RE: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human
Is it culture that allowed western Europe/America to develop such incredible technology while all previous insipient techno societies such as China and Egypt failed to mature technically? I tend to think that freedom and the rise of a middle class are essential. There must be time and resources available to large groups of people in order to amass great amounts of knowledge through experimentation. I don’t think any previous civilizations had those ingredients. Jeff _ From: R.C.Macaulay [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:38 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human Been reading this thread with interest at the views expressed. Anyone care to expound on the impact of another component CULTURE. What role does culture play in the grand scheme of things? Richard No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.1/1183 - Release Date: 12/13/2007 9:15 AM No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.1/1183 - Release Date: 12/13/2007 9:15 AM
RE: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human
There have been many studies of the relationship between cultural attributes and economic or technological 'progress.' I think several things can be said about this that these studies tend to miss: 1. As I see it, 'Progress' is itself a culturally defined notion. What seems like progress in one culture may be viewed as societal self-destruction in another. So if we are to use the term usefully, we will have to define what we mean by 'progress'. 2. Culture, like organizations, individuals, or societies, can be viewed as a human system. That is, it will have a set of basic functions taking place within a structure that links its different components. (Jim Miller LIVING SYSTEMS THEORY and Stafford Beer VIABLE SYSTEMS MODEL suggest ways to create models of these systemic functions and structures.) Human systems go beyond others in the sense that human systems involve values, hopes for the future, fears, etc. The sum of these things is what we call 'culture'. (I am not using the term in the sense of the arts, theater, music, etc.) 'Progress', then would be a value that a society might or might not place great emphasis on. 3. In the West and in Europe and the US in particular, notions of progress have become dominated by the notion of wealth and acquisition and so we embrace technology and the exploitation of natural resources as the means and fuel for such economically-defined progress. But in many other cultures, 'progress' is seen differently, and the West's definition is viewed with emotions and analyses that range form envy, to horror, to repudiation, to boredom. 4. Yes, the West is viewed as being in the ascendancy on a technological, military, and wealth-generation sense. But several things may be reversing this, including, the growing relative financial weakness of the West, the emerging critique of seduction-and-status based consumerism, our growing dependency on outsourcing, the growing military and medical budgets - all of which can be seen as a form of buffering other dysfunctionalities built into 'Western culture'. It is not hard to imagine several other cultures competing to replace the West's as the dominating one, along with their various paradigms of what 'progress' means. It would be a silly mistake, I think, to think that the West has found all the answers and will retain its ascendancy indefinitely. This is certainly not the lesson of history, which has seen the ascendant culture shift among the Middle East, Asia, Europe and less often, the Americas and Africa. 5. It would seem to me that the only strategy that will assist a culture in remaining fresh and vibrant and relevant generally to the opportunities that the evolution of the world offers is one that is intensely curious about other cultures, able to appreciate their genuine strengths and weaknesses, and to learn form them. A successful culture must then know how to routinely transform itself functionally and structurally based upon a wise and expanded definition of culture and values. 6. So perhaps the most viable cultures today will prove to be those that are dissatisfied with themselves, able to learn and to change, and determined to pursue the potential for creating a good society that lies within their culture. Lawrence _ From: Jeff Fink [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 11:37 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: RE: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human Is it culture that allowed western Europe/America to develop such incredible technology while all previous insipient techno societies such as China and Egypt failed to mature technically? I tend to think that freedom and the rise of a middle class are essential. There must be time and resources available to large groups of people in order to amass great amounts of knowledge through experimentation. I don't think any previous civilizations had those ingredients. Jeff _ From: R.C.Macaulay [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:38 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human Been reading this thread with interest at the views expressed. Anyone care to expound on the impact of another component CULTURE. What role does culture play in the grand scheme of things? Richard No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.1/1183 - Release Date: 12/13/2007 9:15 AM No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.1/1183 - Release Date: 12/13/2007 9:15 AM
Re: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human
There is no escaping reason; no denying culture. Because as we both know, without culture, we would not exist. It is culture that created us. Culture that connects us. Culture that pulls us. That guides us. That drives us. It is culture that defines us. Culture that binds us. sorry. couldnt resist. or, perhaps i could, i just didnt understand the choice. On 12/13/07, R.C.Macaulay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Been reading this thread with interest at the views expressed. Anyone care to expound on the impact of another component CULTURE. What role does culture play in the grand scheme of things? Richard -- That which yields isn't always weak.
