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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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 Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 2:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
But homo sapiens didn't emerge until approximately 35-50 thousand years ago, at about the same time we domesticated dogs... ...My understanding is that early humans then survived in very small hunter-gatherer groups until approximately 10 thousand years ago with the apparent accidental invention of the food production package (domesticated animals and crops), where human civiliation made leaps and bounds, very, very fast-paced leaps and bounds.
But it was, I understand, the so-called Great Leap Forward, or the physiological development of talking, that humans started taking off, I believe approximately 25 thousand years ago. |
Wow, these numbers are way off what I've seen. Something people fail to consider is sea level. There is a huge quantity of human past development underwater. (The temples off the coast of india, for example... ) The last ice age lasted a good long time, so the coast lines of the entire planet - which is where people tend to congregate even now - hold a lot of lost info. Heck, I'd even conjecture MOSt of the evidence of early travel to the Americas is underwater given the late date they were populated compared to the rest of the world.
I've seen a couple programs that put the arrival in the Americas back to at least 19k years ago. Again, smack dab in a heavy glacial period. And this from inland sites, not on the coast.
As for the development of real civilization, I see that date getting pushed further and further back as we learn more, too. For example, some of the core Hindu (I think) texts are now believed to have been created more than 7000 years ago by some. There is good evidence that an advanced civilzation existed in an area now off the coast of India and was forced to relocate due to see level rise associated with the end of the Ice Age. There is evidence from the inland region that the texts existed before the move. Now, consider how long it must have taken for advanced civilization to develop in the first place and it seems fairly obvious that we could be looking at tens of thousands of years. And speach only 25k years ago? I have serious doubts about that.
Also, genetic tracking of the move out of Africa suggests people moved out of Africa much earlier than previously believed. There are still relatively pure genetic lines found in isolated peoples in some South Asia areas that make it likely the movement happened a looong time ago. And if Australia was populated 40-50k years ago, and the Pacific Islands from there...
So.... I think there is likely to be a lot of change in this information as time goes on. |
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joe_doufu
Joined: 09 May 2005
Location: Elsewhere
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| Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Most of anthropology (and all studies of prehistory) are based on a very few severely damaged and ambiguous samples of old bones, rocks, and bits of charred wood, which we can't date precisely. All theories are based on conjecture. So scientists really don't know if our species is 30,000 years old or 200,000, and the debate over whether we were herbivores, hunters, scavengers, or something else is absolutely up in the air. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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Looking at the big picture (as I understand it) Vedic technical spiritual science is based on transcendental sound vibrations which penetrate all material coverings and reach the soul, reviving our dormant consciousness of our relationship with the Supreme Self. It is a descending process transmitted by spiritual masters who are pure devotees linked to God in disciplic succession. Unlike the ascending process engaged in by material scientists to gain mundane knowledge, it is free from the four basic material defects: imperfect senses, tendency to make mistakes, tendency to become illusioned, and tendency to cheat.
The so-called father of modern science, Francis Bacon, was a gross materialist who imperfectly reasoned that man's relationship with nature was to subjugate and exploit it as far as possible (what ecology?). Descarte, Locke and Hobbes also promoted mechanical views of life that attacked the previous holistic way of seeing life and the world as one organic whole possessed of a soul. However, the intricate laws of karma created by the Supreme Scientist dictate that the more we try to exploit nature, the more we become entangled in her complexities, resulting in the perpetuation of miseries in repeated births and deaths.
Our real home is in the spiritual world. No material adjustments will ever make us happy until we go back to our original sac-cid-ananda eternal forms in the spiritual sky where there are innumerable self-effulgent planets and never-ending pleasure pastimes centered around the original Supreme Enjoyer (Krishna and His multifarious expansions like Rama)
Material scientists who are mainly atheists and motivated to exploit nature are part of the problem. Many promise to wipe out old age, disease and eventually death, but these are all post-dated checks. The last time I checked the mortality rate was still 100%, and there are more diseases than ever. They have, however, succeded in dramatically accelerating death as a result of their work on behalf of war machines. I think modern civilization, misled by soul-less scientists, has sown the seeds of its own destruction.
