . . . But that's another story . . .
Hysteria
But anyway, there's something about Shreeve's writing style that kind of struck me - although I don't know if it's really his writing style, or just the distracted mood I've been in. I'll presume for the moment that it's him, not me, although I'm not entirely sure.
He reports conversations with a lot of the leading lights in the field of relatively recent human origins, and gives a lot of new, useful, relevant, and accurate information, but somehow, it all seems so inconclusive, and, again, disassociated. One could assume that that's because the whole field is so inconclusive these days, so an accurate rendition of the field would be necessarily disassociated. But I had another thought about it (well, many thoughts about it actually, but one that I'll mention right now).
The Vulcan Mind Meld
Sometimes, it seems to me that a researcher can focus so intensely on a particular subject, from so many different sources for such a long period of time, that he seems to pick up, personally some of the qualities of that subject. I've sometimes wondered, for example, if, in the midst of my reading of about a hundred books, in a rather short space of time, on the subject of abused girls, I might have internalized myself, something of the self-image of an abused female, I mean, it's possible, it almost seems that way to me sometimes . . . maybe that's my problem . . . not really of course, just joking . . . maybe . . .
. . . but anyway, I wondered if Shreeve, in looking at, and thinking about, and talking about, and writing about, and attempting to do the "Vulcan Mind Meld" (so to speak) with Neandertal, for the time he was working on this project, might have picked up some of the Neandertal mental organization, in "organizing", and sometimes "disorganizing" his thoughts about them. I mean, again, that sort of thing does happen sometimes . . . I mean, am I reading a book by a Neandertal clone? I mean, ha ha, not really, of course, but maybe, sorta, so to speak . . .
The Space Cadet
Anyway, I'm most comfortable with clean threads, and some kind of conclusiveness - right or wrong, it's just easier for me to evaluate, one way or the other, but, in this book anyway, it's just not his style. He says so many things that just sort of, seem to, wander off into space . . . or something . . . although maybe it's me that's wandering off into space . . . I can't tell . . . probably . . . but anyway . . .
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III. Four Million Year Summary - Five Stages From Apes To Humans . . . . 1000
African Blondie
The first direct analysis I can remember, it's a couple of months ago now since I started this book, but anyway, was his explanation of the "Eve" theory of Homo Sapiens Sapiens (that's us) origins. This is something that I still don't really understand, but I now know a lot more about it than I did before.
Markings On A World-Sized Ruler
Maybe I have to mention my own general understandings of what is known about the whole "line" (s) of "great apes" to "man".
I myself think in terms of five general stages. This is NOT a literally accurate rendition, "one after the next", cleanly and absolutely - some of these creatures were probably branches, OFF OF any direct line to us, but still, I think it does conform, in some way, in very very general terms, to what is known.
The, No Longer Famous, Species 'Missing Link' - About Four Million Years Ago
"First", from what I understand, there was Ardipithecus, apparently the first creature to evolve from the apes' and chimps' line, towards human. Apparently, they lived about four million years ago, still moving, when on the ground, on all fours, but slightly more erect than their predecessors. From what I recall, I think Tim White, of Berkeley, was the discoverer, or one of the discoverers.
Lucy In The Sky, With Diamonds - And Thank You John, Forever . . . - About Three Million Years Ago
Second, came Australopithecus. Apparently, these creatures, about three million years ago, actually walked upright, far closer to the human gait than any predecessors. Lucy, the famous "Lucy in the sky with diamonds" (Donald Johanson's discovery), was an Australopithecus, as were the Laetoli footprints, in what is now Tanzania. (It's Mary Leakey who gets the credit for finding Laetoli.)
Sigh
The Laetoli footprints, in the great rift valley of Africa, are, for me, the most thoroughly romantic image in the entire field. An adult and a child, walking side by side, presumably hand in hand, apparently turning to the left to notice an erupting volcano, and then continuing to walk straight onward. Somehow, the images of Lucy and Laetoli, both Australopithecus, merge in my mind to give me a picture of the true origins of humankind. About three million years ago. From what I understand, their brain size was about the same as the chimps, but it's that erect posture, hand in hand, that's what does it for me . . . Origins, right there, at Laetoli . . .
. . . that's from whence I date it all . . . and it ain't even bones . . . it's poetry, and motion . . . footprints in the sand . . . but, forever . . .
Shoulder To Shoulder and Hip To Hip - About Two Million Years Ago
Third, "Homo Habilis", Louis Leakey's discovery at Oldavi in Kenya, maybe two million years old. Apparently, the brain size was now getting larger, and these folks made tools. The same tools, over and over, for tens of thousands of generations, but still, shoulder to shoulder, crafting tools; I'm impressed. Johanson mentioned somewhere that, so little change, over so many tens of thousands of generations, presumes that they weren't talking to each other very much . . .
But even still, creating something more, tools and what they were used for, out of something less, just rocks, and, doing it shoulder to shoulder . . . well . . . clearly and deliberately making something more, out of something less, well, that gets to me . . . Marx too, I think, would have been pleased . . .
I mean, I know that termites craft arches, and beavers construct dams, I know that, but it's different with Habilis . . . tool-making was part of a whole set of things; posture; I presume some form of comparatively advanced communication - maybe truly noticing one another, and feeling noticed, which seems like, comparatively, nirvana, so to speak . . . and, bigger brains, and, most importantly, it didn't stop there . . . goin' somewhere . . . room to grow, even if it was over a long long long time . . .
Controlled Fire, And Organized Shelter - About One Million Years Ago
Fourth, about a million years ago, Homo Erectus. Now these folks were starting to look substantially human. A much bigger brain, lotsa tools, controlled fire, probably organized shelter, getting taller, and, spreading out, not only over Africa, but over Europe, The Middle East, China, as far out as Indonesia and The Pacific. Musta been somethin'! Finally, serious human - or pre-human really, societies. Pals, in the big time . . . human beings comin' on . . .
I Am He As You Are We . . . - About One Hundred Thousand Years Ago
And finally, fifth. Cro-Magnon, that is, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, us, from about 100 thousand years ago, and, within a couple thousand generations, occupying the whole world, and, ten thousand years ago, farming - the fabled "Garden of Eden", at last - and then, in only the last three hundred generations, all the rest.
The Last Inch Of The Ruler
But it is from the fourth to the fifth stage (as rendered above), that the story really gets complicated. From Erectus to Sapiens. And that is the subject of Shreeve's book, "The Neandertal Enigma".
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IV. Eve And Neandertal - Dispersal And Interaction . . . . 2000
Say It Ain't So
Sapiens Neandertalensis - 200 thousand years ago to 30 thousand years ago, and Sapiens Sapiens, from 100 thousand years ago, to present. Side by side for 70 thousand years, and then, well, they just "bowed out". Where'd they go??!!? . . . right here a minute ago, and then, silence . . . No hard evidence of violence, and lots of evidence of no violence. So what happened? Why'd they go? Did we say something wrong? Why'd they leave . . .? I mean, that's what he wants to know. And I guess I'm kinda curious about that too . . .
Cognition, And The Internal Observer
It wasn't, apparently, so simple, from Erectus to Sapiens. Lota twists and turns in the road, and a lot of finds and speculations about just who was who, how, and what happened.
I mean, just how did we get so smart, and, in that premiere way, so different from all other creatures, from all time, and why. And what the heck happened to everyone else? How come we're so alone up here, among all the species that came before. That's really the enigma that he's trying to figure out . . . me too . . .
DNA vs. Hard Bones
So, anyway, the "Eve" theory. This was apparently figured out from looking at a certain sort of DNA of present creatures, such as us and other animals, rather than from looking at what can be found from the bones of our ancestors.
Mitochondria, The Mother Of Us All . . .
There's a certain sort of DNA, called mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) that is apparently passed only from mother to daughter, not through males. Apparently, when sperm meets egg, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the male gets shucked off, disappeared, so that the specific mtDNA of the male doesn't get passed down. I mean, I heard somewhere, I think (was it Lewis Thomas?, not sure . . .), that we are all made up of about 80% mitochondria, but the mtDNA specifically, a tiny part of DNA, is passed down only through women, or something like that. I don't get it exactly, but something like that . . .
Somehow, and this is part of what I do NOT yet understand, somehow, tracing that mtDNA specifically, allows for much clarification of how long mutations take to accumulate over generations, and clarifies calculations regarding the overall pace of evolutionary changes over time.
The Replacement Theory
By looking at mtDNA in humans and other creatures currently present world-wide, some scientists have concluded that what must have happened is that Homo Sapiens Sapiens came into being in Africa about 130,000 years ago, and then, spread out into the rest of the world, REPLACING those pre-Sapiens, Erectus creatures that were already there. Within this idea, Homo Erectus completely disappeared, without interbreeding with Sapiens, and was wholly REPLACED BY Homo Sapiens.
Thus, the "Eve" theory, is also called the "replacement" theory. According to this theory, all the current minor variations, the "races", African, European, and Asian, developed within this all-new Homo Sapiens Sapiens creature.
The Dispersal Theory
Other theories, which make a lot more sense to me, and I think to most scientists in these fields, involve the original Homo Sapiens also starting in Africa, and spreading out from there, but interbreeding with Homo Erectus in Africa, Europe, and Asia, and cross-breeding between and among all three areas (over thousands of generations of course) to bring about current Homo Sapiens Sapiens. In this case, we evolved from Homo Erectus and an original Homo Sapiens creature breeding together, and cross-breeding among, and back and forth throughout the whole world.
In this theory, whether the three races evolved alongside the development to Homo Sapiens Sapiens, or whether the three races evolved after Homo Sapiens Sapiens was already together, is still 'up in the air' so to speak.
Just A Few Pieces Of The Puzzle Are Visible To Me, Not The Whole System
Like I said, I really don't understand it exactly, but I understand more about it than I did before I read Shreeve's book. If I read one or two more books regarding this matter specifically, I presume I'd probably 'get it'. Then I'd probably have a firmer opinion, one way or the other.
But anyway, right now, it appears to me that the "Eve" theory, in it's "replacement" form, is probably not correct, but I'm not really sure. As for certainty, apparently, the leading lights in the professional world are not really all that certain either, one way or the other.
So, presuming that wholesale replacement is NOT correct, and that early Sapiens did intermingle with Erectus, then that led to both Homo Sapiens Neandertal on the one hand, and modern Homo Sapiens Sapiens, which is us, on the other.
So either Sapiens Neandertal, and Sapiens Sapiens (us) developed separately from a Homo Erectus/Homo Sapiens combination, or whether Homo Sapiens Sapiens developed directly from Neandertal is also not known for sure, but apparently, it is now generally presumed that they developed separately - Sapiens Neandertalis and Sapiens Sapiens, both separate branches from the Erectus/Sapiens combination, NOT Sapiens Neandertalis leading to Sapiens Sapiens.
Apparently, Neighbors But Not Lovers . . . Apparently . . .
There's also the question of whether Neandertal could interbreed with Homo Sapiens Sapiens. It's presumed not, or at least, not with healthy children, but again, it's not sure. Most seem to think the species are too different for interbreeding.
One Logical Level Lower
As far as brain size goes, Neandertal had a big brain, like us, apparently bigger even, but differently organized, apparently not as high a level of mental organization, despite it's bigger size. They were a bit shorter and stockier, beefier than most Homo Sapiens Sapiens, better adapted to cold climates, but apparently not as graceful as us - a different sort of bone structure; not only stockier, but apparently substantially different.
???
Again, there's a lot that I don't really understand here. On the one hand, it seems likely to me that Homo Sapiens originally from Africa could interbreed with Homo Erectus across Africa, Europe, and Asia, the combination evolving into Neandertal, and also to us. On the other hand, here I'm saying that Homo Sapiens Neandertalis maybe could Not breed with Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
That would seem a little strange, Homo Sapiens being able to interbreed with Homo Erectus, but two different Homo Sapiens lines not being able to interbreed with each other. As strange as it may seem, that may have been the case anyway. I guess I don't really know enough, to know just what went on about all that.
On Communication
As for language, that seems to still be a big area of dispute. My own theories as to why humans developed in just the way we did make the most easy sense if it turns out that language goes back a million years. But alas, as mentioned elsewhere in this bibliography, that apparently is unsupportable by the physical evidence.
I mean, from what I can tell, there were apparently many ways of communicating among earlier species of humans, regardless of language-or-no-language as we know it. Shreeve points to the sign language that has been developed for the deaf as one example of involved, depthful, full-blown and nuanced language without the benefit of speech.
Sure it's true that that sign language as we know it was developed from spoken language, but something like that conceivably could have been developed tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of years ago or more, even without spoken language as a starting place. Perhaps sign language was developed hundreds of thousands of years ago, and it died away as spoken language came to pass. That would certainly resolve one problem for me. But right now, there's no way of knowing, that I know of anyway.
I guess I should interject a note here regarding a book I am currently reading, about the human face, by Daniel McNeill. According to this author, one idea about just why the human face got flatter, and especially why hair disappeared from it, starting from Habilis (two million years ago), but especially in the leap to Sapiens, is because that made it easier to read the thousands of different expressions that the face can make . . . more language possibilities, even prior to organized speaking . . .
(And on perhaps an almost entirely irrelevant note, I just started another book in which the author reports the find of a lock of Beethoven's hair, and writes an entire biography with that as the focus . . . It's amazing what can be gleaned from the tinyest things . . .)
The Hyoid Bone, For Speaking . . .
Anyway, Shreeve mentions the find of a hyoid bone, a body part (near the larynx) necessary for refined speech, alongside a Neandertal find, and that being an indication that Neandertals could physically talk, which would put the ability to speak back, theoretically, to about at least 200,000 years ago. I mean, it was found near a 50,000 year old specimen, but if a 50,000 year old specimen had it, then they all had it, going back to the start of Neandertal, at least.
But, as with the example of sign language for the deaf, not to mention lip reading altogether, and all sorts of other communication tools, he suggests that the ability to talk "as-we-know-it" may not be quite the communication "make-or-break" factor that it's cracked up to be. Maybe, maybe not . . . again, I can't tell. Again, the hard evidence for serious spoken conversation goes back to only about 40,000 years ago, as far as I can tell.
But still . . .
The Golden Rule: Everything We Need To Know To Solve Problems Of Harm To Humans, CAN BE KNOWN.
The only thing I do know for absolute certain is that it can all be combed out; enough information can, and presumably will eventually come to light so that all that we need to know to answer all the relevant questions, can be discovered and figured out. It's just that there's a long ways to go yet, a lot that needs to be discovered, archeologically, geologically, paleoanthropologically, genetically, intellectually, and otherwise, in order to be certain about these matters. There ain't much money, or, for most, appreciation either, in this field, but still, the needs are still wide open . . .
But anyway, those are a few of the things that are physically known, as best I can tell, anyway, and some of the still present uncertainties, regarding the physicalities of the situation.
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V. On Upright Walking - Posture, Affection, Cognition, Intelligence, Solving . . . . 5000
My Own Idea About Upright Walking
Stunningly Attractive Social Posture
Zowie!
