Wim, Marco, All
Wim
> 3WDave, but are you sure anthropoid apes
> consistently pass on and therebye perpetuate this 'know-how' and create a
> stable pattern of values that one can call 'culture'?
3WD
I did not use the term 'culture' that was Marco's take ('dim culture').
I have seen several PBS nature programs and read some articles in
various science based publications that seem to indicate that several,
different, yet particular groups of apes do indeed past down specific
tool uses for generations by the younger watching the elders. One case
stripping leaves off a twig to fish for termites, in another I believe
selecting and modifying stones one as a hammer and another uniquely
shaped as a cup for an anvil for breaking open nuts. If you trace human
'tool making' back to flint knapping and such the method that was used
for a very long period of time was very similar to what the apes are
doing. Even in the Middle Ages the information past down in guilds was
mostly show and a little tell, very few craftsmen could read or write.
Wim
> I don't think, 3WDave, 'that man and only man can be or will be ever capable
> of accessing the higher social or intellectural levels'. I do think that
> another species can only successfully develop culture in isolation from
> humanity. Otherwise it will be thwarted by humanity once it becomes a threat
> to homo sapiens in biological competition. So we only really have to fear
the aliens...
3WD
So effectively you agree with Pirsig, that for all practical purposes
here on Earth, there is not, nor will there ever be any other being
which will evolve any social values?
And if humans detected even the vaguest hint of this, it probably
curtain time for those usurpers. Hey your probably right about that.
Its just within a system which has evolved for eons and in which Pirsig
claims everything is still evolving and progressing to higher and higher
values to place a 'glass ceiling' between humans and everything else it
not only logically inconsistant, it's arrogant, and it could be
dangerous..... for humans.
bye bye
3WD
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