Re: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human
Rapid technological progress is a perfect storm of the brainy kind. Harry On 14/12/2007 12:40 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: Jeff Fink wrote: Is it culture that allowed western Europe/America to develop such incredible technology while all previous insipient techno societies such as China and Egypt failed to mature technically? I think this is a misleading question. The sum total of human knowledge has increased -- erratically -- as an exponential. The more we know, the easier it is to discover more, and the more we can pool our knowledge, the faster it happens. The behavior of exponential growth leads directly to the illusion that there were enormous differences in the rate of technological progress between Europe and the rest of the world. If we look at the full timeline of human history, on the other hand, and consider when other cultures might have arrived at a post-industrial society if Europe had not, it appears that the difference in arrival time, as a fraction of the length of human history, would actually have been quite small. The early part of an exponential looks flat -- if you just look at the curve locally, it's hard to tell anything's changing. In the time of Jesus Christ, society surely _looked_ like a zero-sum game to the inhabitants, because the pace of change was so slow. Ecclesiastes could write there is nothing new under the sun, and people could take it as literally true with no need to hem and haw about how he meant it figuratively, or claim he was just talking about human behavior, or whatnot -- it appeared, 2500 years ago, that things were really completely static. But they were not. The sum of human knowledge was increasing, and at some point the slope of the exponential got steep enough that it was obvious that things were changing. That happened first in western Europe -- but the difference in /years/ is actually very small between where Europe was on the curve versus, say, China, or even the Americas. Figure human beings have been absolutely human for 100,000 years. The rate of technological change has only been fast enough for individuals to easily see it happening during the last 600 years or so. Europe may have been ahead of China by, say, a century, and ahead of the New World by a handful of centuries -- but on the scale of human history, that's the blink of an eye. Someone had to get to the industrial revolution first; it happened to be Europe. If Europe had stumbled, it would surely have happened anyway, and probably no more than a few hundred years later. The difference in time to reach the threshold of advanced technology, given a time scale of 100,000 years, would most likely have been less than 1% if we had had to wait for some other continent to get there. I tend to think that freedom and the rise of a middle class are essential. There must be time and resources available to large groups of people in order to amass great amounts of knowledge through experimentation. I don¹t think any previous civilizations had those ingredients. Perhaps. That's somewhat speculative. What is not speculation is that no previous civilization had the same prior fund of amassed knowledge which was available in Europe at the dawn of the industrial revolution. What is also not speculation is that if something had prevented Europe from taking the next step, within another couple of centuries the amassed knowledge in Asia would have exceeded that which was available in Europe at the start of the revolution. We can then guess that that, in turn, might very well have sparked an industrial revolution, regardless of the sclerotic nature of Oriental politics at the time. Freedom in Europe sped things up. Slavery in the new world sped things up, as well, by making southern plantations practical, and hence fueling England's foreign trade, which in turn funded industrialization at home. The connections here are complex and not generally known but appear to have been significant. But the human knowledge base was increasing regardless of all that; it seems quite plausible that a scientific and industrial revolution was inevitable. The political situation affected the timing, but was almost surely not the root cause. Jeff *From:* R.C.Macaulay [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *Sent:* Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:38 PM *To:* vortex-l@eskimo.com *Subject:* [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human Been reading this thread with interest at the views expressed. Anyone care to expound on the impact of another component CULTURE. What role does culture play in the grand scheme of things? Richard No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.1/1183 - Release Date: 12/13/2007 9:15 AM No virus found
Re: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human
Richard sez: Been reading this thread with interest at the views expressed. Anyone care to expound on the impact of another component CULTURE. What role does culture play in the grand scheme of things? Richard In certain cultures if a woman has sex outside the sanctity of marriage she can be stoned to death. Meanwhile, the male gets away to spread his seed amongst other females - who may also eventually suffer the same fate. In other cultures the same activity is more likely to produce juicy gossip. In the grand scheme of things stoning women of child baring age results in the reduction of childbirths into that culture. Meanwhile, in other cultures notes and accompanying DNA are more frequently exchanged. My 2 cents. -- Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
Re: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human