Long Term Consistency
Upright Posture And Increasing Brain Size Together
A Couple Of Standard Views Of The 'Why' Of 'Bipedalism'
The Kill And Be Killed School Of 'Thinking'
Better Transportation And "Thermal Homeostasis"
My Own Idea From That Classroom At McAteer
Attractiveness
Sensing Conversation (March 14th, 2001)
Anyway . . . Back to Lateoli . . .
A Passing Reference To Anti-science Absurdities
Intimacy Matters
Just One Set Of Eyes And Ears
Laetoli, Again (Sigh . . .)
We're All Designed To Be Mind-Readers, All The Time
More Storage Space, Please
Posture, Attractiveness, Intimacy, 'Information', Brain Size, Intelligence, Systemic Solutions
Seeing Something From All Around It
The "Big Picture" Is Only One Part Of The Whole System
Do You Believe In Magic?
Analogy Between What Happens With Stereo Eyesight, And Intellectual Climbing Of Logical Levels. Magic, In The Big Time.
Depth, Awe, And Amazement
Our Old Friend, The Tree
But Why So Much Understanding? What's The Good Of It?
Mother Nature, And The Great Committee In The Sky, Got DNA To "Outdo Itself"
The Fabled Magnet Shoulder To Shoulder And Soul To Soul
Seeing Deeply, Seeing Systems, Seeing Solving, Healing, Creating
"Honey, . . . we . . . "
In The Beginning, There Was Affection
Self. Self Self Self
Where Does Life Come From? It Comes From The Millions That Toil For Us Every Day.
And Our Thoughts And Feelings Too
No 'Hunter', No 'Prey', No 'Hostility'
That Other, Brand X Prevailing Paradigm
Long Overdue
Actual Science
It Was Just Nice
Part III Math
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A. Evolution, Affection, and Neandertal . . . . 10,000
B. What's New In Sapiens . . . . 10,000(You Are Here)
C. On Understanding Natural Science . . . . 3,000
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VI. The Class/Member Distinction - Classroom Magic . . . . 1500
From Neandertal To Sapiens
All this dovetails with some other, basic things that I'm working on, which came to mind while reading Shreeve's book.
I can't say for sure just what was the difference between Neandertal and modern Sapiens, but there are some things that occur to me regarding the basic intellectual capacity of modern humans, and the difficulties that persons have regarding accessing that intellectual capacity.
I have an idea about just what it was that Homo Sapiens Neanderthal did not understand, and could not understand, that Homo Sapiens Sapiens did understand; that is, just what it means to have a "higher level of mental organization".
From Mechanics to High Technology
I think Bertrand Russell's and Alfred North Whitehead's proof of the absolute consistency of arithmetic might illustrate one aspect of it.
Back at the last turn of the century, the 1800's to 1900's, very complicated mechanics was beginning to turn into "high technology" as we know it. Much about the nature of matter, energy, electricity, chemistry, cosmology, biology, medicine, physics and a variety of other fields had been newly established, and scientists were beginning to put them together in heretofore unseen ways.
Einstein's discovery that matter, when it reaches the velocity of the speed of light, becomes pure energy - that matter and energy are basically interchangeable - is but one example.
The Importance Of Arithmetic
But Bertrand Russell, perhaps the greatest mathematician of our time, realized that all, or almost all, of the most advanced equations in all the science fields would have to be backed up, at their lowest logical level, by arithmetic.
Simple arithmetic as we know it, had to serve as the "Rock of Gibraltar", so to speak, if there was to be the sort of certainty in the super-advanced physical sciences that were coming to be absolutely required.
But there was a problem with arithmetic.
A Shock
If you take a group of, say, three thin sticks, and grasp them tightly in your left hand, and another group of two thin sticks grasped in your right hand, it may look like you just have just two sticks altogether.
One (group of sticks) in your left hand, and one (group of sticks) in your right hand. But if you hold them tightly together in your fists, it may look like just one stick in your left hand, and just one in your right.
You can hold up before an audience, these two groups in your hands, one in your left, one in your right, announce, "one plus one", and then, dramatically drop the sticks together on a table. Voila, five sticks appear on the table - and then you could say, "see? One, plus one, equals five."
I only tried this ONCE, in a classroom, only ONCE, and vowed to NEVER NEVER NEVER do it again, and I strongly implore the reader to NEVER pull this very disorienting dirty trick on people without careful, prior explanation.
The look of sheer terror on my students' faces was far more than I could bear, and I was quite sorry that I pulled that surprise.
All Things Are Said In A Presumed Context
The firmly presumed context, when one simply says "one plus one", is the rules of simple arithmetic, but, without warning, when ones says "is five", it's a change of systems, without an explanation of that change of context.
This is, without question, a "dirty trick", for today, all scientists take it for granted, that, when dealing with the simple arithmetic system, a group of three sticks, is NEVER the same as a single stick within that group.
The "trick", confuses a "class" with its "members", something that does not happen in nature, indeed, such confusion being anti-nature.
What scares people, is to one minute, call it one, and the next minute to call the same thing three, without ever making the distinction between "one group" (of three sticks) on the one hand, and "three sticks", or "elements" within that "one group", on the other.
The Hidden Context Trick
In fact, the look of horror on my students faces, when I allegedly (deceitfully in fact) "demonstrated" that "one and one is five", is one of the strongest driving forces that absolutely compelled me to sort out Russell's explanation, and figure out a simple and easy explanation that combs out the whole thing, clearly and consistently.
And it was that look of terror on my student's faces, that was a major factor (among other things) that compelled me to come up with the "Logical Types and Logical Levels System Copyright NRM 1983" in the first place, which clearly combed out the whole confusion.
It's also one of several major reasons why I dare not release the "Logical Types" system, without all the contextual explanation, all the "checks and balances", that goes alongside.
19th Century Heartbreak: Of Freud, Marx, Darwin, and Einstein
It would probably be a good idea to interject a note here regarding the importance of presenting scientific findings, especially those of a systems nature, in such a way so as to ensure helpful use, and so as to prevent harmful use. I call this "locking up one's work against abuse." One can't always be successful at preventing such abuse, but it is important to 'build in', or at least attempt to build in at least some preventive measures.
Darwin came up with his understandings regarding natural selection in order to give us all a better understanding of how to fit together with our overall environment. Instead, his work was bitterly used to justify brutality, and slavery.
Freud's discovery of the unconscious should have led to an acute understanding of the harm to all, that child abuse brings; instead, it was used to justify abuse of weaker persons, and of war in general.
Einstein's discovery of the relationship between matter and energy should have led to boundless sources of elemental combinations and of energy of all sorts; instead it led to toxic wastes and atom bombs.
Marx came up with his ideas as a way to sort out the great problems of humanity in a just and reasonable manner. And even Marx's work is all too often referred to as justification for a brutal, unjust, "eternally" 'one against the other' sort of world.
My own "Logical Types" discovery was specifically designed to vastly increase the intelligence, clarity, and sense of certainty of people generally, but I am all too acutely aware that that discovery could be used, if introduced in the wrong context, to, not enhance, but further destroy both human intelligence and a person's very healthy sense of certainty.
And it is for this reason, again, that I have insisted that the basic diagrams and explanations that are at the core of that discovery, must ONLY be released in the full, intelligence-advancing, 'work-out-well-for-all' context within which they were discovered in the first place.
The Out Of Context "Demonstration"
But to return to the demonstration regarding a person holding up before an audience what looks like "one" (in fact, one group of three sticks) in one hand, and "one" (group of two sticks) in the other, and announcing that "one plus one equals", 'presto', "five".
In fact, you can NEVER count the group (by definition, more than one), and an individual element of the group, as the same thing, again within the rules of the simple arithmetic system.
Context, Revealed
Russell called the group of sticks a "class", and the sticks within the group, "members of the class".
His mathematical terminology was: "a class and its members".
My terminology is: "a System", and "the Elements of that system"
We take it for granted now, that anyone can see that, when dealing with the simple arithmetic system specifically, you either count the sticks in your left hand as one, all tied together as a singe unit, OR as three, three separate units.
Within the laws of simple arithmetic, you don't claim that one unit IS three units, for, again, within the laws of simple arithmetic, one IS NEVER three.
Algebra, And Other Maths
There are other math systems, of course, Algebra for example, where 1x plus 1y, may well equal five. But that's a different math system; one that has additional laws; it's not simple arithmetic.
In the case of Algebra, the laws of arithmetic are just one element in the overall Algebra system.
But the absolute and invariable laws of the simple arithmetic system in particular, are required to "back up", algebra, and all the other maths.
Simple Arithmetic
Again, within the laws of simple arithmetic in particular, you don't ever claim that one unit IS three units, for, again, within the laws of simple arithmetic, one is NEVER three. And, in ordinary, literal, and non-poetic conversation, when one simply says "one plus one", without qualification, the rightly presumed context is the laws of arithmetic.
Within the laws of simple arithmetic in particular, one unit is never three units. Never. That's what the premiere discovery of the premier mathematician of our time, PROVED, as a fundamental, inviolate law of nature. Again, within the simple arithmetic system, as defined by Russell and Whitehead.
It is Russell and Whitehead who figured out that absolute, inviolate "Class/Member Distinction", or the "System/Elements" distinction, as I call it, and their discovery of the proof of that distinction is generally considered the greatest mathematical discovery of modern times.
Solid As A Rock, In Fact, More so
For, again, it turned simple arithmetic into "The Rock of Gibraltar" so to speak, absolutely certain and never varying, no matter how complicated and high level, the equations of physics, chemistry, engineering, optics, biology, cosmology, or whatever, become.
No matter how far into space the equations of science go, the laws of simple arithmetic, as defined by and proven by Russell and Whitehead, no matter how far, way way way back in the equations you go, a hundred steps ago or whatever; the laws of simple arithmetic as defined, in "Principia Mathematica", can be absolutely counted on to remain invariant, again, no matter how complicated and advanced the ultimate equations become.
Absolute Certainty
Scientists need that sort of absolute certainty in math, and it is because of that sort of certainty, that mathematics is so much a dearly loved field. For many, there's nothing like it on this planet - "pure truth", as they say.
I won't here, go into just HOW they proved it, proved that "A Class Can NEVER Be A Member Of Itself", the "class/member" distinction as I call it.
Just HOW they solved that grandfather of all paradoxes - "The Class Of All Classes That Are Not Members Of Themselves", is another story, detailed in a simple diagram in my "Logical Types" explanation.
At any rate, the overall "Logical Types System" that I discovered in 1983, based on Russell's and Whitehead's earlier, turn of the century discovery, makes it easy for any schoolchild or adult to understand, to sort out in their own mind, and to explain, just what Russell's and Whitehead's fundamental reasoning was. But that explanation must await full-scale, public exposition of my own work.
It Takes Three To Make A System
Russell and Whitehead were able to separate, define, and clarify two different "logical types", "a class, and its members", good enough for an absolute proof of the arithmetic system as a bedrock of the "physical sciences"; good enough to enable persons trained in the various sciences of technology, to confidently move ahead to incredibly advanced equations.
But they overlooked the key element that is required to understand social and political matters in a systemic way. They overlooked the third logical type. And that sits at the core of my own discovery in this area. Again, copyright nrm 1983.
Math For The Physical Sciences
Russell and Whitehead, both Englishmen at Harvard when they did their major work, were mainly concerned, in their mathematical work, with what is sometimes called the "hard" sciences, or physical sciences.
Russell, The Social Philosopher
While Russell was a deeply committed social activist all his life, having, as just one example of many, been arrested in the extremely volatile pro-war climate in early 20th century Britain for protesting against World War I, and returning again to the barricades to be arrested again for protesting The Vietnam War half a century later, Russell did not directly apply his mathematical expertise to social matters.
While he is considered not only the greatest mathematician of his time, but also one of the greatest philosophers of his age, he confined his social 'critique' to just that, "philosophy", an area of study that is, by definition, uncertain. That is, an area devoid of the absolute, cognitively self-evident, universal, singular reality truth, that is characteristic of mathematics.
Math For The Social Sciences
Thus, when I saw the class/member distinction that he had discovered - the distinction between "a system consisting of many elements" on the one hand, and "one element among many in a system" on the other, I knew that something more was required to apply that sorting out system, to the social sciences, something that never occurred to Russell, that I know of anyway.
Struggling To Explain
In my attempts to explain various social issues to my students, on the blackboard of my classroom in Room 118 at McAteer High School in 1983, attempting to diagram and re-diagram, and re-diagram again, those issues as regards "whole systems" and "parts of systems", attempting to explain ever more clearly to them and myself, using a zillion different colors of chalk - from out of the diagram over diagram over diagram, a third logical type eventually "popped out" - almost 'levitated' off of the blackboard, at first, without me even noticing it.
Units For Arithmetic As A Basis For The Physical Sciences
As it turns out, Russell only needed to prove that numbers, in arithmetic, are ALWAYS units, always "members". No matter how high the number is, within the rules of simple arithmetic, a number is never "a class", or "a system". Three plus two equals five. Three units plus two units equals five units.
Five, even though it would seem to be the collection of three plus two, if it's simple arithmetic, five still operates, as units, that is, within the arithmetic system, it operates within the logic of "members", not within the logic of a "class".
Two Different Types Of Logic
In first proving the absolute distinction between the logic of "members of a class", on the one hand, and the logic of "a class consisting of many members" on the other hand, in proving that there is an entirely different sort of logic at work, between "all" (singular, a 'class', a 'system'), and "one of many" (plural, 'members', 'elements'), he could then define each and every number, no matter how high you go, again in simple arithmetic, as EXCLUSIVELY "members", NEVER a "class". That's what keeps the logic of arithmetic ABSOLUTELY consistent, no matter how high the numbers go.
Again, it was the class/member distinction that clarified and proved this matter.
Only One Type Of Logic, Always The Same, Is Used To Define Any And Every Number
There are no "classes" in arithmetic, as Russell defined arithmetic, there are only "members", and therefore, you are, again, in arithmetic, dealing with only "members" logic. That's what keeps it consistent; that's what turned arithmetic into the "Rock of Gibraltar", for all of the incredibly advanced sciences.
First The Distinction, And Then The Definition
First he had to define the class/member distinction. That was the big one. That "class/member" distinction was the big discovery.
In one case there are "many things" or "members", or "elements", and in the other, there is "the one group, as a whole", a "class", a "system". (My "Logical Types" © nrm diagram, makes this difference instantly all very clear to any person.)
Then, once that "class/member" distinction was defined, he could then define each and every number as "members", never "classes". Again, within the rules of simple arithmetic, as Russell and Whitehead defined those rules.
Now, scientists didn't have to worry, for the arithmetic portion of their equations, that their "three" would suddenly turn into "one". For arithmetic numbers are always "members", never "classes". Three is always three. ALWAYS, within the now defined rules of arithmetic. Solid as a rock.
Once It's Discovered And Explained, It's Easy For Anyone To Understand
It's not that complicated really, I mean for a Homo Sapiens Sapiens, that is. Certainly much easier than much of what is routinely learned in elementary school.
