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To: Mark Wilkerson: ejtonefan@gmail.com From: Scott Sinnock: ssinnock@netzero.com, 9:16pm, November 17, 2012 Subject: Re: Soul A couple of days ago I saw a film, "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" at the local community college. The film is about the earliest known cave paintings by Paleolithic Cro-Magnons in France's karst country. Amazing film. Those people were not savages. Anyway, I was thinking about the transition to human-ness, agricultural transition, etc. and wondered when food stashing started. Squirrels stash, when did we start? Do chimps? So I googled food stash and all sort of legal drug-stuff appeared, so I added "archeology" to the query and, among others, this site popped up which led me astray from my original quest. Article from the American Museum of Natural History web site, pages > Research > North American Archeology Projects > Hidden Cave, Nevada, by David Hurst Thomas, I assume (no authorship is indicated but the author uses the first person singular and plural in the article, though I think the first person in following quote is used in the more general sense of "humanity" or at least of the "informed" part, therefore, of course, the "good" part, see below) "We know from ethnographic studies that Archaic-style people generally live in places carefully selected to satisfy the minimal conditions of human life -- accessible food, water, firewood, and fresh air, relatively level ground for working and sleeping, adequate shelter from the elements, and minimally-acceptable levels of heat and light." Pasted from What a wonderful synopsis of "needed". Here in the most severe deserts of Nevada is the Garden of Eden. The article indicates the diet of people who shit in the cave was almost entirely pinon nuts, bullrush seeds and fish, all year long. Pinyon nuts are everywhere in Nevada, probably bullrush too, and fish in all the waters. So, abundant nutritious food and shelter; What more could we ask? The quote mentions Archaic-style people. That was EVERYONE 10,000 or so years ago (it keeps getting pushed further back) before agriculture arose and hierarchical organizations grew exponentially to manage the surplus, along with all sorts of attendant power games. The cave studied by the article indicates that hierarchy and organization were necessary even in gatherer societies; strategies that designated the cave as a safe storage area of food and weapons. So some surplus management issues came up even in gatherers (sometimes fishers), including of course the issue of weapons, strategies including hiding in a cave to protect the surplus. More the point, ISTMRN the term "minimal" is key in the above sentence. It seems for Archaic people (Stone Age savages) "minimal" was the objective, the goal, the purpose; it was a "morality" of "do the 'least' necessary to stay alive, so we have lots of time to just think and gossip our hearts out". How different from us. How different from our "obligations": obligations to make the world a better place, to do the right thing, to defend our freedom, to respect homosexual proclivities, to never lay a hand on a woman in anger, to help others, to worship God, to sacrifice for community good, and on and on and on and on. Some of those might not be so bad, except we so often measure "progress" toward achieving our obligations with material abundance beyond the minimal. But even "moral" acts are to be "maximized" and, this is where we get into a lot of trouble I think, "immoral" acts must be minimized, commonly by punishment. "The greatest good for the greatest number" (Enlightenment "morality" still dominant today championed by Jeremy Bentham, first, then John Stuart Mill in the late 1700's and early 1800's) means "a lot of misery for the lessor number" (see Francis Hutcheson's modified view of the phrase first used by him according to WikiQuotes). | How different life was in the garden? Can we get back there? Should we? I think yes to the first. I can't answer the second. For the first, though, just thank God or whatever for this life, and be in humble, thankful awe at the stupidity of people who want to give me more than the minimum, which they do in abundance now. So, I guess I am in the garden; I am free to think and gossip my heart out, so long as I don’t' offend anyone, which I did, because, you see, I am a formal "offender" of my community. Anyway, back to the original quest. The paintings were apparently made from about 33,000 years ago to about 20,000 years ago when a slump block sealed the cave entrance. Every once in while an "artist" (this was a film from the art community with more than adequate acknowledgement of the archeology) would draw some animals. These were beautifully drawn with long sweeping lines with an occasional "flair" at the end, made by slowly, gently, ever so delicately decreasing the "press" of the charcoal on the cave wall, the "canvas". Apparently the cave was occupied for the entire time, but only a few "artists" painted during that long, long, unimaginably long time. Try to imagine the "stability" of the same basic type of society persisting for such uncountable times. How did a person decide to and then, I am sure, get permission to paint in what was, most likely, a very sacred place. Imagine getting permission to chisel a new inscription in the Lincoln Memorial; doable, yes, but only under the strictest protocols. I suspect proposals may have been made, based on drawings outside the cave, perhaps such proposals were from shy artists who doodled on other less sacred places based on requests of others who saw the work. In shaman-based societies, which apparently this was, the honor must have been among the highest achievements a Paleolithic man could achieve (it is almost certain the artists were men, though women and children were permitted in the cave for some ceremonies, perhaps). The artists were perhaps the Shaman themselves, perhaps painting to appease the "spirits" in times of resource shortage, perhaps to thank the spirits in times of plenty. Which now circles back to "betterment" of which "achievement" and "appeasement" are