Human Evolution at a Glance
There were three basic social systems in human evolution depicted above. The dominance hierarchies of primates are basically vertical.
Under the influence of “strong” natural selection at the level of the group, hominid groups evolved their own intentions to survive expressed as authority. These intentions existed in a spiritual space represented by the ¤ symbol. At the foundation of ¤ is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit consists of morality and justice sufficient to coordinate their group-organisms of monogamously mated nuclear families (by far the most productive social system). Language is represented by the horizontal double arrow symbol. Language is the process of simultaneous “authoritative” signaling and receiving in order to stay on the “same page” of the intentions of ¤, felt in the realm of emotion.
The human social system is an evolved hybrid of that of primates and hominids. Humans live in nested branching hierarchies. Language retains its basic function of sharing intentions for-the-good-of-the-group (see Grice’s Maxims here). The authority of the Holy Spirit (¤) is maintained in human groups, because, without it they eventually fail. Click here for the most moving account ever on the failure of such a group.
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There were two major transitions in the evolution of our social emotions. The first occurred with the founding of primate groups 50 million years ago, and the second initiated our hominid family 6 million years ago. These two transitions resulted in two nested structures, the second built upon the raw material of the first. The first was the hierarchy of groups that provided an internal environment (ecology) in which the competitive intelligence of primates was evolved. In the succeeding hominid structure, it is my conclusion that the emotions that held primate groups together assimilated the competitive motivations of individuals. My assertion is that a new kind of group-organism thereafter evolved a communal intelligence, unified and coordinated wholly within the mental and emotional sphere.
All that remains of the prehumen hominids are the bones and stones. However, the current impact of this evolutionary revolution can be grasped by comparing primate hierarchies, whose sole function is to provide the protection of group association, to our highly functional human hierarchical groups in which it is a tossup as to whether we act through them or they act through us. So, our human groups can be considered hybrids between the highly evolved group-organisms of hominids that I am proposing and the competitive dominance hierarchies of primates.
P.S. No posts for a month—gone fish’n.