Transcendentalists realize that there is no bright future in materialism, and they use spiritual techniques appropriate to each cosmic age (yuga) to attain real illumination and happiness. In this age, the recommended means for self-realization is not mystic meditation, or great sacrifices or lavish temple worship prescribed for previous ages - it's the very easy process of chanting transcendental names of God (in any language, but Sanscrit is the most potent): Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. Anyone who experiments by regularly chanting this great (maha) mantra will quickly advance on the spiritual path back home. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 5:39 am Post subject: |
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| ...and stay high forever - without drugs. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 6:06 am Post subject: ... |
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Far out.
What's your take on Harry Potter? |
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endo
Joined: 14 Mar 2004
Location: Seoul...my home
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 6:22 am Post subject: |
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| Rteacher wrote: |
| ...and stay high forever - without drugs. |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 6:28 am Post subject: |
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| Confession time: Rteacher, you said you were at Woodstock; you took the brown acid, didn't you. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 6:35 am Post subject: |
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deleted
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Nov 03, 2007 4:53 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Hans Blix
Joined: 31 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 6:40 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
The distinction I like to make between science and religion is this.
In a scientific world, if you throw a baseball at a certain velocity, the baseball will go a specific distance that can be predicted (taking into account certain variables like air pressure, etc.)
In a religious world, if you throw a baseball, you have no idea what will happen. It may just fly through the air and come back down. But it may not. Some supernatural being may choose to intervene and turn the baseball into a butterfly that will just fly away. The possibility of that happening may be increased by tossing a virgin into a flaming volcano. Or not. Unpredictability is the point. |
hey ya-ta boy, science is a pretty slippery beast. if you believe, as some have (and possibly still do), that science is an extrapolation from evidence to rules, which is effectively an inductive principle, then baseballs turning into yellow submarines cannot be strictly ruled out. or as my philosophy lecturer put it, i'm only very sure that when i put my pants on in the morning they won't bite my balls off. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 7:16 am Post subject: |
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| my philosophy lecturer |
Once upon a time, back when there was nothing much else, philosophy had something important to say. Once all the various sciences split off philosophy was left with nothing but logic and morality. Useful for logic up to a point, but useless in morality. Others did it better first. |
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Hans Blix
Joined: 31 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 7:36 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| my philosophy lecturer |
Once upon a time, back when there was nothing much else, philosophy had something important to say. Once all the various sciences split off philosophy was left with nothing but logic and morality. Useful for logic up to a point, but useless in morality. Others did it better first. |
hey, i didn't mean to be rude. i too suspect there is something qualitatively different from the scientific way of approaching the acquistion of knowledge to 'others', problem is it's extemely difficult to characterise what science is.
if we can't say what it is, we're left in the camp of 'science is what scientists do' and so are implicitly believing in a dogma - possibly what you consider religion to be, at least from some of your comments.
our opposing camp, or at least one of them, claim that science is that which gets results, and so include all sorts of spiritual and shamanistic propositions within its compass.
bertrand russell, who belongs to the first tradition of thought, has said that 'philosophy frees us from the tyranny of custom'. is this not appealing? (russell here is praising philosophy's ability to doubt even the most essential of what we'd think is common sense)
as i'm saying too often, sorry to go off topic (!) |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:47 am Post subject: |
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it's extemely difficult to characterise what science is.
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No it isn't.
But you're right on at least one thing. This is getting off topic.
Do YOU think humans could have arrived in the Western Hemisphere tens of thousands of years earlier than previously suspected? |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:55 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| EFLTrainer: I wasn't citing my personal beliefs but summarizing the scholarly literature I've taken in on this line of inquiry. |
Didn't mean to imply otherwise. |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:57 am Post subject: |
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| Hans Blix wrote: |
| hey ya-ta boy, science is a pretty slippery beast. if you believe, as some have (and possibly still do), that science is an extrapolation from evidence to rules, which is effectively an inductive principle, then baseballs turning into yellow submarines cannot be strictly ruled out. or as my philosophy lecturer put it, i'm only very sure that when i put my pants on in the morning they won't bite my balls off. |
Then he hasn't seen There's Something About Mary.
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 9:29 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-Ta Boy wrote: |
| Once upon a time, back when there was nothing much else, philosophy had something important to say. |
But really, I'm not going to try to argue. How can you get someone to appreciate the finer things in life if they're dead set against it? |
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