but types. Even in this cave 33,000 years ago there is an expression of the "other", the "unreal", the "outside nature", the perhaps "in my control with proper ritual" nature (read "science" today). This "other" is evident in the pictures themselves. They are NOT the animals but only REPRESENT the animals in some "other" domain, and it is such representation that is part of the "unreal". So emerging with the very first paintings is a bison head on a woman's legs. Unreal, never seen, only imagined, so possible?????. But, and this may be a key, it may be considered "real", beyond "just possible" in the minds of a person, perhaps even originally kicked into (some would say opened up to) "otherness" by some hallucinogen chewed in ritual, as now for show (legal excuse) and not long ago for real in the deep, dark, dimly lit Kivas of the pueblo Indians of New Mexico. Perhaps this feeling of "otherness" entails believing all "reality" or at least some important part of it exists in some "other" realm, some realm just beyond our reach, our thought, our consciousness, but just barely within the reach of our feelings, experienced most profoundly in this deep, dark, dimly lit cave. God, if you will. (I believe we have now transferred some of this awe to and express it most profoundly, perhaps, in an open air stadium where we pray to, appease God, so he might intervene and help the Cubs win today. There was great respect in those paintings, which are almost entirely of animals they ate and animals that could eat them. The artists bestowed nobility, as we might call it today, upon the animals, which of course is just a way to claim nobility for one's self as well. (As an aside, I googled bison, cow, cattle, swine, and pig and perused the "Images" sections that google nearly always lists. My hypothesis was that we no longer respect, bestow nobility on what we eat like that. The results: images of "bison" are very respectful (images of healthy animals in pastoral settings) "cattle" similar, including heavy bias for bulls in both; "swine", almost entirely about swine flu and related diseases of pigs and people, thought pig pictures are generally respectful; "cows", wow, what a change, nearly all the images are cartoons, and even the photos are mostly intended as humorous; finally, the same cartoonish treatment of "pigs". My hypothesis confirmed, at least in my biased mind, while several others were and are entertained, both minds and hypotheses, if there is a difference. | Later Plato summarized a lot of others and imbued this "other" realm with "perfection", laying before us our obligations to direct our actions toward achieving this perfection. Of course we are doomed to failure because we can never achieve perfection, at least not is this life. Our non-minimal morality, however, compels us always to strive, strive, strive to reach, if not perfection, then a step of "betterment" in the right direction at least. Of course always lurking in the background is lots of help, so "If I take just 1.0% of the produce of your striving to help you achieve your, no "our" moral imperatives, well then I am all here for you". Another article quote while perusing this subject. "Our Paleolithic ancestors lived in a harsh ice-age environment where survival was their predominant concern" (pasted from Human Journey) This article attributed a whole bunch to the "harshness" of the ice-age climate. I don't believe it was any harsher than any other environment, because in EVERY other environment also "survival" is always "the predominant" concern. In fact I suspect it was quite nourishing near the glaciers with all the meltwater, warm summer insolation (same as now), lush forests, abundant life, and, yes, hard winters, like now. But once the leaves fall, it doesn't really matter how harsh so long as you have shelter and a supply of food. The length of the solar seasons was no different, and we, as human lived then as now from the tropics to the arctic. The zone of low productivity "tundra" around the glaciers must have been very small, quickly overtaken by lush, life-filled forests nourished by the ever present cool dry breezes blowing off the high-pressure ice fields often mixing with warm moisture filled air blowing up from the south. Temperature and pressure gradients would have been sharp so I suspect rain (and fog and mist) was plentiful. In short, rather than a "harsh ice-age environment" I suspect it was more like a garden of eden. Later in the same article "It seems very likely that at this point in history we first began to conceive of a tiered cosmos – a world below our world and one above – and to formulate rituals to encounter forces above and below the physical world that influence our life and that might in turn be influenced by us, an idea that has been with us ever since. At this point, we can say that our ancestors, not only physically but psychologically, became modern human beings." Pasted from Paleolithic Beginnings Yes, and all that entails. Is it really all based on hallucinogens taken in deep dark caves long ago? I am becoming inclined to believe so. But I cannot judge its morality, only trace it. But somehow it seems to me that a "world view" based on the idea that the "real" reality (respectful cave paintings, Plato's circles, God, and second-order differential equations) is something other than the "apparent" reality is preposterous. We left the garden voluntarily chasing a promise of this "other" world. I think this futile chase was and is undertaken because we really came to hate the "real" world when we recognize we are alive and that EVERYTHING alive in the "real" world dies. DAMN YOU NATURE, GOD, EVERYTHING ------ I DON'T WANT TO DIE! I WON'T DIE! Hey, I am smart, ever so smart, so smart I can fool even you mother nature, you evil death-bringing "reality", I will invent immortality.... immortality that lives in "the other world", the spiritual world outside your jurisdiction but responsive to me. Ha Ha... So there, you fucking killer, TAKE THAT!!" Nes Pas? ----------------------------------------------- Rnd(1500) = 646 days ago, February 10, 2011 20110216 20110224 20110226 20110302 |