Jeff Fink wrote: Is it culture that allowed western Europe/America to develop such incredible technology while all previous insipient techno societies such as China and Egypt failed to mature technically? I think this is a misleading question. The sum total of human knowledge has increased -- erratically -- as an exponential. The more we know, the easier it is to discover more, and the more we can pool our knowledge, the faster it happens. The behavior of exponential growth leads directly to the illusion that there were enormous differences in the rate of technological progress between Europe and the rest of the world. If we look at the full timeline of human history, on the other hand, and consider when other cultures might have arrived at a post-industrial society if Europe had not, it appears that the difference in arrival time, as a fraction of the length of human history, would actually have been quite small. The early part of an exponential looks flat -- if you just look at the curve locally, it's hard to tell anything's changing. In the time of Jesus Christ, society surely _looked_ like a zero-sum game to the inhabitants, because the pace of change was so slow. Ecclesiastes could write there is nothing new under the sun, and people could take it as literally true with no need to hem and haw about how he meant it figuratively, or claim he was just talking about human behavior, or whatnot -- it appeared, 2500 years ago, that things were really completely static. But they were not. The sum of human knowledge was increasing, and at some point the slope of the exponential got steep enough that it was obvious that things were changing. That happened first in western Europe -- but the difference in /years/ is actually very small between where Europe was on the curve versus, say, China, or even the Americas. Figure human beings have been absolutely human for 100,000 years. The rate of technological change has only been fast enough for individuals to easily see it happening during the last 600 years or so. Europe may have been ahead of China by, say, a century, and ahead of the New World by a handful of centuries -- but on the scale of human history, that's the blink of an eye. Someone had to get to the industrial revolution first; it happened to be Europe. If Europe had stumbled, it would surely have happened anyway, and probably no more than a few hundred years later. The difference in time to reach the threshold of advanced technology, given a time scale of 100,000 years, would most likely have been less than 1% if we had had to wait for some other continent to get there. I tend to think that freedom and the rise of a middle class are essential. There must be time and resources available to large groups of people in order to amass great amounts of knowledge through experimentation. I don’t think any previous civilizations had those ingredients. Perhaps. That's somewhat speculative. What is not speculation is that no previous civilization had the same prior fund of amassed knowledge which was available in Europe at the dawn of the industrial revolution. What is also not speculation is that if something had prevented Europe from taking the next step, within another couple of centuries the amassed knowledge in Asia would have exceeded that which was available in Europe at the start of the revolution. We can then guess that that, in turn, might very well have sparked an industrial revolution, regardless of the sclerotic nature of Oriental politics at the time. Freedom in Europe sped things up. Slavery in the new world sped things up, as well, by making southern plantations practical, and hence fueling England's foreign trade, which in turn funded industrialization at home. The connections here are complex and not generally known but appear to have been significant. But the human knowledge base was increasing regardless of all that; it seems quite plausible that a scientific and industrial revolution was inevitable. The political situation affected the timing, but was almost surely not the root cause. Jeff *From:* R.C.Macaulay [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *Sent:* Thursday, December 13, 2007 8:38 PM *To:* vortex-l@eskimo.com *Subject:* [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human Been reading this thread with interest at the views expressed. Anyone care to expound on the impact of another component CULTURE. What role does culture play in the grand scheme of things? Richard No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.1/1183 - Release Date: 12/13/2007 9:15 AM No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.1/1183 - Release Date: 12/13/2007 9:15 AM
RE: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human
Jeff Fink wrote: Is it culture that allowed western Europe/America to develop such incredible technology while all previous insipient techno societies such as China and Egypt failed to mature technically? Jared Diamond says that geography has a lot to do with in, in his fascinating book Guns germs and steel. I don't know if agree with everything he says, but the book is a tour de force and thought provoking. Actually, the Chinese were well along at times. But they kept inventing effective clocks, classifying them as Top Secret government projects, and then forgetting how to make them. Truly asinine, but not unthinkable in modern day society. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human
