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DISPLACEMENT: CULTURAL CONTROL OF EVOLUTION
Genetic evolution can be fast or s l o w but when it is fast it is still too slow to protect us from the immediacy of a colliding Comet or from the alternating periods of extreme climate changes during glacial times like those of today.
But what good luck! Those pre-adapted pre-humans (us) evolved words and our isolated words quickly evolved into languages and our languages quickly evolved into cultures and all cultures begin to evolve (those that haven't already died out) and are evolving today. Get it?
Some cultures are bad and some are good, with good and bad being determined by the culture's survival.
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Just some first lines from Noam Chomsky's 'Hegemony or Survival'
"Priorities and Prospects
A few years ago, one of the great figures of contemporary biology, Ernst Mayr, published some reflections on the likelihood of success in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
He considered the prospects very low. His reasoning had to do with the adaptive value of what we call "higher intelligence," meaning the particular human form of intellectual organization. Mayr estimated the number of species since the origin of life
at about fifty billion, only one of which "achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization." It did so very recently, perhaps 100,000 years ago. It is generally assumed that only one small breeding group survived, of which we are all descendants. Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organization may not be favored by selection. The history of life on Earth, he wrote, refutes the claim that "it is better to be
smart than to be stupid," at least judging by biological success: beetles and bacteria, for example, are vastly more successful than humans in terms of survival. He also made the rather somber observation that "the average life expectancy of a species is about 100,000 years." We are entering a period of human history that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will not be answered: if it receives a definite answer, that answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted 100,000 years to destroy themselves and, in the process, much else. The species has surely developed the capacity to do just that, and a hypothetical extraterrestrial observer might well conclude that humans have
demonstrated that capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold and calculated savagery, on each other as well."
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Just some first lines from Noam Chomsky's 'Hegemony or Survival'
A few years ago, one of the great figures of contemporary biology, Ernst Mayr, published some reflections on the likelihood of success in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
He considered the prospects very low. His reasoning had to do with the adaptive value of what we call "higher intelligence," meaning the particular human form of intellectual organization. Mayr estimated the number of species since the origin of life
at about fifty billion, only one of which "achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization." It did so very recently, perhaps 100,000 years ago. It is generally assumed that only one small breeding group survived, of which we are all descendants. Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organization may not be favored by selection. The history of life on Earth, he wrote, refutes the claim that "it is better to be
smart than to be stupid," at least judging by biological success: beetles and bacteria, for example, are vastly more successful than humans in terms of survival. He also made the rather somber observation that "the average life expectancy of a species is about 100,000 years." We are entering a period of human history that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will not be answered: if it receives a definite answer, that answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted 100,000 years to destroy themselves and, in the process, much else. The species has surely developed the capacity to do just that, and a hypothetical extraterrestrial observer might well conclude that humans have
demonstrated that capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold and calculated savagery, on each other as well."
Doctors Noam Chomsky and Enrst Mayr both seem to have a poor, and less than scientific, opinion of mankind and of, therefore, themselves. Notwithstanding the egoic pronouncements given above, their understanding of man's Evolution is more indicative of their own cultural funk than any insight into man's role in nature.
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Sure Jenny Jenny, but isn't it wonderful to read just a few lines by someone who knows how to write? Clear and understandable, no matter whether one agrees or not?
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No Buffalo, Jenny Jenny - day Mayr and Chomsky -night Especially Chomsky. Chomsky is a phoney prophet who pontificates yesterday's politics and a contrived explanation of language to pseudo-intellectual tenured teenyboppers. As for me I will kindly summerize and conclude my thoughts about Language, Mankind and Evolution here tommorow.  *Yes, BranShe, you do have a point. But let me me be clear: So did Marx and 100 million people have been murdered because of his clear words afterwards.
Last edited by jenny jenny; 09/24/2013 3:52 PM. Reason: to answer BranShea
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I will kindly summerize and conclude my thoughts about Language, Mankind and Evolution here tommorow
Looking forward to it.