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VII. Type Two Logic - Tomato Magic . . . . 2500
From Physical Science Logic To Social Science Logic
The problem for me, though, back in that classroom, was that in life, in all the psychiatric, social, and political issues I was dealing with, to know the class/member distinction - while unlocking the major key in sorting such things out - to know the class/member distinction was not enough.
To know that, BEYOND arithmetic, three could be seen as a single group of one, "one" (group of three) being the "class", is something that I found quite helpful, but it didn't explain enough.
After all, if we call three, the "members", or "elements", as I would put it, and "one" (group of three), the "class", or "system" as I would put it, the three could be thrown together any old way, and it wouldn't make any difference. The three (sticks, or whatever) would still be a system, no matter how you arranged them.
Furthermore, in the case given here, three units, as put together into a "class", well, that class is still the equivalent of three.
But that's not how life works.
A Physical Example, To Illustrate Something More Complicated
Sorting out systems in life, is perhaps seen most simply by using the analogy of building a house. When you put together lumber, and nails, and brick, and tar, and, and glass, and paint, and human energy, just throw them together any old way, you get nothing much. Just a pile of stuff. You can call it a "class", because it's now a group of all of the "members" - wood, nails, etc. - but nothing changes. No new value.
Not Just Any Old "Class" ("System"), But A Special "One-In-A-Million" 'Class' Or System
But, if you put them together "in just a certain way", in a certain "one in a million" "configuration", well, then you get a gorgeous, warm, safe HOUSE. This is another kettle of fish (so to speak) entirely.
Now you get something that is of massively higher value to life than all of its members put together in any old way.
I'm using a physical structure here as an example, but the principle is that in life, the "members" or "elements", put together in any old way, don't really change anything.
But, put together in that "one in a million" special "configuration", you get something of massively higher value, than the simple "sum" of its elements.
Perpetually Increasing Value, From The Same Basic Atoms
Life, in fact, this bioecosystem, operates on something like a "perpetual motion machine", although that's obviously a terribly far away metaphor, just a metaphor, for that term is usually applied to simple "energy", and just "machines". So as usually applied literally, that concept is not true to life.
I am just trying to put in mind that, what is true to life, is that Life is a "perpetually advancing system in value", which is in fact, an accurate description.
The way life works, in the overall, there is always more value than there was before, with the same overall number of atoms.
This is a strict scientific formulation. Mathematics. Not philosophy. Not spiritualism. Strict, accurate/inaccurate, true/false, science and math.
"Elements" Being Soil And Water And Seed - Into "A System" Of A Tomato
This may be a little hard for people to grasp at first. I'll see if I can think of another example, besides the "wood to house" example given above.
If you have a mound of some soil, and a seed, and some water, and some sunlight, well, you can eat the pile, just like that, but it will do nothing for you to do that. It has comparatively little value to life, by comparison with a different configuration.
But if the same "elements" are arranged in a different way, a different "configuration", then, those very same "elements", those very same atoms, become a tomato. A special "class"; a "one-in-a-million" arrangement of those very same atoms.
And you can eat that tomato, and it will nourish you, so that you can go on to build still more things.
This is not a "philosophical" change; not a "spiritual" change. This is a change, from the elements together being soil, which, if you eat it, it will NOT nourish you, to a special configuration of those very same atoms, which, if you eat it, will nourish you.
An increase in value to life - physical, quantifiable, measurable, five-senses based.
Math, science, five senses.
Addition Via Quantity - And Addition Via Making A Special Configuration
Most people can see that if you have one tomato, and you add a second one, adding more atoms, that is an increase that can be specifically, scientifically, mathematically measured. One tomato and one tomato is two tomatos.
I think that most people are not used to understanding that the very same increase, mathematically, scientifically measurable, happens when the soil, as mentioned above - the very same atoms as the soil, are reconfigured into a tomato.
In both cases, you have one more tomato than you had before, one more thing of specifically nourishing value to life. Different processes, yes.
But in both cases, you have one more than you had before.
In both cases, it's all science and math. Not philosophy or spiritualism. All measurable, five-senses based, and all the rest.
In one case, you are adding, to the first tomato, a second tomato; you're adding more atoms. That's adding a unit, which is the logic of "members", in Russell's "class/member" distinction, as mentioned above. It's simple arithmetic.
In the second case, you are reconfiguring some soil and water and seed into a tomato. Not adding more atoms, but reconfiguring the soil atoms into a tomato.
That's adding a tomato too, but via the "class" logic, again, as per Russell's "class/member" distinction, again as mentioned above.
It's two different types of mathematical logic. But it's still math; still five-senses based, still measurable, still a physical difference. It's not philosophy; not magic. The increase in value, from the very same atoms, is concrete, conscious, cognitive, five-senses based.
In one case, you're adding more atoms, you're adding a second tomato, again, more atoms.
But in the other case, you're reconfiguring some atoms that are already present, not adding more atoms at all, but changing the configuration of the soil atoms which had lower value to life, but now, in tomato form, they have higher value to life, than just a small pile of soil and water and seed.
Math, In Both Cases, But Two Different Math Systems
In one case, you can add, by getting more. (Add one tomato - 'elements' logic)
The Physical Intelligence For Understanding This Is The Same In Everyone
I don't think an earlier species of the human line could understand that, that "disassociated elements" become "an organized system" of greater value to life, as a matter of concrete math, but I do know that every Homo Sapiens Sapiens can understand that.
Not that everyone does understand that.
And not that everyone needs to (although for understanding citizenship matters, that is, social and political issues, that understanding is certainly required).
But the point is, the physical capability for understanding that, is there in every person.
I think that it was Jean Piaget who proved that the physical ability to understand, that a "member", or "elements" type of change (simple arithmetic), is an ability that 'grows in', comes on line in the brain, earlier in childhood, but that the ability to understand a "class" type of change (re-configuring something into something of higher value to life - a "class", or "systems" type of change), the ability to understand that comes on line - or "grows in", neurologically - in the later elementary school years.
It's not a question of more or less "intelligence". Not at all, not at all. It is a question of what one decides to pay attention to, or is encouraged to pay attention to, or is discouraged from paying attention to.
Understanding that "one element of many" involves one type of logic, and that "a whole system" involves another type of logic, is not a question of intelligence. It is a question of decisions, and environment.
And in fact, and this is crucially important, environment, how one is encouraged or discouraged, is the bigger factor of the two.
As regards understanding that sort of thing, we all have the same, basic physical intelligence.
Some people don't want to, or need to, or are allowed to, or not allowed to, apply their minds in that specific way. But as regards this sort of thing, we all got it, physically, in the same way.
So. Most people can see that a certain sort of change in "configuration" is, in very important ways, scientifically and mathematically exactly the same, and exactly as measurable, and exactly as five-senses-based, as a change in quantity.
Again, in the overall. Same number of atoms; but more and more value; that's the way life works, when it's working well, that is. Once again, in the overall.
NOT "Dust To Dust", And NOT "Circular"
At any rate, Life, is NOT, a "dust to dust" system, as is so often claimed, nor is it a 'round and 'round system, nor a cyclical, nor "circular" system. Sure, small elements of life are that way, seemingly anyway. Sometimes.
But in the overall, the system of life, does not work on a "dust to dust", or circular system, or anything like that.
"Dust to dust, and 'circularity" are NOT true to the way life, this bioecosystem and the living things in it, operate.
Life, this bioecosystem, and all it's living organisms, is an EVER ADVANCING system.
In evolution, and in life, "elements" are constantly being combined "IN A CERTAIN ONE-IN-A-MILLION" "CONFIGURATION", to produce something of greater value to life, something that is of vastly higher value than those same "elements" thrown together any old way.
When things are working well, YOU ALWAYS WIND UP WITH SOMETHING BETTER, SOMETHING OF HIGHER VALUE TO LIFE, THAN WHAT YOU HAD BEFORE.
It's not a question of "more and more" physical resources. That's not the bottom line in life.
An Important Note On Misconstruing
I mean sure, if there aren't enough physical resources, and in these societies, for many individual people, most people really, especially world-wide, and for many tasks, there are definitely not enough physical resources available to them to do just about anything.
Then, in those cases, more physical resources have to become available, to do anything useful. Sure. Of course. Obviously.
In fact, it is NOT true that you can make something from nothing.
Nature makes something more, from something less, yes, but that's different from making "something from nothing" Or from too little, or from the wrong elements, in the first place.
Doing LESS With More
In politics, for example, it is sometimes said, that one can "do more, with less". It must be remembered though, that when nature "re-configures" a group of elements into something of higher level value, it is a "one-in-a-million" organization of just certain elements. Certain types, and amounts, of "elements", and a certain type of energy, have to be present in the first place.
Again, this process in nature - creating increasing value out of the same atoms that were there before - is not a matter of throwing any old things together, or throwing them together in any old way.
In daily life, for instance, a person must have certain minimal things available in the first place, in order to actually create things of increased value. If they have so little - as regards influences on them, or general systems that they are in, or physical resources - all they can do is "consume"; they're not in a position to "create more".
There can be, and often is, a misconstruing on the large scale as well.
If a whole society operates on an "primarily-accumulate" or "primarily-extract" principle, leaving large populations, either at home or abroad with barely enough, or not enough, for basic survival, then, while it may appear that in some places there is increased value from present energy and raw materials, in the overall, there is actually a "making something LESS out of something more" operation at work.
It's important to remember in all this, that, the way nature works is, again, a certain "one-in-a-million" group of elements organized in just a particular way, that will increase the value.
With other configurations, the other 99 percent of possible configuration, outside that "increasing value" one, nothing regarding value will change, or, sometimes the value will DECREASE, that is, will be a destructive configuration.
Thus, this understanding should NEVER be construed as a suggestion that persons in an impoverished or desperate situation should do more, with what terribly little they have. It should be construed as, if anything, as a call to see to it, that all have enough, in physical resources, education, security, affection, and everything else, so they are finally in a position to create still more.
It should also, and more important, be construed, if one were to overlay politics on this understanding, as a call for those who organize society in the overall, to alter the "accumulate/consume", "mostly-get" general dynamic which is so wrongly and strongly projected everywhere, such that society is re-configured to a "mostly create" general understanding, and general economic, and social, and of course, educational and political organization.
Again, Special Configuration, Not Any Old Way
At any rate, the matter of, with life, you can't just throw together any old things, in any old way, to get something of higher level value, is, of course, why Russell's "class/member" distinction, while working for arithmetic, where you can throw the units together in any old way, to get a group, or "class" - the 'class/member' distinction, which was a necessary starting place, was not enough for calculating social and political matters.
I needed a third sort of logic, a third logical type, that bespeaks only a certain, "one-in-a-million" configuration of "elements" into the specific "system" that unites them, such that the value to life increases.
To calculate in arithmetic, only two logical types needed to be understood: a "members" ("elements") type of logic, and a "class" (a "system") type of logic. But to calculate regarding matters of life altogether, it takes three logical types - "elements", "configuration", and "system". (© nrm)
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VIII. On Politics and Science- Volitility, Rebellion, and Solving . . . . 2500
A Note On Politics - The Progressive Idea, "Primarily Create", "Primarily Add"
Elsewhere in this web-site, and later in this paper, I mention that this is why the "Progressive" view, often known as the liberal, or leftist view, and generally associated with The Democratic Party is the one that matches up with nature's processes. It is only a special configuration of things, including government, among other things, that produces the sort of "advancing", again "progressive" system that conforms to nature's way of things.
I also call this the "primarily-create" view, which requires knowledge, intelligence, education, and deliberateness.
The Reactionary View, "Primarily Get", "Primarily Extract"
On the other hand, it is the "Reactionary" view, often known as the conservative or rightist idea, and promoted by The Republican Party, that insists on disassociating the configuration - of government, and other things - that rightist view being the one that bears no relation to how nature works.
This is why they work to destroy cognitive education, to destroy the general population's ability to sort out carefully, via terror, bust economy, racism, anti-intelligence-conversational-distractions, anti-regulations, and other means, and call for a reliance on vague "spiritualism", where nothing can be cognitively figured out.
Or alternatively, claims that "life is 'just' crazy", and that high level configuration cannot really be figured out by an ordinary human mind anyway.
Or, in another mode, they call for a fundamentally arithmetic-type, and basically similar-type calculations, including literally impossibly "complex" and even proudly "chaotic" anti-calculations - "sociobiology" - for (avoiding) sorting out life issues.
Their formulations must remain impossibly complex and chaotic, in order to avoid exposure of life's, of nature's, actual, entirely humanly understandable, ever advancing, and mostly-creating system.
I call this the "primarily-get" view, and rather than take a certain amount, and configure higher value to life, this "conservative", rightist idea, takes what's available, and "accumulates" and "consumes", concentrating it in a small area, and leaving LESS AND LESS, in the overall than what was there before. Again, this bears no relation to how nature works.
Progressive - Advancing, Helpful, 'Making More From Less' In The Overall
Thus, the Progressive (liberal, leftist, Democratic Party) view recognizes that nature's system is an advancing system, requiring a conscious configuration of sources and resources, and requiring strong, broad-based economy, and a secure, and a healthy, terror-free, and intelligently educated population, using the "three-logical-types" that I've worked out, in order to configure things in an ever-advancing, ever higher value to life way, matching nature's system.
It is the Progressive view that takes a physical amount, and turns it into higher value to life, in the overall, again, matching nature's processes.
Reactionary - Circular, "Dust to Dust", Hostile, 'Making Less From More' In The Overall
And the Reactionary (conservative, rightist, Republican Party) view fights nature, falsely sees it as a "circular", or "dust to dust", hostile, destructive system, and demands the disassociation of configuration - including principled government - and resources, and promotes a narrow-based, bust-economy, and an insecure, anti-conscious, gun-filled and terror-filled world, destroying broad-based education and popular intelligence, replacing it with religious notions of unfathomability, and confines itself to only one or two logical types, or literally impossible complexity, for people to 'calculate' with.
It is the Reactionary view that takes a physical amount, and turns it into LOWER value, in the overall, again, in deadly conflict with nature's processes.
The Need For PUBLIC, Intact, All-At-Once Release Of The "Logical Types" System (© nrm)
This also gives a major clue why I can't release this "Logical Types" system in small increments, or privately.
Again, this is a major reason why the "Logical Types" system that I've developed must be released only fully publicly, all at once, with me personally answering any questions that may arise.
And this is why I have been stridently pleading, for the last fifteen years, down to this very day, for intact public exposure, rather than partial, private "bleeding" of it in little increments.
No One Gains From Delay In Public, Intact Exposure Of These Ideas
In fact, no one has gained, or gains from this delay. Conservatives, and others, may fear that people won't like them very much, may even fear harm, when it is clearly exposed to all that their right-wing idea is in no one's interest, but such fears are based only on a world that continues to go poorly. As it turns out, a work-out-well-all-around type of system, is in everyone's interest, including theirs, and a work-out-poorly type of system is in no one's interest, again, in the end, including theirs.
