Hi Roger and all,
ROG:
> And yes, biological --genetic -- evolution affects animal
> societies. But to use our terminology, it does not operate as
dynamically on
> the social level, and it doesn't have good latching mechanisms....
That's is paradoxical. Latching (static) is the antithesis of dynamic!
ROG: [later snip]
> I would also offer that the real breakthroughs for humans are speech,
> followed by writing and printing. Writing didn't become widespread
until
> 5,000 years or so ago -- the beginning of an explosive era for social
> advance. And we know how printing led to another creative and dynamic
era.
> Speech, writing and printing are exceptional latching and transmission
> mechanisms of dynamic advances.
I completely agree about language. Without language, we wouldn't have
the stories and myths of our ancestors. Writing is even more
significant, because it eliminates the need for patterns to pass by
"real-time" communication.
Thus, the writings of the Greeks were able to lie hundreds of years
before their rediscovery. Quite probably in all that period (the "dark
ages") there was nobody alive who knew what was in those writings.
Of-course, modern technology (storage and easy retrieval and
communication of audio and video) reinforces the latching purpose even
more. e.g. after less than a century of cinema, movies already occupy an
important part of our cultural baggage (Pirsig was able to draw on this
in Lila - where he discusses "Butch Cassidy . . .").
Thus, some of these patterns stay with us in all generations, some may
skip a generation just like in genetics.
However, unlike genetics, technology may allow some patterns to skip 100
generations.
Jonathan
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