In The Beginning . . .

Filed under: Human Nature, Mind, Myth | 1 Comment

In the Beginning we were frightened, solitary, and nocturnal creatures. Then 50 million years ago, we drew together into groups, And left the dark of night to bask in the sunshine together. The fear of leaving (or being left) by one another Subdued the primal urge to fight or flee from one another Sufficiently for …

Read More

How important is community to humans, and where did the rules governing community come from?

Filed under: Evolution of Emotion, Evolution of human motivation, Evolutionary psychology | 1 Comment

Psychologist Michael Tomasello, who studies comparatively the social behavior of developing children and apes, proposes that collective communication is uniquely human and that it was evolved for collaborative foraging, and so teamwork has been the crucial human advantage. The central facts about our ancestral human species, such as upright posture, large molar teeth, and later, …

Read More

Open AI on Freedom and Justice

Filed under: AI conversations | 2 Comments

Human: Which is more important to society: freedom or justice? AI: That’s a difficult question to answer, as both freedom and justice are important values that help shape our society. They are both essential to preserving our freedoms and maintaining a safe and just community. Ultimately, it depends on the context of the situation and …

Read More

Medicine Older than War

Filed under: Evolution of Emotion

I have commented on this blog that doctors have been around longer than soldiers, and now there is proof. At a time when there is virtually no evidence of organized violence (war) there is new evidence of a sophisticated, and successful amputation 31,000 years ago in Bornio. From Science, 7 September, 2022 by Michael Price: …

Read More

Upright Posture: The Primary Categorical Human Trait

Filed under: Evolution, Language, Uncategorized

This blog maintains that upright posture is the sine qua non human trait because: 1) humanity is defined by a shift to collective functioning; 2) collective function requires a “public” communication system to coordinate the behavior of individuals; and 3) upright posture enabled the face-and-upper-body to become the instruments of the simultaneous-and-continuous communication that is …

Read More

Does warfare make societies more complex?

Filed under: History | 1 Comment

Archaeological analysis suggests an arms race in ironworking and cavalry spurred bureaucracy and bigger populations From Science June 28, 2022 by Michael Price War is hell. It breaks apart families, destroys natural resources, and drives humans to commit unspeakable acts of violence. Yet according to a new analysis of human history, war may also prod …

Read More
Justice

Justice

Filed under: Justice, Uncategorized

The species of our Genus Homo eventually became predominant hunters because they refined instincts for justice as an “immune system” against individual dominance, which is a pathology for organic teamwork. Modern hunter-gatherers are egalitarian (Pringle, 2014), and justice (punishing dominance) has been observed in far-flung hunter-gatherers,not influenced by wealth-creating agricultural practices (Boehm, 1999). There have been …

Read More
℞ for creeping cynicism

Rx for gloomy defeatism re climate, Ukraine, population, etc., etc.

Filed under: Belief, Faith | 7 Comments

Since the Big Bang, the cosmos has had a linear direction toward amalgamation and association such that matter has been transforming into mind. Mind resides within the relationship between objects. At the subatomic “particle” level, matter itself exists as a relational matrix in which everything alters everything else. On Earth, as amino acids amalgamated into …

Read More