The fears that have kept this understanding suppressed, which are apparently almost universal in this society, certainly at high levels of it, are absolutely unjustified, but apparently are strongly-self-perpetuating-But-Not-Completely-So. And it's very important to bear in mind that the "-But-NOT-Completely-So" portion of that phrase, is the most important part, the 'bottom line' so to speak.
Unjustified Fears
In a regressive, anti-nature, "work-out-poorly-for-most" type of system, those who promote that very anti-nature, work-out-poorly framework - and falsely promote it as 'nature's system' - are naturally afraid of exposure as inaccurate, and as unnecessarily, harm doers. As long, that is, as the system remains a "work-out-poorly" system, one can understand such fears.
But in a progressive, "work-out-well-for-all" type of system, which conforms to nature's actual system, in a circumstance where the fundamental "mostly-create", work-out-well-for-all dynamics are well understood, publicly and by all, the ability to enact such harm-doing - certainly on a societal scale, but on the local scale as well, evaporates.
The problem is, once the work-out-poorly, "mostly get", and mostly consume precedent is set up, especially on a societal scale, then, fear of exposure of that "mostly-get", "work-out-poorly-for-most" idea as unnecessarily harmful, that is, fear of exposure of nature's "mostly create", "geared-for-work-out-well-for-all" system, as nature's actual system, well, because of the repressive techniques that are characteristic of the 'work-out-poorly-for-most" system - terror, impoverishment, murder, and mass murder, and far worse - a strongly-self-perpetuating-but-not-completely-so type of dynamic is terribly reinforced. Again, strongly-But-Not-Completely reinforced.
There's A Way - Whether It's Found Or Not, It's There To Be Found
I know there's a way to break through that strongly-self-perpetuating-but-not-completely-so dynamic that keeps these understandings from being publicly known. I know there's a way. But I haven't yet found it. I mean, I'm all alone here. But I know that there's a way.
Whether or not a way to make public these ideas, to publicize them, will be found, in time, I can never say for sure. But whether it's found or not, I know that there's a way. The ideas themselves, and the diagrams to go with them are all worked out and finished, but public awareness of them remains absent
And there it sits. All the way from, in my adult life portion of it, the repression at Dallas, and Memphis, and Santiago, all the way to the 'set-up' "scandals" of '98, down to this very day.
I sit here, all alone writing these papers, hundreds of US Postal Service mailings, and Internet papers galore, and much more. But I know that just me, all by myself, well, it's not going to happen. I've always known that. But I always hope that someone else will figure out - especially someone else who has some major resources - that They are going to have to be helpful to making this understanding PUBLICLY known, intact, and in its full context.
Everyone, or almost everyone that I've encountered, who is attempting to get along in the "work-out-poorly", "mostly get" system as it stands, says 'no, not me'. Too risky.
So there it sits. In the forty years of my adult lifetime, and in so many others for a long long time before that.
Just Ordinary People
Everyone seems to be looking for a "messiah" type person to deliver some message in a 'god-like' way.
Well, the idea - the cognitive mathematics of "mostly create", as worked out in the "Logical Types" system that I've discovered and developed, and in the other two dozen components of the paradigm, IS, in fact, sort of like a 'messianianistic' idea, yes.
But there's no messiah to go along with it. No super-confident creature with special powers. The discoverer, me, is just an ordinary, entirely vulnerable person, in a state of being constantly super knocked-out from the effort.
No messengers from god, or not from god any differently from any of the other six billion people currently present. I mean, maybe some people think we're all from god, in some way. Well then ok; then I'm still just like everyone else in that way. But, really, the point is, I'm just an ordinary person; the discoverer of these ideas is just an ordinary person. And that's what it takes; ordinary people. No special supernatural powers. That's just the way things work in this bioecosystem.
So. Without the protection of some supernatural power, no one wants to be on the wrong end of exposing the system, alongside, and of vastly vastly more importance, that system's positive alternative.
No one wants to be, on the wrong end of exposure of the stark contrast between the unnecessary harmfulness of the "mostly-get" system, which everyone is trying to live by, and the "mostly create" system that all nature operates on that that humans were designed for.
After all, everyone, or almost everyone, is trying to get along in that "mostly get" system, so they can be successful in society as it stands.
Alleged 'Rebellion' As Different From Actual Contrast
I mean, "rebellion", and denunciation of "the establishment" is generally welcomed by that very establishment, as long as it leaves the implication that all life is unjust. Which is what almost all 'rebellion' does. So if one denounces the powers that be as unjust, leaving the implication that all life is unjust, then those very powers are vastly strengthened in their confidence that they are conforming to all life.
But proving, mathematically and cognitively proving, to the self-evident satisfaction of anyone who takes the trouble to notice, that life, and nature, is a "mostly create" operation, and that societal operations are Unnecessarily harmful, and those who enforce those operations, are acting in an Unnecessarily harmful manner, well, that's another matter entirely. This is not tolerated.
'Rebellion', in the context of the idea that all life is basically a hostile matter anyway, and one is just trying to "get theirs", is not a rebellion at all, certainly in a systemic sense. In fact, it strengthens the confidence of those who are being rebelled against, for it strengthens their (most mistaken) confidence that they are operating in nature's mode. But, again, presenting, in contrast, a clear and obviously accurate - cognitively and mathematically accurate - rendition of the "mostly create" understanding, which is nature's actual mode; now that's another matter entirely.
Everyone, or almost everyone, especially those with major resources, seems to think it's just too risky to expose nature's "mostly create" actual dynamic, which would constitute an entirely practical change for our society and for the world generally. But exposure of that is seen as way too risky.
Exposing that dynamic, throws one "out of the loop" of success in society as it stands, and no one, or almost no one, is prepared to take that risk. Actually, I do understand that. But to understand is not to agree that it's fine. Still, I do understand, quite a bit.
But I'm always hopeful that, at some point, someone will figure out that it's in their interest anyway, essentially, not because they will "mostly get" in a work-out-poorly-generally circumstance, but because a "work-out-well-generally" circumstance, is in everyone's interest, including theirs.
Incidentally, perhaps I should remind the reader that I did mention, in the opening paragraphs at the top of this file, that all this constitutes my real agenda, in this paper, and in everything I do. I strive very hard, to never fool anyone, right from the start, and through and through, and I think I'm pretty successful at that.
Oh well. Onward.
In Sum
So. IN THE OVERALL, the way this bioecosystem works, and life within it works, is that advancements are made, and increasing value to life is effected, with the same basic, total number of atoms. With the same total amount of "mass", there is ever more "higher level" "Configuration".
And again: Life is NOT a "dust to dust" system, NOT a "circular" system, NO NO!
Rather, it is an advancing configuration system. Perpetual advancement, THE AMOUNT OF VALUE to life FOREVER INCREASES.
I'm not speaking, of course, of these large, destructive, and self-destructive societies of the past few thousand years. Of course not. Rome, Europe, the U.S. Capitalism. Something has gone wrong in these societies. Something that needs to be corrected.
I am speaking of how life works, and how these societies can, and should be working. What constitutes putting them right. Five billion, ten billion, twenty billion, or however many persons wide.
Touching Bases
So. First I'll go back to that classroom, and then, back to Neandertal. The legacy that Lucy, and Neandertal, left us with. And then onwards from there.
So. Russell figured out the class/member distinction. He figured out that there is a fundamentally different logic between a "class", a single thing consisting of many elements, and "members", things that are "one of many".
Each of the two things operate on a different sort of logic.
Then he said, that now that we know the distinction (his discovery), let us make it a law of arithmetic that, within simple arithmetic, every number shall be only "member", never "classes".
That way we can be sure that three will never (within the arithmetic system in particular) surprise us by tuning into one, behind our back, so to speak.
And with Russell's discovery and his law, arithmetic is now know to be absolutely rock solid, never varying. Again, "pure truth", as they say; "singular reality", as I would put it.
For me, in that classroom I mentioned above, I could now make the distinction, between a system, and parts of that system.
I could define that distinction. For all the social sciences. Great. But, as I described above, my students still had quizzical looks on their faces. Hmmmmm . . .
Again, As Regards Life Calculations, Two Types Of Logic Is Not Enough; It Takes Three
As it turned out, that distinction, as regards the social sciences, turned out to be not good enough. Good enough for arithmetic. Sure But. Not good enough for turning the social sciences into mathematics, for turning the social sciences into a mathematics of ADVANCING VALUE.
I mean. It was great, to know the difference between the "elements" of a system, and "the system" that those elements are part of. That was, like, super super super helpful.
To be able to tell the difference between what you're starting out with, and what you end up with, which is an organized system, was totally great. Very helpful.
But there was something missing. For, again, the "elements" couldn't be organized in just any old way.
We had to find that "one-in-a-million" "configuration" that would actually constitute an organized, or The organized, system. For anything. In psychiatry, in interaction, in social life, in politics, in world systems. For anything.
And, expressing that, mathematically, pure math, required an additional logical type, in addition to Russell's "members" logical type, and his "class" logical type.
That's what I discovered in that classroom. The third logical type. We Got It!
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IX. Advancement in Evolution And In Science - Parallel Progression . . . . 1000
A Key To Bigger Things
And that was the key that opened the door to the entire paradigm that is referred to throughout this web-site. The "Schema" paper, "Personality", "Tenors", "Principled Hierarchical Relations", "Jettison Sequence", and all the rest.
I should mention, perhaps in passing, that that specific discovery, "the third logical type", is not the core of the whole paradigm. Nothing like that. It is only one part of the "Logical Types System ( nrm 1983", and only one of several things that I had to add to Russell's discovery, in order to complete that "Paradigm From California Logical Types And Logical Levels" system, one year later, in 1984.
And the "Logical Types" system is itself, only one of thirty major components (or "elements") of the overall paradigm. The overall system of the paradigm, does itself have a high level description. That is, does have a single description that unites all of the elements (including the Logical Types system as one element) into a unified whole.
"Work Out Well All Around" - The Name Of The Overall System That I Discovered
The name of the overall system of the whole paradigm, is "Nature, And Human Nature Within It Is Geared For Things To Work Out Well For Everyone".
That is the "name of the system", of which the Logical Types system is one portion, and, in turn, one portion of the Logical Types system, is "the third type of logic" that we discovered, as mentioned above. (The whole thing, the 120,000 word Volume I, with most of the original charts, was filed by six members of our team in person, including myself, with the Library of Congress Copyright Office in Washington DC on February 28th, 1985.)
A Little Science History
I should probably also mention that this sort of progression, from Russell's "Class/Member Distinction" for Arithmetic and the physical sciences, to my own "Logical Types" "map" for the social sciences, is the usual thing in science generally.
It was the French scientist, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier who discovered oxygen as a separate element, and in so doing, discovered the whole matter of the basic elements. It was he who first "cracked the 'nut'" of Chemistry as we know it, but it was Dalton, the British scientist, who drew the map, that is, who came up with the periodic table of elements.
Similarly, it was another French scientist, Jean Baptiste Lamarck, who first popularized evolution, who made it commonly accepted that species did not just appear whole on this planet, but rather evolved, one into the next. His "map" was wrong, but the original idea of evolution is generally credited to him. It took another British scientist, Charles Darwin, to draw the map; "natural selection".
And it was the Viennese scientist, Sigmund Freud, who first exposed the unconscious as a definable entity, but his map was entirely absurd. So it took another scientist, again British, John Bowlby to draw the accurate map, in his attachment blueprints.
Thus, it is entirely usual that one scientist, or scientific team, Russell and Whitehead, would first "crack the nut", again, so to speak, "bring in from the blue", the class/member distinction, and that that discovery would then be mapped for the social sciences, in this case, by me.
Science Too, Is An Advancing System
Furthermore, once those "maps" are drawn, they themselves contain discoveries, that, in turn have to be mapped, over time, and so it goes. Very much like the processes of evolution, and the bioecosystem itself, new cases "to be cracked", new things to be "brought in from the blue", new "maps", and "blueprints", and new discoveries flow from previous work, again, endlessly.
From Lucy To Neandertal To Sapiens Sapiens --- And, From Earlier Science To Later Science To Future Science --- And From Elements To Configuration To System - All Nature's Advancing Dynamic
I mention all this though, in the context of giving some sense of what is my understanding of what the progression was, from Sapiens Neandertal to Sapiens Sapiens. It seems to me that in attempting to understand just what the species to species advancement was, it is useful to keep in mind the idea of the difference in logic for understanding "the members of a system", "disassociated elements", and "a whole organized system", consisting of many elements.
It is my guess that Neandertal, and perhaps earlier species of pre-man as well, could understand the logic of elements, but perhaps not the logic of systems.
What turned out to be helpful, in the evolution of the human family, was increasing ability to understand that putting things together, in just the right way, creates higher value to life than was present before. I think that that was a fundamental dynamic in the evolution of pre-human and human intelligence; brain size, brain organization, and all the rest.
There's more to it than that - that's not the only thing involved - increasing affection, and communication, increasing attractiveness - art and person and elsewhere - was also going on, and other things as well, but this matter of an increasing ability to understand "ever greater value" in particular, was one important evolutionary dynamic.
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X. Reality, Including Systems, As Separate From The Observer - The Internal Observer . . . . 1500
Neandertal's Awe At The Works Of Sapiens Sapiens
But the point here is to mention what I presume to be a major, or perhaps the major problem for Homo Sapiens Neandertal, when they looked at the wonders that Homo Sapiens Sapiens were beginning to construct.
The formal name of the Neandertal species is "Homo" (meaning human-like), "Sapiens", meaning wise, "Neanderthalensis", merely identifying where the first skeletons were found - the Neander Valley in Europe. "Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis".
The formal name of our own species is "Homo", again, meaning human, "Sapiens", again, meaning wise, "Sapiens", meaning additionally wise. "Homo Sapiens Sapiens".
Shreeve calls this last "double-wisdom", but I think maybe the word "double" slightly misses the point, or at least, needs some further explanation.
The word "double", in the common vernacular, generally refers to two things at the same logical level. Two things that are the same type of unit. But the change from Sapiens Neandertal, to Sapiens Sapiens, involves, I think anyway, a "climbing" from one logical level to the next.
What seemed the highest level imaginable, to a Neandertal, is, for us, one of many elements in a still higher level system. We can think "one logical level upwards" from a Neandertal. Different from "double", which, again, as the word is commonly used, means "more of the same"; "twice as much".
But the addition of another instance of the word "Sapiens", as in Sapiens Neandertal to Sapiens Sapiens, bespeaks not just 'more of the same', not just "twice as much", but a higher logical level of consideration altogether.
The "Inner Eye", And, The "Internal Observer"
In the last few pages of Shreeve's book, he finally gets down to cases, regarding what happened with Neandertal. I think he's on the right track, but I have to take it a little further.
He mentions the phenomenon of the "inner eye", similar to, perhaps, but really, different from, what I call "the internal observer".
He mentions that if a Neandertal sees a deer, darting across the forest, he sees the deer, but he doesn't really understand the distinction between the deer, and his own perception of it.
