Wim
You asked:
> My conclusion from the paleopsychology quotes you provided in
> that post was that this jump occurs between the social and intellectual
> levels. Do you agree?
The more a worry it around the more uneasy I am with the whole social
level per se. First it doesn't correspond to most of the other
'perennial' philosophies old or new, most of which go inorganic,
biological, then go mind, or self- consciousness, or intellect or
something very similar. Second many here have supported language written
or spoken as the step from biological to social but how does this occur
without the intellectual capacity to manipulate symbols. The argument
being intelligence and intellect are two different things. Which I agree
with but that still evades the issue. Third many of the patterns of
value we call social in humans, are very similar to what we observe in
animals. ie specialization or divisions of labor within a species,
altruism, setting and defending boundaries, kinship bonds, mating for
life, family rearing of young etc. We can go on and on, but deciding to
draw the social boundary at humans not only seems pretty arbitrary it's
very difficult to do if you just look at values and disreguard species.
But the social level is useful, so I guess right now I would say that
social should not be exclusively human. Social values should be pushed
back in time and would require sufficient intellegence and memory to
recall and act based on some values other than hardwired biological
instinct. This might include most mammals. Then I would put intellect
emerging (first time it is ever evident) somewhere around or just before
cave art and the like. But of course this is does not jive with the MoQ.
But then again what does?
3WD
The 4 characteristics of intellect still seem to hang together, at least
for me.
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