Steven Vincent Johnson wrote: In certain cultures if a woman has sex outside the sanctity of marriage she can be stoned to death. Meanwhile, the male gets away to spread his seed amongst other females - who may also eventually suffer the same fate. In other cultures the same activity is more likely to produce juicy gossip. In the grand scheme of things stoning women of child baring age results in the reduction of childbirths into that culture. Meanwhile, in other cultures notes and accompanying DNA are more frequently exchanged. Jeff Fink wrote: Is it culture that allowed western Europe/America to develop such incredible technology while all previous insipient techno societies such as China and Egypt failed to mature technically? Jed wrote: Jared Diamond says that geography has a lot to do with in, in his fascinating book Guns germs and steel. I don't know if agree with everything he says, but the book is a tour de force and thought provoking. Actually, the Chinese were well along at times. But they kept inventing effective clocks, classifying them as Top Secret government projects, and then forgetting how to make them. Truly asinine, but not unthinkable in modern day society. Hi All, Selection pressure on humans may never have been higher than at present, including sexual, technological, geographical (I think Diamond is fascinating), cultural pressures, etc. All of these pressures are the bases for various theories of history. The results of sexual pressure are not obvious: At the presnt trend, 12 will be the average age in Iraq; and the Mormons are the fastest growing religion in the US (so I've read) -- they are doing it by procreation (Big Love?). My current favorite pressure is the disease theory of history. An interesting Nova (?) some time ago described a village in England, ravaged by the Black Death in the 14th century, whose modern descendents have a higher than average resistence to HIV -- the pores in the T-cells are too small for the virus to penetrate -- another reason to question whether or not the Black Death was really Plague. Today, microbiological attack is probably the strongest evolutionary pressure: ease of movement in and out of remote regions with large numbers of people -- did the Roman roads bring smallpox into the Empire from the Middle East and decimate Marcus Aurelius's legions on the Rhine? Now we have strange symptoms such as chronic fatigue, loss of myelin from neurons, fribomyalgia, Parkinson's, Lou Gherig's disease, etc., which the medical profession tries to explain away as autoimmune disease. If our immune systems were that dysfunctional, we would have been extinct long ago. Based upon drastic human population crashes in the past, e.g. 535 AD, I don't think it is far-fetched to predict a world population of 1 billion by 2050. If Yellowstone blows, we could even have a pinch like the one that almost finished off homo sapiens 70,000 years ago. Jack Smith
Re: [Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human
jack, again, i think that these issues, things that would have killed people at young ages, even if through no other method than preventing them from working and causing them to die of starvation, paupers, are being prevented today. which is why we see them more and more. On 12/14/07, Taylor J. Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steven Vincent Johnson wrote: In certain cultures if a woman has sex outside the sanctity of marriage she can be stoned to death. Meanwhile, the male gets away to spread his seed amongst other females - who may also eventually suffer the same fate. In other cultures the same activity is more likely to produce juicy gossip. In the grand scheme of things stoning women of child baring age results in the reduction of childbirths into that culture. Meanwhile, in other cultures notes and accompanying DNA are more frequently exchanged. Jeff Fink wrote: Is it culture that allowed western Europe/America to develop such incredible technology while all previous insipient techno societies such as China and Egypt failed to mature technically? Jed wrote: Jared Diamond says that geography has a lot to do with in, in his fascinating book Guns germs and steel. I don't know if agree with everything he says, but the book is a tour de force and thought provoking. Actually, the Chinese were well along at times. But they kept inventing effective clocks, classifying them as Top Secret government projects, and then forgetting how to make them. Truly asinine, but not unthinkable in modern day society. Hi All, Selection pressure on humans may never have been higher than at present, including sexual, technological, geographical (I think Diamond is fascinating), cultural pressures, etc. All of these pressures are the bases for various theories of history. The results of sexual pressure are not obvious: At the presnt trend, 12 will be the average age in Iraq; and the Mormons are the fastest growing religion in the US (so I've read) -- they are doing it by procreation (Big Love?). My current favorite pressure is the disease theory of history. An interesting Nova (?) some time ago described a village in England, ravaged by the Black Death in the 14th century, whose modern descendents have a higher than average resistence to HIV -- the pores in the T-cells are too small for the virus to penetrate -- another reason to question whether or not the Black Death was really Plague. Today, microbiological attack is probably the strongest evolutionary pressure: ease of movement in and out of remote regions with large numbers of people -- did the Roman roads bring smallpox into the Empire from the Middle East and decimate Marcus Aurelius's legions on the Rhine? Now we have strange symptoms such as chronic fatigue, loss of myelin from neurons, fribomyalgia, Parkinson's, Lou Gherig's disease, etc., which the medical profession tries to explain away as autoimmune disease. If our immune systems were that dysfunctional, we would have been extinct long ago. Based upon drastic human population crashes in the past, e.g. 535 AD, I don't think it is far-fetched to predict a world population of 1 billion by 2050. If Yellowstone blows, we could even have a pinch like the one that almost finished off homo sapiens 70,000 years ago. Jack Smith -- That which yields isn't always weak.
[Vo]:OT: Culture and the evolving human
OT: Are humans evolving faster?Been reading this thread with interest at the views expressed. Anyone care to expound on the impact of another component CULTURE. What role does culture play in the grand scheme of things? Richard