He says that Neandertal didn't have that "inner eye" that we have, that allows a person to understand his own perception, as a perception, rather than as the same thing as singular reality.
He says that Neandertal thought that his perception of the deer, of the physical object, was the same thing as the deer, the object itself. But I think Neandertal was a bit more advanced than that.
Singular Reality, And A Perception Of That Reality, Are Two Different Things
Again, Shreeve suggests that Neandertal didn't have the physical ability, the brain organization, to understand the distinction between the deer, as a separate entity in nature, an aspect of singular reality 'out there', from his own perception of it, another aspect of singular reality, but 'in here', the perception being a different sort of thing; the perception being a "picture" in his mind, of the deer.
But, again, I think maybe Shreeve is mistaken here.
I think Shreeve is accurately describing the mind of an earlier mammal. A rabbit, or a horse, or a tiger. Yes.
But Neandertal? Or even Erectus or Habilis? I don't think so. I think they could understand the difference between an object, and their perception of that object. The object being a different thing, from their perception of it.
How else could they create differently shaped tools from lower forms of rock, and use them; how else could they fashion clothing, and perhaps some crude homely comforts, and mourn their dead? I think they could tell the difference between a deer, 'out there', and their perception of it, 'in here'. I think they had that 'inner eye'.
Ideas And Systems As Part Of Singular Reality, Separate From Ourselves
However. I think that what they could not understand, is the Next Logical Level Upwards. That takes, in addition to an "inner eye", also an "internal observer", again, at the next logical level up.
What they could not understand, is the logic of "A System of things", a "configuration" of many elements, an ability to understand a system of things, beyond a simple physical object, an ability which is physically present in every Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
Whether we are conscious of using that ability or not, whether we have awareness of it, or even access to that ability or not, it is physically there, waiting for us to use it, should we choose to do so.
That's the big leap, from pre-human, to full-blown human.
The Big Leap
To see an orange, to understand that we can eat it, to collect some, to give, or to exchange, an orange, and to understand that this was something outside himself or herself, this is something that a Neandertal could understand.
But. To put together some soil, and some water, and some ash, and some geometry, and some seed, and some energy, and some time, and some sunlight, and some seasons, and Produce, and Create, an Orchard, "A Whole System" of many elements, a "higher level configuration" than the elements within it, this, I'm guessing, was beyond the scope of the physicalities of the Neandertal brain.
And is fully within the physicalities of Sapiens Sapiens, each and every one of the six billion of us.
In Consort, In Complement, In Council, And In Public
It is true that we must think, and learn, and communicate, in consort and council with one another, in complement with other people, in order to fully access that ability, but the fundamental structure for it, is there in every Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
Again, whether we, for whatever reason, have access to those abilities or not, whether we want to, or need to, or are allowed to, learn to use that ability, or are in an external context that allows us to use it, we all have it physically. That's what makes us "full-scale humans".
There Can Be No Combination, If There Are No Differences In The First Place
Again, it is not the way of things for every person to use every last ability under the sun that we possess. Some of us need to dance, and some of us need to count; those variations are in the God-given nature of societies. Again, it is the combination of differences among different people that holds the key to all things.
Objects, Configurations, Systems
But the physical ability to understand configuration, not merely physical objects, but Systems, is physically present in every single Homo Sapiens Sapiens, every one of us.
From The Later Elementary School Years
It was Jean Piaget, the famous 20th century Swiss scientist, who proved that the physical ability, to understand a "system", not merely a disassociated member of it, but a whole system, in whatever area we choose, "grows in" for every one of us, from about the age of seven years old.
Bringing Something 'In From The Blue'
Sure, it takes a Bertrand Russell to "bring in from the blue", the "class/member distinction", yes, just as it took a Copernicus to "bring in from the blue" the basic 'map' of the solar system, or a Lavoisier to bring "in from the blue" the distinction between one type of chemical element and another - the "system" of chemistry. Sure.
Anyone, Can Understand
But once that discovery is uncovered, and clearly and simply and accurately explained and illustrated, every human has the physical ability to understand The System of it.
Again, by "understanding a system", I don't mean that everyone must understand this or that area of science, or anything else; I mean understanding "the system" in whatever area of life they choose to express their abilities.
Of Intelligence, And Specialties
Again, we all have our "specialties". Music, carpentry, mechanics, child-rearing, fabric design, baseball, butterflies, or whatever. But whatever our specific interest, what makes us Sapiens Sapiens in particular, is our ability to understand - however automatically - "a system of many elements", a "configuration", rather than just "one element among many", and nothing more.
Understanding A System In ANY Field
To understand, not just the singular reality of a physical object, but to understand also, the singular reality of a system, a configuration, a "higher level idea", as a singular reality constant, outside our own self, outside our own perception of it - three plus two equals five, within the System of arithmetic, that system, once defined, being the-same-for-everyone, and constant forever, it being outside the person noticing it, far beyond understanding just the existence of a physical object - that is what makes us fully human.
We can understand not just physical objects as independent of ourselves, but ideas, whole systems of things, as also part of nature's same-for-everyone, singular reality, independent of ourselves, as well. That's the great leap from Sapiens Neandertal, to Sapiens Sapiens.
Neandertal did not have that physical ability - to understand a whole system of things - in the first place.
That was the big leap, from pre-fully-human, to human.
So whatever did happen to Neanderthal, anyway? Why'd they leave? So What? Why? And why do we need to know, anyway?
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A. Evolution, Affection, and Neandertal . . . . 10,000
C. On Understanding Natural Science . . . . 3,000(You Are Here)
D. As Time Goes By . . . . 2,000
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XI. On Metaphors - Dangers of "Running With" Metaphors . . . . 500
An Important Note On Metaphors And Analogies
I think it's important, before proceeding, to mention something about metaphors, or analogies. I use few metaphors in my work, or at any rate, as few as possible. But it's impossible to avoid them altogether, as they are sometimes absolutely necessary, and sometimes, I can find no other way of expressing what I'm trying to explain.
And sometimes, when you're trying to explain something new, it's helpful to find an example of something someone already understands, to "bridge the gap" to the new understanding.
Big Danger
But there's a huge danger regarding the use of metaphor; a danger that is exabberated in the extreme by the current conversational conventions of modern society.
A metaphor, or analogy, is always used as a very vague, semi-description of something else.
Thus, with a metaphor, there are always two things that are being spoken of, or written of. One, the metaphor, and two, another situation that the metaphor is attempting to bring to mind.
Always, By Definition, Only A Partial Match Up
If we divide the metaphor into ten components, and the literal thing being metaphorized into ten components, the ten parts of each NEVER match up. If they did, of course, then it wouldn't be a metaphor anymore, but rather a description of literal reality.
Thus, we say that if there is a match of only one or two (of ten) components, we call it a "bad metaphor", because there's so little in common with the actual thing we are trying to express.
If eight or nine of the components match up, we also say it is a, not so useful metaphor, because, in that case, there is so much match-up, it's almost a literal description anyway, and also it can be hard to tell which things don't match-up.
But if four or five or six of the components match up, then we call it a good metaphor, for it uses something familiar (the components that do match up) to bring to mind something previously unknown (the components that don't match up). Or something like that.
"'Logical?' Conclusion"?!!???
The problem arises, though, what a person says "well, if you take that metaphor, or analogy, out to its logical conclusion . . ." This is a little strange. For, by definition, there can be no 'logical conclusion' for a metaphor, or analogy.
If it worked at its (allegedly) "logical" extreme, it wouldn't be a metaphor, or analogy, anymore; it would be a description of the literal thing that's being metaphorized.
Thus, I find that I cannot entirely avoid the use of metaphor, but whenever I use them, I am always terrified that the reader will "match-up" the wrong components. Or attempt to "take them to an extreme".
Please Regard Metaphors, Or Analogies, Or Anecdotes With Great Carefulness
The only thing I can think to do at this moment, besides using them as sparsely as possible, is put in this qualification/explanation, and hope for the best.
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XII. On Extinction - Timely, and Untimely Passing . . . . 700
On Extinction, and "Extinction"
Although we have the ability to understand the distinction between "a class", and "it's members", that is, the distinction between low-level 'elements' of a system, and the high-level, overall 'system' that unites them, much of that distinction is, tragically, not present in everyday conversation.
The word "extinction" is one example.
There are at least two ways that a species can "go extinct". And they take place at two different logical levels. So different in fact, that it is truly tragic that we use the same word for both, very different things.
"Killed Off" Type Of Extinction Low Level
One of the processes by which a species can become 'extinct', is the way so familiar these days, namely by that species being "killed off", commonly in the current age, by the deliberate, or semi-deliberate works of humans. Toxic waste, forest burning, development, a relatively sudden "crowding out", outright hunting down and killing, are among the many tragedies that currently befall various species on our planet.
Such extinctions bear little relation to the sort of natural processes of evolution and nature, and generally, the species involved, prior to its extinction, fit in quite well into its area of the bioecosystem, finely doing its job for the world around.
I think of this as a "low logical level" type of process, not really part of the overall ecological system of nature and evolution. Something within the system is killed out of hand, messing up the system at large. Something out of the ordinary way of things in nature.
A "Bowing Out" Over Many Generations Type Of "Extinction" Systems Level
But another process by which a species can become 'extinct', is, that, over time, it develops, it fits in, it does the caretaking of the bioecosystem that it evolved to do, and then, as evolution develops, and new, perhaps even higher level species come to pass, it slowly, over many generations, or many thousands of generations, it transforms, or, "bows out" so to speak.
This is a much "higher level" process than the "killing off" process mentioned above, for it falls within the natural processes by which nature, and the bioecosystem advances, progresses, adjusts, and survives. This is a timely work out well for all 'passing', very very very different from a "killing off".
Same Word Completely Different Processes And Consequences
These two sorts of 'extinctions' are so different in nature, with such an utterly different effect on all things, that it seems very wrong to use the same word for both processes. Yet, in the English language as we currently know it, we do not have different wording for different "logical levels" of things.
Thus, if we say that a species was no more, we use the word 'extinct', a word that in the current age, presumes some sort of murderous, desperate, or violent demise.
It is true that pre-human species exist no more. But it is unclear whether this was some sort of advancing development, over hundreds, or thousands of generations, in the best interests of all, or whether it was some sort of brutal elimination, which is generally in the interests of no one, nor or nature.
If it was one, or if it was the other, we need to know that, and it seems to me to be extremely important that we not confuse the two very very very different processes.
Shreeve follows the general convention, so in vogue these days, of discussing the passing of a species as its "failure". Or its being "destroyed".
Sometimes it is very bluntly the case that there was a "killing off", or a "pushing out", and it is extremely important that we understand that.
But sometimes, that is Not the case; sometimes a passing of a species from the scene is a healthy part of an overall development, again, over hundreds of generations or more. And where that is the case, we need to understand that too.
Above All, We Must Know The Difference
And it's extremely important, above all, that we not confuse the two; not confuse a brutal, and deadly-for-all "killing off", which is so common in the current circumstance, with a healthy-for-all, timely passing, which was the norm in evolution.
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XIII. On The Cultural Explosion of 30,000 Years Ago - Meeting Up; Making Friends . . . . 700
More On Shreeve
While I generally liked Shreeve's attitude through much of the book his questioning of conventional wisdoms, and even his questioning of the modes of discussion and politicking in the professional fields, and his willingness to present alternatives from his own sensibilities towards the end, his frame of reference obviously falls acutely under the spell of the anti-math, and anti-nature 'sociobiologists'.
He seems to buy it, but his hints of skepticism here and there lead me to believe that he, in the last part of the book, adopts that sociobiology, anti-science, "flat as a pancake" "point of view", mainly because it is the only way he can get editorial help and publication acceptance.
At one point, he mentions the various theories why there seemed to be a "sudden" "explosion" of Sapiens Sapiens art, science, and general creativity around 30,000 years ago or so, right around the time of the last Neanderthals.
Cultural Advancement, 30,000 Years Ago
He gives the conventional explanations, namely:
Then he gives his own idea about it, namely well this is my reading of it anyway, I'm not really sure if this is just what he said, but anyway
While Shreeve puts much too much emphasis on "alliances", as per "against others" (I don't buy it myself), he does leave plenty of room for the idea of "camaraderie" for development and advancement within nature.
But, anyway, right after he mentions his own idea that the seemingly, relatively 'sudden' advancement of thirty thousand years ago, was a matter of more and more peoples 'meeting up', so to speak . . .
'Curve Ball'
At one point, in the middle of a perfectly ordinary sentence, he capitalizes the term: The Hostile Forces Of Nature. I sort of did a double take and it sort of occurred to me that he wasn't using the capitalization for emphasis, or for indicating a proper noun. He was being sarcastic.
It left me grinning ear to ear, a curve ball, so to speak, past his editors. I mean, obviously I might just be reading that into it wishful thinking but I did take it as his little way of apologizing for the pressures of the corporate publishing world. There are more than a few subtle little, what I took to be qualifications, like that in this book. Oh well . . .
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XIV. The Shrubs And The Trees Health and Harm - Accurate/Inaccurate, Not Intrepretation . . . . 1500
Lewis Thomas
It always amazes me, what Lewis Thomas was able to get away with, at least in his early works (although less and less so as time went on) and in that premiere flagship of all science journals too, The New England Journal of Medicine.
Analogy, Again
In what follows, I must remind the reader again, that one must not "run" with analogies or metaphors. I must request of the reader to not run with things that I do not match up.
There's an old story from Lewis Thomas that often comes to my mind. It's not about Neandertal, but about an entirely different aspect of nature. It's only an analogy, a metaphor, so there are a lot of components that don't match up. As per the above discussion of metaphor and analogy, I implore the reader not to "run" with it; just a few little things may match up.
But at the same time, there are a few things that may seem similar, but do not match up at all.
I think the analogy may be helpful, so I'm mentioning it mentioning here. I can't find Thomas' book at the moment, so I'll just relate it, as best I can, from memory.
The Shrubs And The Trees
Apparently, there's a certain sort of forest circumstance where, after a natural fire has burned the trees to the ground, the trees don't grow back immediately. The soil has changed, has lost one sort of richness, from the natural fall of branches, but picked another type, from the ash of the fire.
First, Bushes
First, what grows back are small shrubs and bushes, again, small and relatively fast growing, able to live on the lower level nutrients, provided by the ash. As they continue to grow, more and more densely, the too have their fallen branches and leaves, which nourish the soil with ever higher level nutrients.
Then Both
Only after some time, and some seasons, and some years have passed, is the soil ready for the growth of tall trees again. Thus, after a time, trees begin to grow, alongside the bushes and shrubs, and grow taller and taller, and fuller and fuller.
Then Trees
After many years pass, the roots and branches and leaves of the trees become very large and very strong. The roots of the trees then intermingle with the root of the bushes, taking up more and more of the space and the soil nutrients, and the leaves of the trees catch the sunlight, leaving less and less sunlight for the lower growing bushes.
Then Forest
In time, the bushes, their roots no longer having place to grow in the ground, and their leaves without adequate sunlight, slowly disappear. And once again, there is a full bodied forest, for all the birds and animals and wildflowers to romp and live in.