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As for me I will kindly summerize and conclude my thoughts about Language, Mankind and Evolution here tommorow. Indeed. The chill of winter is coming here in the North. We could use with a little summerizing.
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As for me I will kindly summerize and conclude my thoughts about Language, Mankind and Evolution here tommorow. Indeed. The chill of winter is coming here in the North. We could use with a little summerizing.  Say, Fallacy, do you up North find your amusements in misspellings? Gee, Faldo, how often you must giggle.
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So did Marx and 100 million people have been murdered because of his clear words afterwards. I wouldn't know Jenny Jenny. I never read him. Did you? Millions of people have been killed for millions of reasons. Take a trip through history.
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Say, Fallacy, do you up North find your amusements in misspellings? Gee, Faldo, how often you must giggle. Only if they're particularly funny or otherwise appropriate. You'll notice I didn't say anything about the eponymous Tom Morow.
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Darn, Phaltus, you didn't think it couth to cite my 'Tom Morrow'? Damnit, Faldich, that was your best line.
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Naw. Summerize was way more fun.
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I wouldn't know Jenny Jenny. I never read him. Did you? Millions of people have been killed for millions of reasons. Take a trip through history.
Quite so, BranShea. You and I are already taking a trip through history. How about you, so far I find it a very nice ride.
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One who likes roller coasters might call it a nice ride. One who prefers some coherence would say it's a bad trip.
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Smile Brandee. And enjoy the trip. Those who follow you will emulate your smile and you will live forever.
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Lie back and think of England. Or, in your case, the Netherlands.
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I'm just back from your Confusing States and I'v noticed some evolutions since the other times I've been there. Maybe that's why I got coherence on my mind. Sorry, roll on, roll on..
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I am still eagerly awaiting your summary and conclusion.
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I am still eagerly awaiting your summary and conclusion. Yes, wsieber, I will. I too was waiting. I was waiting for someone with an honest interest in the nature of objective reality to write for. I will construct my summary expressly for you this week. See you then.
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And then one day before there were days, the big bang banged with intent. Then much later, we humans were born in midst of all the banging and we rightly decided to look back, and ahead, to try to figure out the fundamental nature of that original intent.
But you won't find it here. What you will find (if you have a brain that listens) is that you are simply a fleshy robot who has a pretend free will only as much as a will can be considered free by a prudent use of semantics.
Gravity determines what you will do. Your biology determines what you will do. The whole Universe directs you to do what you most certainly will.
( I'll stop here for questions or comments or converts raising their hands to get in line to be washed )
Good. You are right not to argue. Anybody who has the brains of an arthropod will himself extrapolate that life and nonlife could not have come into being any other way.
Next: Whats Words Got To Do With It?
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Socrates knew it, the early Jews knew it, and certainly the great Buddha knew it, so why is it that you people here don't know it and won't listen when I tell you?
Sigh...ok one more time
WORDS HAVE NO ABSOLUTE MEANINGS; WORDS ONLY HAVE FUNCTION
Now listen closely; words and language are physical mechanisms that evolved to aid in the continuance of the speaking clade and not at all for us to understand the nature of the Universe around us.
The senses input; the words output; and if the output has survival consequences for the breeding group it becomes an operating meme.
Logic within our use of words is only logical within an arbitrary set of symbols that are defined by the needs of cause and effect and of the inscrutable concept we perceive as Time.
Or something like that.
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Still don't get it Jenny!
WORDS HAVE NO ABSOLUTE MEANINGS; WORDS ONLY HAVE FUNCTION
No problem there!
Maybe its the Budhha/socrates/In the beginning scenarios that are distracting me.
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Olly, as a meme this Buddhaish quotation will serve..
"In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true."
____________________________________________________
And as for Socrates; dialogues are sometimes searches for truth but they are also circuitous ways to comprehend the obscure ways of the meanings of our words.
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Words are only sounds that we hear. What we think is more important.
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Think, Olly.
What we think is out of our control.
Enjoy the ride.
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