I've seen this sort of description not just in Thomas' work, but elsewhere too. In this day and age, probably most people are familiar with this sort of thing.
"Interpretation"?
The point that Thomas raises, and the point of relevance here, is that sometimes, in this circumstance, it is said that the trees roots "strangle" the roots of the shrubs, and "starve" the shrubs' leaves for sunlight, "killing them off". How ungrateful.
But Thomas uses entirely different metaphors, also metaphors also taken from human life.
As I recall, the way Thomas puts it, the leaves of the shrubs 'close down' their operations, and the roots, with a hug and a wave, bid farewell, after a job well done, and gracefully, "bow out".
Again, this is a metaphor, or analogy, and, as per the qualifications above, its usefulness would be absolutely destroyed if one were to "run" with unintended portions.
Still and all, if one can focus one's mind on the intended match-ups and the point here is to talk about the passing of Neandertal we might be able to get something useful out of it. That is, if we don't fabricate rhyme or reason where there is none to be made.
Harm, Or Health
But anyway, in the case of the shrubs and the trees in Thomas' example, the term 'strangle' bespeaks a different sort of passing from the terms 'hug goodbye' and "bow out", and the term 'starve' bespeaks a different sort of dynamic from ' gracefully close down operations'.
Again, here we're comparing the a certain sort of development of a forest with a certain sort of development from species to species.
Human Life Words Superimposed On Forest Operations
The question here, regarding the relation of the shrubs to the trees in that forest circumstance, is, are the words 'strangle' and 'starve', which are analogous to things that happen among humans, an accurate comparison to human life? Or are they an inaccurate comparison to human life.
And are the words 'hug farewell', and 'close down operations after a job well done' and "bow out", which are also analogous to other human processes, an accurate comparison to things that happen among humans, or an inaccurate comparison?
Were the roots of the bushes, again, of course, metaphors, "strangled" or were they "hugged goodbye"; were the leaves "starved" or were their operations properly, and in a timely fashion, "closed down"? Were they "killed off", or did they, with grace and a wave, "bow out . . . "
One Way Or The Other, Health Or Harm, Not 'Interpretation'
There are some who would say that, again, as regards the forest circumstance, "It's all in your interpretation", but I don't think so at all.
As far as I can tell, "interpretation" is not at all the case. It's not a matter of "interpretation'. It is a matter of accuracy or inaccuracy; and a matter of healthy-for-all, or harmful-for-all.
Healthy-For-All Or Harmful-For-All
In fact, to 'strangle' and 'starve out', in human life, are destructive-for-all types of operations. When anyone is strangled or starved, Everyone is harmed, in deadly fashion, as a fundamental law of nature, Everyone being harmed by such operations, being a scientifically provable fact.
A warm 'hug', in appreciation, after a job well done, is helpful to everyone, also as a scientifically provable fact.
A 'strangulation', as we understand it in human life, is a low-level, harmful, anomalous circumstance in nature; a warm hug when appropriate, is part and parcel of nature's very healthy, work-out-well-for-all high level system. Again, that is easy to prove, scientifically.
Caretaking, Not Killing
It should be obvious, that in the specific forest circumstance described above, the bushes and shrubs were doing the job, or one of the jobs that they were designed, via evolution, to do. "Caretaking" a forest after a fire.
In this case, "strangulation", or "starve out" is Not an accurate characterization of what happens when the trees grow back, given what those words mean regarding what sometimes tragically goes on among humans.
The "harmful-to-all" loss is simply not present regarding the forest circumstance described above, as it absolutely is when such things go on among humans.
The Point
The point I'm making, is that so much of literature regarding nature is written with the author bluntly confusing a tragic process among humans with a healthy process in nature.
By using a violent word inescapably associated with harm, in a context where there is a healthy process at work, the reader is led to believe that there is no difference at all between healthy and harmful, and, is therein led to believe, that there is no real difference between good and bad, healthy or unhealthy, or right and wrong altogether.
It's a tragically harmful confusion, and bears no relation to helpful thinking processes regarding sorting out what will work out well in life, and what will work out poorly in life.
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A. Evolution, Affection, and Neandertal . . . . 10,000
D. As Time Goes By . . . . 2,000(You Are Here)
E. Science and Heartbreak . . . . 10,000
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XV. Neandertal Bows Out - Gracefully . . . . 1000
One Way Or The Other, It's Important To Know
In the case of Neanderthal's passing from the scene, I do not know whether they were "pushed out", "starved out", even "killed off", which might have happened . . .
It might also have been that, in addition to other processes, there was some sort of harmonious side by side living, through it all, with little, or no, acrimony, conflict, or anything else. I can't tell at this point.
I just don't know what happened to Neandertal, although after reading Shreeve's book, I do think I know more than I did before.
Speculations
At the very end of Shreeve's book, he takes the liberty of making some, well, sort of, 'speculations'. He notes that the youngest known Neandertal site, I think he said in Spain somewhere, dates back to about 30,000 years ago, but has recently been found to be actually only about 28,000 years old.
He then wonders, if that's the most recent find, what about bone records that have not, or not yet, been found? Could it be that Neandertal was in fact still around as recently as 20,000 years ago? Or even ten thousand, or less? He goes further.
Could it be that the tales from fiction that speak of human-like creatures, within far back memory, could have been remnants of the Neandertal species, or the like? Were they still around at the fall of Troy, or even as recently as the modern destruction of Africa, or even . . .
Sipping Coffee
I ran into one fellow, at a university cafeteria down the peninsula recently, who speculated that current-day tales of that famous "snowman" in Tibet, or in the "myths" of native Americans in mountainous regions, are said by some to be, in fact, sightings of Neandertal, or cousin species, still hanging on. Of course, at first, I laughingly put that into the category of ufo sightings. But then, on second thought, as regards Neandertal, well, so what? On what basis to just dismiss it? And anyway, does it matter if maybe it is so? Why not . . . ?
Well, we got to talking, and it occurred to me that there have been some finds, on both the east and west coasts of the Americas that are reputed to be (unconfirmed, I think) but that some scientists think may be in the range of 30 or 40,000 years old. (Confirmed habitation of the Western Hemisphere goes back only about ten or fifteen thousand years.)
But the way my mind works, sometimes I just start daydreaming a little, and imagine . . . I mean, just making speculations in my mind . . . and well . . . I start wondering, I mean, just making up stories in my mind, I start imagining a Neandertal-like, pre-Sapiens Sapiens, blazing the trail across the Bearing Straits, with that so-well-adapted-to-cold-climes, stocky build, and perhaps an especially undistracted, and determined purpose . . . blazing the trail for Sapiens Sapiens to follow . . . the real 'Columbus' . . . a gentle, Asian Neandertal . . .
But anyway, even still, my mind does wander a bit now and then . . . I mean, after all, once in a while, things that seem like wild speculations, such as that one, "That It Was A Neandertal Who Discovered America, With Sapiens Sapiens Following Behind", well, even such a wild, apparently unfounded speculation as that, in science history, just occassionally, maybe one time in ten, does wind up turning out to have some merit . . . sometimes . . . even though the majority of such speculations turn out to have no basis whatsoever in reality . . .
'The Return'
Finally, Shreeve returns to the New York City Subways, the famous Seventh Avenue Express, barreling underground, through Brooklyn and Manhattan and The Bronx . . . And he wonders, well, if there was a Neandertal or two, still hanging on here or there, well, not so much what would we think of them, but rather . . . what would he, or she, think of us?
Onward . . .
Well, that's the end of the book, but of course, it's not the end for me; it never is . . .
What would they think of us, anyway . . .? I don't mean all that massive artwork of 30,000 years ago, I presume awe and respect in that regard. But, I mean, what would they think of what's happened in recent times?
Naturally, it gets me to thinking . . .
Welp . . . naturally, it's not really a literal question . . . For one thing, it seems extremely unlikely that there are any actual Neanderthals around, down to this day.
And for another thing, as mentioned above, it's unclear just how much they could grasp, even if there were any around.
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XVI. The Representative - Of Lucy, Martin, and Eve . . . . 1000
The Representative
Still and all . . . as a general question, and thinking of "Neandertal" as a general representation, however metaphoric, for nature itself, and more particularly, a 'representative' of the whole line of, well, for the moment, let's say "the human family", just for the purpose of this discussion, meaning all the way from "Lucy", and that child at Laetoli (Australopithecus), to Neanderthal, let's say, three million years, and probably dozens of species, ever more graceful, ever more skillful, ever more socially joyful, ever wiser, all the way to Homo Sapiens Sapiens, of . . . say . . . twelve thousand years ago . . .
Early farming society . . . finally, all the great dangers and difficulties, all the great insecurities, and the big cat predators, and the ice, and cold, and untimely losses, all the great hurdles, finally crossed, seemingly forever . . .
. . . stable shelter, fine and attractive clothing, varied, nutritious food, raised and stored in great abundance, wondrous tools, and art supplies, healthy children, free of the terrors of the trail . . . language, dance, culture, song . . . music . . . friends from all afar . . . stable, rich, and oh so full, for a couple of thousand years . . . I'd think it might be very satisfying . . . for all of them . . .
I mean, they might have said . . . "I've been to the top of the mountain, and I've seeeeennn the other side . . . I MIGHT NOT GET THERE WITH YOU . . . "
I mean, I don't know . . . sometimes, some folks, speak for all the ages, maybe sometimes, especially, the Africans among us . . .
Might be . . .
Life Goes On, Endlessly
But . . . I'm sorry, but then, let's move ahead 300 generations or so, to now . . . what would they think of us . . . as things stand now . . . ?
I mean, obviously, something's gone wrong . . . something's gone so terribly terribly wrong . . .
Again, all the great insecurities, a different sort of predator, torturers, and global warming this time, instead of ice, and untimely losses too too much, especially for three or four billion of us, and starving children, and all the rest, all the great hurdles, before us again . . .
But this time . . . "time" itself goes at a different logical level . . . now, instead of millennia and generations, it's years and weeks; this time, not species to species advancement, but . . . idea advancement . . . year to year, and even, as time goes on, day to day . . .
What would they think of us, or, since WE ARE THEM, really, more likely, what would they think of our situation? Which, in a certain important "all nature" sense, is their situation too . . .
What would they think . . . ?
Part IV Politics
Well, I don't know. It's hard to make the leap . . . from species to species advancement, all the way to . . . idea advancement . . . ever more gracile, ever more social, ever more solving . . . but there must be a connection . . . it seems to me, anyway . . .
'Jacob's Ladder', maybe . . .
I turn again, to the matter of ideas, to the matter of "systems", to the matter of just what I think was the most recent advance, from Homo Sapiens Neandertal, to Homo Sapiens Sapeins . . .
to Darwin . . . Curie . . . Russell . . .
. . . and to my own discovery of that third "logical type", which makes Bertrand Russell's original discovery as applicable to the social sciences, as it has been to the physical sciences.
. . . to logical types, and logical levels . . . Climbing The Logical Levels . . . not in the physical sciences, that's been done, but in the social sciences . . .
Not "climbing Jacob's Ladder", although maybe, I don't know the original idea behind that, probably not . . . although . . . you never know what they originally might have had in mind . . .
. . . but anyway, rather, climbing the levels in our own minds, and, in our alert, logical minds, at that . . .
Politics
So, Politics, per se . . .
The problem and solution as I understand it and as mentioned in the above, is essentially understood, by first being aware that human beings Homo Sapiens Sapiens evolved with the ability to grasp "systems" type understandings; what Russell, again referring to the earlier explanations above, called "class" type understandings, as well as, "elements" type understandings, 'elements' here meaning individual things within a larger system.
In other words, we all have the mental capability to understand "systems", one type of logic, and "elements of those systems" another type of logic, and understand them as separate sorts of things, calling for a separate sort of logic.
This distinction is automatically used every day by everyone, in going about our daily life tasks, automatically, so to speak, and is used, again every day, throughout the physical sciences.
It's not really very complicated, nor is it beyond an ordinary person's ability to grasp.
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A. Evolution, Affection, and Neandertal . . . . 10,000
E. Science and Heartbreak . . . . 10,000(You Are Here)
F. Politics . . . . 5,000
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XVII. On Ideas As Concrete Things - Wanna Be An Engineer . . . . 2500
We Got It, It's Just A Matter Of Tools, And Access
The problem is, that for a variety of reasons, the ability to make this distinction, between "systems", and "elements of a system", is not utilized indeed, making this distinction is socially and professionally forbidden as regards application to the social sciences.
There, it is said, one cannot make distinctions between systems-level 'frameworks of understanding', and 'elements-level' individual ideas, within those higher level systems and frameworks.
Concrete, Not Ethereal Or Abstract
Some say that ideas themselves, are too ethereal, although as seen in the arithmetic examples above, this is clearly not the case ideas, including systems ideas, are as concrete and constant and universal and separate from perceptions, as physical objects are.
It is sometimes said that "sure, a physical object might be part of nature's primary reality, sure, constant, outside a person's perceptions, sure." But, I've heard it said, "Not an idea."
I've tried to show in the above, that this is Not the case.
Ideas and systems as I've tried to briefly illustrate in the 'Russell/Arithmetic/Class-Member' explanation above, are every bit as solid and concrete as physical objects.
A Block Of Concrete, And An Arithmetic Equation Or Any Other Accurate Idea
I mean, how long does that "block of concrete" over there, last? A hundred years? A thousand?
How real can we say that the block of concrete is? Entirely real.
Physical Object, Or Accurate Idea - Both Are Parts Of Primary, Singular Reality
Both the block of concrete, and "three plus two equals five within simple arithmetic", are parts of primary reality, something that we can see, constant as it stands, and that exists outside of our perception.
This is what Neanderthal could not understand, and that our minds evolved, specifically, to understand. This is the great advance from Neandertal, and before them, Australopithecus, and Habilis, and Erectus, and Neandertal, to Sapiens Sapiens, that is, to us.
Some people, perhaps even most people, seem to think that "an idea is only as real as the person who holds it". That is very much a mistaken view, and an extremely tragically mistaken view at that. But it seems to be well near universal.
Some people seem to think that an accurate idea, one that conforms to nature, like "three plus two equals five within simple arithmetic" for example, that an idea such as that is some sort of ethereal abstraction, not part of primary reality, like a block of wood is, or some other physical object.
A Discoverer, Yes, An Explainer, Yes, A Teacher, Yes, But A Messiah, NO NO NO
According to this belief, if someone discovers that the planets orbit the sun (an idea), or that water at sea level boils at a constant temperature (an idea), or that mammals breathe air (an idea), according to this way of thinking, if someone discovers a constant property of nature, then that understanding really exists only in their mind.
The Famous Fall Of A Tree
In fact, if there is a part of a forest that has not been visited by anyone in a hundred years, and a tree grows, lasts fifty years, without anyone having been within a hundred miles of it, and then it grows old, dies, and crashes to the ground, without anyone ever having been anywhere near it, I think that most people have figured out by now that it comes crashing down with a huge crashing sound, regardless of the presence or lack of presence of any person.
Of Physical Objects, Ideas, And Systems
Or if one points out the orbit of the planets, or the fact that mammals breathe, or that the sum of three and two is five within simple arithmetic, whether the discoverer continues to hold the idea or not is irrelevant.
Primary, Singular Reality Includes Objects, Accurate Ideas, As Well As Systems
Any person can check for themselves to see if it is real. No different between checking to see if a tree is really there, from checking to see if three plus two really does equal five, again within simple arithmetic, to checking to see if a higher level system is true, is real, exists as part of singular reality, independent of anyone's mind.
Building Bridges
An engineer finds out about the properties of a metal, from a teacher, or from an author of a book. But when he or she goes to build a bridge, that's not enough sources. Not enough sources on which to stake the lives of the thousands of people who will cross that bridge every hour. No no.
Safety First
But by the time that bridge is built, the engineer will be more certain of the absolute, singular truth of that "system" of stress capacity, of the properties of those metals, combined in that way; more absolutely sure of that stress capacity, than they will be regarding the tree that is standing right in from of them.
Everyday
If the road we are driving on curves, we all know it curves. A curve could be seen as an abstract thing, "a relationship between things", indeed, even, "an empty space of certain dimensions" - how ethereal, how spiritual, how 'interpretative', how 'postmodern'.
Life Itself Is Not Crazy Just Trying To Sort Things Out Without The Right System Can Indeed Seem Crazy
Some people also say, that life itself is just "too crazy" to make sense out of, although, as can be glimpsed above, the factors in nature can be clearly seen; it can be understood, systemically understood, how they generally fit together well, and how they can be organized in entirely reasonable and, once combed out, in a way that's relatively easy to accurately and consistently understand.
Our experience with both nature, and with mathematics and science as we have known it, informs that the problem isn't really that such things cannot be sorted out.
It is true, that if you don't have a sorting system in the first place, things can appear impossibly confusing, even 'hopelessly' so.
I mean, imagine commerce, or large-scale engineering, without a numbering system, without a way of telling amounts. Before arithmetic, people would say that taking into account so many things, are "just impossible". So many things that we now take for granted, would indeed seem "impossible", without a numbering system for counting and sorting and calculating.
As things stands now, everyone goes on the idea that there can be no precise and comprehensive calculating system for social matters, so everyone seems to think it must all be, "just crazy".
No surprise that that's what people said about the seemingly "crazy" zigzagging orbits of the planets, before Copernicus. The planets were said by some to just 'fly around' in no pattern, at random, before Copernicus.
The Nature Of Discovery In The First Place
People say, it can't be done, to come up with a reasonably sound mathematics for social systems, because, many have tried, and it's never been done.
A Discoverer, A Researcher, A Teacher, Yes, But No Messiah
It takes a discoverer to find something that already exists in nature, yes. It takes a researcher, to reduce it to simple, accurate terms, yes. And it takes a teacher, to explain it for all to understand. Yes, that too.
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XVIII. The Simpleton and The Rambler - Einstein, Darwin, Marx, and Freud . . . . 7500
Again, Heartbreak City
I can't just "bleed out" the Logical Types system itself, the core of it, without guarantees of full-scale public exposure, with all the strongest copyright protections possible.
"Too Simple"; "Too Complicated"; But Really, "Too Correct"
Perhaps it would be useful to take a look at how contemporary societies generally handle one crucially important aspect of scientific discovery.
Matter and Energy as Separate Things
Prior to Einstein, much was known about the nature of 'energy', and much was also known about the nature of 'matter', and it was thought that they were two different sorts of things, with nothing in common.
The Faster It Goes, The More Energy There Is
But it was also known that, when you shoot a metal ball of any weight, into a container of soft clay, and measure the amount of clay displaced, it will come to a certain amount.
The Energy Released, Increases By The Speed, Squared
And if you shoot it again, but you double the speed of the ball, it will displace, not twice as much clay, but four times as much; and if you triple the speed, well, it will not displace three times as much, but rather, nine times as much.
So, The Ball Carries Energy
What Einstein figured out was that, the energy that it took to shoot the ball, is then carried by the ball; the energy is contained in the metal. Contained in the metal? Part of the mass of it? Hmmmm . . .
The Fastest It Can Go - The Most Energy Will Be Released
So the faster it goes, the more energy it contains. Hmmmm . . . So then he figured, well, wait a minute . . . if it's traveling as fast as anything can go, namely, the speed of light, well then, it's all going to be all energy. I mean, at the absolutely fastest that anything can go . . . that seems pretty likely . . .
Et Voila - E=MCsq.
So you just have to multiply the amount of mass (M) by the fastest anything can go, which is the speed of light (C), squared (sq.) and you get the total amount of energy in the thing (E).
This Takes an Einstein?!!??
I mean. Really simple. This takes an Einstein?!!?? But any fool can see that! You don't really have to be a rocket scientist to understand that . . .
Well, Yeah, But . . .
But. BUT. You DO have to be an Einstein to figure it out in the first place. I mean, a century later, it can be easily all understood, really, in the end, by any school child.
Presenting It Simply - A Simpleton
The point here is, that if you present a new discovery in a simple way, then, anyone who hears about it, who hears you explaining it in simple form, if they have any knowledge in the field at all, can claim that you haven't really discovered anything. Just made a simple calculation that any idiot can make. What's new?
Presenting It In All It's Elaboration
So, alternatively. You give the full explanation. This will show not only that what you are saying is proved, scientifically, but also shows that you are the one who figured it out.
Either Way, You're An Idiot
So if you present it in simple terms, you're called an idiot in one way, and if you present it in complicated form, you're called an idiot in another way.
Locking It Up, Against Harmful Use
But what if Einstein was clear about the fact that he was seeking discovery, specifically to improve the ability of humans to create things of high value to life only, and kept going until he could lock it together with proof that relativity in the context of pure physics, also proved that, at the level of the context of human life, health and harm were absolutely distinguishable, definable constants.
An Example of Helpful Context
For example if Einstein had instead stated, that while the total amount of matter and energy in a given circumstance stays the same, say a circumstance such as the bioecosystem,
Actual High Level Science, Actual Science, Is Not Allowed
But that goes against traditional notions held by finance capital. The people that run the financial institutions, and their academic and media and publishing tentacles, are committed to accumulating wealth via a rip, tear, deplete, bleed white, enslave, lie, deceive, war, steal, and destroy manner.
Much Better Science - Clearer, Cleaner, And More Accurate In The Overall - When Placed Within The Work-Out-Well-For-All High Level Of Life
At any rate, there certainly is no question that he, or someone else, could have locked it up against abuse.
Skid Row, Of Course, If He Was Lucky
Then, the way corporations and finance work in society as it stands, is that he would have been seen as an idiot, of either the simpleton, or obsessional variety, and the world of capitalist finance would wait until a more 'reliable' 'scientist' overheard him, or came up with just the bare "E=MCsq.", that they could then freely use for capital accumulation, by any means necessary, including harmful.
Darwin Had The Same Problem
Let's look at Darwin's "natural selection" discovery.
First, There Was Lamarck
It wasn't Darwin who discovered evolution. It was the French naturalist, Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, who, a hundred years earlier, first popularized the notion that species did not simply appear whole on the planet, but rather, evolved from earlier species.
If Not That, Then What?
So what is the mechanism anyway, by which one species 'transforms' into another, over generations, anyway? This was the great question approached in Darwin's time.
Many Oddities
Well, Darwin noticed that sometimes, there is an odd progeny organism in the next generation from a parent organism; all sorts of odd things can, here or there, come from an earlier organism.
Most Oddities Don't Last That Long
Most of the time something odd is generated, well, it doesn't survive very well, and it doesn't propagate.
But Sometimes, One Or The Other Does
But sometimes, especially given changing climate or other ecological circumstances, it does fit into the overall ecosystem better, and its progeny does wind up lasting into future generations, even more than what it originally came from.
If It Works, It Lasts - This Takes A Darwin?!!??
So. Something that fits into the ecosystem better, especially in a changing climate, even if it is odd at first, something that works better in the ecosystem, is going to be more likely to last into future generations.
Well, Yeah . . .
But of course, again, BEFORE it's figured out, it takes massive observation, and reading, and thinking, and imagining, and all sorts of things to finally put all the complicated little pieces together into the simple "big picture".
Science At The Low Level, And, Non-Science, Falsely Parading As Science, At The High Level
Again, the way things work, either those who run the large financial establishments, and their university, media, and professional tentacles, conclude that you will safely keep their own, overall anti-science, anti-nature, and essentially anti-human view of life under strict wraps - that is, either you can be 'trusted' to not blow the cover of the overall financial system running society, or you will be seen as an idiot, either of the simpleton variety, or the obsessional variety.
Even Marx
A third example is Karl Marx, yet another of the great 19th century theorists.
"Class Interest", Instead Of Principled Relations, Is What The Ruling Class Wanted To Hear
The reason he could slip through the net, is that he put his ideas into the form of "class interest", stating that each class fights for its own 'class interest'.
NOT "No Hierarchy, But "Caretaking Downwards"/"Anxiety Upwards" Hierarchy, Principled Hierarchy
The problem is, that nature is, indeed, universally hierarchical. But it is NOT hierarchy in the capitalist or religious sense.
Before Sapiens Sapiens, It Was All Done 'Automatically" - Among Humans, Deliberate, Conscious, Intelligence Is The Mechanism
Under the conditions in which pre-human organisms operated, it's all done in a manner that we would think of as "automatically".
Instead Of Genetic Changes Internally, We Arrange Technical And Social Changes, Externally
When it gets cold, the way humans evolved, instead of the evolution of thicker skin, we developed the ability to organize a house for many people, or when food gets scarce, we don't get smaller, we comb out the factors to find that one-in-a-million configuration of factors to create an orchard, as in the examples in the math sections above.
"Analogy", Or "Metaphor", Is NOT 'Overlay' As Per The Earlier Explanation
Here, I must warn the reader again, that moving from one logical level to the next, in nature, results in analogous parallels, Not overlays, and I refer the reader again to the warnings in an earlier section regarding consideration of analogies and metaphors.
Marx's Omissions
But all this discussion of healthy hierarchical relations, as different from "no hierarchy", and of harmful, anti-nature notions of oppressive hierarchy, began with a discussion of what Marx, like Einstein and Darwin, left out of his work, and in so omitting, enabled him to be widely accepted.
The Three Missing Elements Of Most Marxist Thinking
Thus, as it turns out, there are three major inaccuracies that too many progressives have thought derive from Marxist ideas.
What The Narrowest and Most Desperate Among The Capitalists, Want To Hear
All this is music to the ears of the narrowest and most backwards among the capitalists, and the provocateurs among the working class as well. For it parallels the old "'Eternal' Hostile Forces Of Nature" so near and dear to 'sociobiologists, and the "Eternal Evil" of (anti-) 'religious' satanism favored by the apocalyptic 'fundamentalists'. It informs fascists everywhere that history "compels" their sociopathic, anti-nature operations. And it mirrors the "go with the flow" demands that oppressive rulers everywhere insist upon, among their subjected peoples.
A Last Word On Marx
But perhaps I leave the implication of giving Marx too little credit.
And Then There's Freud, In This Case, The Archetype In Anti-Science Hoax-Making Accommodation
Finally, we come to the archetype case, Sigmund Freud, a scientist who deliberately decided to take his main findings out of the context of a sound scientific framework, and for accommodation purposes, place it in an anti-science, and profoundly harmful frame of reference.
The Paris Morgue
Freud, as a promising young Viennese physician and psychiatrist visiting Paris, studied under some of the leading lights of France in the field. He was shown around famous asylums, with the extreme symptoms of the inmates there being pointed out to him.
Anticipation
Freud was beside himself with excitement, and he wrote up his paper for the very next conference of Viennese psychiatric professionals.
Surprise! (No Surprise)
But in fact, when he looked around, everyone seemed half asleep, distracted, murmuring, dozing . . .
The Anti-Science Scheme
Freud hit upon a scheme. He would write another paper denouncing his earlier conclusions, and claim instead, that yes, the women did have unconscious ideations of abuse, and yes, these were leading to hysterical symptoms, but the ideations were not memories of actual events. Rather, they were "fantasies" that the girls had made up, because they were desirous of such events, which again, had never happened in real life.
The False Reputation Of Actual Science, And Its Alternatives
For a long long time, "Science", and "Technology" have been blamed for causing the great current ills of humankind, and it is said that we must instead, look to an unfathomable "spiritualism", if we wish to alleviate the sufferings of the world's people, or, it is said, simply accept an inevitable, apocalyptic view of the future.
So, My Own Work - The "Logical Types" © nrm Explanations AND, Its Context
All this, is by way of showing why I have has so much reluctance to release the "Logical Types" explanations, and much of the rest of my work, outside the original, full, scientific, "work-out-well-for-all" from which they derive.
One Last Thing For This Paper, Still In The Works . . .
I have a last "punch line" section for this paper in notes and ideas form, but I very much wanted to post this on the Internet during the month of November, and managed to on the last day of the month, with updates throughout December (the above section coming on line on December 19th).
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A. Evolution, Affection, and Neandertal . . . . 10,000
F. Politics . . . . 5,000(You Are Here)
G. Proposal . . . .3,000
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XIX. Two Frameworks - Helpful, Harmful . . . . 500
Two frameworks.
The original, workable, nature's framework, Framework I.
And the current, hopefully temporary, unworkable framework, the one that's been the problem for the past ten thousand years or so, Framework II.
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On Systems, As A Simple And Practical Understanding
Note Regarding The Following: In the following section and in other papers I've written, I refer to "overall frameworks of understandings" from which people derive their ideas. By this, I mean one or the other of the two following high level "Systems", or overall "Frameworks".
This may, at first glance, look hard to understand as a practical matter, but it is easily explained and once so explained, easy to understand, as an entirely practical, everyday matter.
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Framework I.
In Conformity With Nature And In Conformity With Basic Human Behavior,
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But Out Of Conformity With The Demands Of Current Society.
The Overall Framework From Which The Democratic Party, Liberal, and Progressive Views Are Derived
Permanently Sustainable and Forever Advancing; Nature's Way Of Things.
a. Nature And Human Behavior Within It Are Geared For Things To Work Out Well For All.
Solving Harm as Overall Purpose; The Source of Life's Energy is Mostly From The World At Large
b. Protection Flows Mostly Hierarchically Downwards, and Anxiety Flows Mostly Upwards.
Alert Cognition and Consistency; Internal Observer
c. Primary Reality, At All Relevant Logical Levels, is Singular and Entirely Humanly Knowable.
Anchored and Secure; The Class/Member Distinction, and Comprehensive
Framework II.
In Conformity With The Demands Of Current Society,
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But Out Of Conformity With Nature And Out Of Conformity With Basic Human Behavior.
The Main Points From Which The Republican Party, Conservative, And Reactionary Views Are Derived
Non-Sustainable; Current Society's Mis-System.
a. It Is Inevitable Within Nature That Things Will Work Out Poorly For Some.
Personal Security as Overall Purpose; The Source of Life's Energy is Mostly From Within
b. Protection Flows Mostly Hierarchically Upwards, and Anxiety Flows Mostly Downwards.
Attachment Judgment; Internal Automatics
c. Multi-reality or Unknowable-reality.
Disassociated and Complex; Unstable
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It is important to note that because of the "work-out-poorly" precedents of the last several thousand years, and the consequent lack of the appropriate simple math system for making such calculations, those whose everyday policies and ideas operate within the first framework, nature's framework, are disallowed from actually thinking through their own high level view.
As such, the second framework listed above, an anomalous, work-out-poorly, anti-nature and anti-human nonsense view, tends to appear to be the only reasonable framework available, "the only game in town", so to speak. This confusion is easily cleared up via presentation of the "Logical Types" calculating system that is referred to throughout my work and that I propose to publicly present. This simple, mathematics discovery has long been the 'missing link' in all discussions of social and political import.
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XX. A Medieval Tale - Fear Of Cognition . . . . 3000
Introduction For Yet Another Analogy
One of the most difficult aspects of sorting out the solution to the problems of harm to people, is the very powerful injunction, projected by all social and societal intellectual and conversational conventions against looking at the governing system of a person's thoughts and statements.
It is said that if one looks at the governing system of ideas, rather than just a single idea within that governing system, one is being "philosophical", and irrelevant to the matters of daily life operations, conversations, and problem-solving.
In fact, this is not the case. In the current circumstance, the most absolutely relevant issue regarding all matters of daily life problems, is the "overall understanding" from which people are operating.
As a matter of daily life practicality, absolutely nothing can be solved by disassociating the "governing framework of understanding" from which people derive their minute to minute ideas.
However, all those daily life practicalities are easily solved, if the overall system from which people think and operate is clearly sorted out and addressed.
Again, unfortunately, the societal injunction against an open consideration of the general "frame of reference" from which a person derives their ideas is so powerful, that people automatically react harshly - sometimes with overt malice, and sometimes by abruptly leaving the field - to any attempt to discuss that "governing set of ideas".
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Just Yesterday
Perhaps an anagogic example from an earlier time might illustrate this phenomenon.
Suppose we imagine a possible circumstance from perhaps two or three centuries ago.
Suppose you are visiting a loved friend, in 1600's Europe, who is living with their family, and has come down with an illness that, today, we would identify as a "cold".
Attending the ill friend is a physician, who is applying the common remedy of the day, namely powerful leeches to suck out the person's blood. The theory under which the physician is operating, is that there are impurities in the person's blood, and so, to have leeches suck out the person's blood, will suck out the poison and as such, it is said, the application of leeches constitutes the person's best chance of recovery.
Suppose that you understand that having the ill person's blood supply drained in this way will, in fact, weaken the person and make the illness worse, to the point of death, whereas, you understand that clean, warm bedding, light, nutritious liquids, and strong doses of comfort, caring attention, and peaceful rest, would in fact constitute the person's best chances of recovery.
You attempt to discuss the case with the attending physician.
The physician notices that you seem to be a perhaps intelligent, sincere, and learned person, and questions you to see if you have better ideas regarding where to apply the leeches to drain the maximum amount of blood, and if you perhaps have access to stronger leeches.
You mention that it appears to you that draining the person's blood is likely to weaken them, and describe the "system" of treatment, mentioned above, that is more likely to bring about recovery.
This "system of care" that you present, is said by the physician to be an interesting, but vague, abstract, and philosophical notion, and this, says the physician, is no time for interesting philosophical discussions; he notes that this is a "crisis" moment, life and death, and at this moment, the tried and true is called for.
You note that you're being neither 'vague' nor 'philosophical', nor 'abstract', and that the "system of care" that you are describing, is quite immediate and practical; nothing "philosophical", or vague, or "abstract" about it. You offer to explain just why the "system" you are proscribing is more likely to work, and why the "leeches" are not likely to work.
"Harrumph!" says the physician; this is no time involved "abstract" "philosophical" discussions regarding "systems", and becomes quite cross, asking the family to remove you from the premises.
Now the patient in question is a loved friend, remember.
You, in response to the now (unnecessarily) bleeding to death of your friend, and in response to the sharp attack from the physician, become quite agitated, and raise your own voice in anger.
The physician, who, as a trained and experienced physician, then whispers to the family that he knows the sort of phenomena that he is seeing in you, and tells them that at any moment, they can expect horns to sprout under your hair, and a pointed tail to pop out under the rear of your trousers.
Aware of the whispering, but unaware of just what's being whispered, you attempt to contain yourself. After all, your loved friend's life is at stake. You then attempt to remind the family that you are a quite reasonable person, and, especially given the stakes at the moment, they should at least give a listen to what you have to say.
The family then has a further whispering conversation with the physician, who seems impressed with what they tell him is your reputation for being a reasonable and caring person.
The physician then turns to you, and says with soothing respect, that he has given thought to what you have to say, and has decided to take your advice. "You said something about warm bedding" says the physician, and something about a "system". "This sounds good, actually", says the learned professional.
Henceforth, he will place the leeches not on the patient themself (and you smile in relief), but rather on the mattress and bed sheets, and, as the patient tosses and turns, the leeches' and patient's movements will find their own, natural, "system" of placement along the person's body.
The physician smiles with warm understanding, saying that he hopes you appreciate that you are now being taken seriously, and that your "system" idea will be tried out.
You, of course realizing, that the adding of additional leeches will kill your much loved friend all the more painfully and certainly, can barely contain your fear and rage.
Your face goes red, your hair goes slightly on end, you attempt to half contain and half sputter a response, and goose bumps appear on your skin.
The physician, now sees the absolutely certain signs that you are in the process of turning into your true, and classic, devil state, and that you are a truly insane ingrate to boot, and, obviously, an agent of the devil himself.
As such, he calls for a constable to take you away, warning darkly that you must be bound carefully in a tight jail cell, for if you are not shackled with metal, your burning devilish skin could burn down the jailhouse and the constable as well.
The learned physician further warns that, at any moment, you could "snap" inside, and lash out, violently murdering all in view.
The family of the ill person, looking about at who has the general confidence (and the general political power) in the situation, nervously agrees and the constable does indeed tie you up and take you away.
But somehow, somehow, you manage to collect some calmness, and carefully remind the constable that you are a known and quite reasonable person.
The Constable of this town, thankfully, turns out to himself be someone who thinks of himself as a reasonably intelligent and warm individual, and, having known you for some time, decides, out of the goodness of his heart, to take a great chance, risk his own job and reputation, and let you go home.
But he warns you darkly that you are to go directly home, and never to go near your loved friend, nor anyone connected, nor anyone in an ill situation in the future. That's the bargain, and, given the alternative possibility of being permanently incarcerated, tortured for confession as regards your meetings with the devil, and worse fates still, you nervously agree.
Shortly thereafter, you receive the expected news that you loved friend died shortly after your visit, the physician listing as the cause of death, of course, the intervention of an insane sorcerer, who was filled with vague and abstract "philosophies" that fooled the family, and interrupted and distracted the physician's healing works.
'Fortunately', adds the physician's report, 'the timely intervention of the town constable prevented the sorcerer from further lashing out and killing more persons at the scene.'
As you walk through town in later weeks, you notice people whispering to one another, looking at an extra crease in your trousers, or a hair out of place, and swearing that they've seen, with their very own eyes, the telltale pointed tail and barely protruding horns from your head.
And even the family of the ill, now dead person, cannot bear to think they themselves were parties to the demise of their own kin. They develop a powerful wall against such, by most vehemently joining in the idea that it was that (former) family friend, now inexplicably turned devilish, that precipitated the demise.
Consequently, you are increasingly isolated from social relationships, and even those who suspect exactly what has actually happened, are in fear of associating with you, as their own neighbors may then suspect that your friends too have now caught the spirit of the devil.
Furthermore, people realize that they dare not speak of "systems" of warmth and comfort, and dare not speak of skepticism of the physician's leeching methods.
Former friends are sagely advised, that even so much as empathetic listening to you, will only increase your dangerous and delusional state, so, for your own good, they reinforce your isolation.
In time your economic, social, and therefore emotional circumstance deteriorates, you become increasingly nervous and out of sorts, and then, a careless accident befalls you. Fearful of the generally proscribed treatment, and having no one to turn to, the injury turns into infection, you begin to look and feel like a monster, and you die with injury, and therefore the appearance of a devil on you body.
That night, someone looks up into the sky, notices a falling star, and breaths a sigh of relief that another witch has been vanquished, and as such, the world is a better place.
"Ah yes", they think. "He used to be such a nice, interesting, and warm person. I wonder what went wrong. Something must have 'snapped' inside; the mysteries of life; perhaps it was, that the old 'eternal evil' came upon him. Who knows? Who knows?"
In time, the warmest, most caring, most healing persons, all befall a similar fate. And the most murderous and manipulative walk the town with ever greater confidence, especially given, their new, more advanced "leeching 'system'".
And the townspeople generally, therein ever more crippled by paranoia, illness, brutality, and fear of one another and, perhaps most important, fear of their own minds and hearts, conclude that life is just a crazy, and, in the end, evil, and hopeless matter, and learn to live from hand to mouth, one against the other, reactively, and with no sense of the past, the future, health, or general depth.
And so it went, for centuries, as a general dynamic, played out tens of thousands of times, throughout England, Germany, France, and beyond, in times as recent as the lives of some of our own great grandparents.
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"Western Civilization" and The Sea Of Holes
In fact, although I just completely made that story up from my mind, I have read enough, and seen enough, to know that there is a pretty close match-up with actual events throughout the history of what is euphemistically called "western civilization" over the past many centuries.
But more important, some people would no doubt think that the basic dynamics of the story above, might bear absolutely no relation whatsoever to current circumstances afoot in modern, 21st century America.
After all, physiological medicine is based on science, not superstition or "leeches", many, or most people live into their sixties or seventies, far longer than before, no one believes in devils or horns and tails or anything like that, we've all heard about "questioning presumptions", many, or most people have been to college, and conversation is far more cognitively, and reality-based than the 'mythologies' of former times.
However, those aspects are not the basic dynamics that I was attempting to illustrate.
In fact, general social conventions in the current day, are not so cognitively-based as one might think.
Common anti-'wisdom'
Much that passes for common "wisdom" is as surely nonsensical and superstitious now, as it was then; and much of the social and "healing" professions, certainly the "mental healing" professions, are indeed based on very much the same dynamics as illustrated above, and I have personally found that attempting to present a vastly more logical and work-out-well framework has, in the current day, brought me up against much the same general dynamic as illustrated in the story.
Furthermore, the general, media, academia, and professional modes of conversation and social ideas, do continue to operate on a nonsensical, and indeed proudly and overtly nonsensical "basis", on a proudly and overtly nonsensical (anti-)"system" of 'understanding', which, despite all the talk of "questioning presumptions", keeps "governing-frameworks-of-ideas" firmly hidden, with all sorts of quite similar threats and arguments imposed against discussion and evaluation of a healthy, work-out-well-for-all alternative "overall framework of understanding", or "system of understanding" being presented.
In fact, even today, there are massive social injunctions presented against looking at systems at all, and the same arguments, referring to specific definitions, and referring to cognitive, logical, systems reasoning, as "vague", "abstract", "philosophical", "spiritual", "not practical" or the like, are presented now, just as then.
In fact, there is a rigidly enforced insistence, throughout modern society, in both formal and informal conversation, to stick to the low level "elements" of a circumstance, as a practical matter, and leave the rest to "vague", "going-nowhere" type amusements.
And It's Not Funny
As it turns out, almost everyone, in response to the slightest (but absolutely forbidden) probing, will acknowledge that whatever they are holding to be true, is actually the last thing they heard on TV the previous evening, or some such, and the matter of determining actual accuracy, is something that they never dare consider, on pain of falling "out of the" social and employment "loop", so to speak.
"Establishment"/"Anti-Establishment"
One very important thing to bear in mind regarding the story above, is that the problem was NOT that the family and others "chose the wrong horse" so to speak.
Not "Questioning Presumptions", But, Coming Up With Accurate Ones
In any case, despite all the talk of "looking at 'presumptions'", in fact, it is almost impossible to get anyone to even so much as entertain the slightest thought regarding their, or people's generally, internal governing presumptions.
And. The reason that social and political matters remain so continuously unresolved, is not because "life" is generally crazy, which it is decidedly not, but because the societal system, and the daily life conversational conventions within it, remain rigidly enforcing of a nonsensical, work-out-poorly-for-most general "frame of reference".
One thing that is so similar between now and the story above, is that when the physician, mentions that, only where to place the leeches, and how much blood they could suck, only that would constitute a practical discussion, and any discussion of overall systems (in that case of physical healing, but in the current day of social healing), any discussion of overall systems would constitute a vague, abstract, and irrelevant distraction.
This is very close to the way people claim that discussing only the low level issues and anecdotes commonly presented in the mass media, represent practical conversation regarding politics. It is said that the matter of evaluation of overall systems of understanding, into which those anecdotes and issues fall, have no concrete and practical bearing.
It's easy to look at a social dynamic from far away and note how 'silly', but harmful really, almost everyone is being, to each other, and to themselves.
It's another kettle of fish entirely, when those exact same harmful general dynamics are applied to one's own, current situation. Then, it all seems as natural and as ordinary as it did to the family of the ill person in the story above, and to the constable and the villagers.
The problem in both cases, is a distrust of, or a lack of tools for, examining systemic issues, examination that, once the proper tools are available, is as clear and easy as the way we look at little elements of a situation and little anecdotes.
And the tools for such "systems" understandings generally, are indeed currently available.
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A. Evolution, Affection, and Neandertal . . . . 10,000
G. Proposal . . . .3,000(You Are Here)
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XXI. Proposal - Locket . . . . 3000
The four pages of the last section entitled "Locket" are in Adobe Acrobat *.PDF form.Page One, Silverstructure: Issues, Frameworks, and A Proposal
Locket (about 600k, black and white Acrobat *.PDF, for printing or viewing)
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Important Note:
I'll have to leave this off here for now . . . just for the moment . . .
I have two last sections for this paper, but I want to post this during November, and today is the 30th; I hope to have a second, completed edition in the coming days . . .
In the meantime, please know that I have completed the outline and details for a three hour talk, complete with fifty wordless illustrations, that I think, if presented Publicly, would entirely clarify, in a self-evident to all manner, all of the most important issues with which we are faced.
But for now,
And as always,
With Love,
And Best Wishes,
To One and All,
---- Neil
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neil
Neil Robert Miller
neil@imaginenine.com
neilrm@slip.net
http://imaginenine.com
November 30, 2000
Aparicion Con Vida
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Other papers by this author at this web-site:
Silverstructrure --- Issues, Frameworks, and A Proposal (Color 1024 *.gif [ 300 k ], or Acrobat *.pdf B&W [ 100 k ])
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neil@imaginenine.com
neilrm@slip.net
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