Posted on 12/07/2005 3:31:28 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
I think primitive man was, if anything, far more sensitive to the rhythms of nature than we are. After all, he's smack-dab IN IT in a way we moderns virtually never are. Where there is a sense of periodicity, can counting be far behind? Why would you consider the "invention" of counting as "a fairly recent innovation?" I see it as an ability that naturally emerges from a man's self-understanding of his own experiences.
Reading and writing are seemingly comparatively late developments, if I had to guess, 6th to 5th century B.C. Writing seems to be an invention; but it is based on articulating human experiences, so it is rooted in the natural. That is, it is not a totally "free" invention. And writing implies reading.
Yes, Modern Man: who puts his trust in "self-salvation," which implies a sort of "self-divinization"....
These are simply marvelous passages, cornelis. I can see I'm going to have to get Wilhelmsen's book.
Thank you so much for pinging me to this!
Somehow or other, so far I have managed to be spared The Clan of the Cave Bear!
Thanks for writing!
Or at least secret decoder rings.
Two more bits of grist for the mill, see Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Dancing Men (Sherlock Holmes) and G.K. Chesterton's The Noticable Conduct of Professor Chadd:
Did language appear gradually by consensus and grow organically, or did it start with a few "gifted" individuals and spread either by imposition or imitation?
Cheers!
Indeed, there is quite a difference between them --- and Spiritual revelation is progressive as you say. Even Paul who had an astonishing Spiritual revelation, didn't get it all at once. And he did not first confer with flesh and blood. (emphasis mine)
Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. - Galatians 1:15-19
IMHO, some people confuse reasoning with revelation. That leads to pointless traditions and doctrines of men which Christ warned us about:
One does not know that for a certainty, but perhaps one can know that "beyond a reasonable doubt." For one thing, the elements of the piece — the dead man and the bull — appear to be strongly correlated: The artist gives us the bull in full "murderous" charge, which entails the lowered head and the tail, which is rigidly extended outwards from the bull's body, which is characteristic of charging behavior.
In the second place, by now practically every square inch of this large suite of caves has been gone over in excruciating detail by several generations of scientists. The pigments used have been identified and analyzed; and all are seemingly contemporaneous.
If graffiti were involved, it would have had to take place before the discovery of the cave complex in the 1940s. Since that time, the French Government, via its Ministry of Culture, has done a superlative job of protecting, maintaining, and preserving the site. It is no longer open to the public (because of carbon dioxide-caused degradation of the paintings occasioned by vistors' breath). Instead a facsimile has been constructed: visitors go there.
Plus the pigment dating seems to preclude a graffiti scenario prior to the 1940s.
There's nothing we can know in life with absolute certainty, other than we are some day going to die. Oh, and also that the government will tax us while we live. :^) If we had to wait for certainty before we could do anything, or draw reasonable conclusions, then we would not be able to do much at all, and there would be little if anything to reason about.
Thanks for writing, grey-whiskers!
In my last post, I was attempting to refocus the discussion to the first point you made - the only image of a man captured at Lascaux was the image of a dead man.
That is most significant to me - the background for exploring the meaning of the erect phallus drawn on the dead man. Seems to me the artist intended to convey that the dead man is not completely dead, that there must be more to the man than the beast who killed him.
Personally, I don't know if this is something that one can ever quite "get used to." :^)
Thank you, dear hosepipe, for your magnificent testimony and witness.
That's my "takeaway" too, Alamo-Girl. The artist could have chosen to depict living men. He did not, for then his seeming point could not have been made: that there is life in death, or beyond death. There seems to be an authentic spiritual recognition in play here. And that is what makes the dead man "more than" the beast that killed him.
Lascaux is a kind of epiphany. It is an amazing discovery to realize just how "sophisticated" these "primitives" were, at such an early point in human history. The ideas of a common humanity, of a common human condition, of a common human destiny, emerge from these caves....
Thank you so much for writing, Alamo-Girl!
As always, you and I are on the same wave length!!!
Or, this is what happens when testosterone rules.
Yeah.. my thought too.. So easily people use the term "primitive".. Must mean more "primitive" than myself.. in most cases.. a kind of subtle arrogance.. Some "cave man" grunting and scribbling "primitive" art.. that don't even own a microwave oven to heat up their frozen dinner they must mean..
And that that primitive creature probably bludgeoned some hapless other creature to death with a rock, and was heating steaks, very rare on some fire.. is the image I get..
Logical to me, since I have done that very thing myself, sans the art part.. but boiling some King Crab on a fire and consumeing it was, well, better.. Surf and Turf, I think, is a very old concept.. Originated by some OTHER primitive type living by some seashore.. What 37 millinia ago.?.. Who knows what went through their mind digesting such a meal.. Defameing "cave people" should be a hate crime.. LoL..
Sorry, I haven't had time to answer 680. I'll be out for awhile and post after a check.
I don't want to get too descriptive on this matter. If you read some of the literature on the vampire in Ireland and east Europe, you may find what you seek.
There are 100 billion neurons in the human brain. There are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way. One star per neuron. 25 thousand neurons can fly the F-22, one of the most complex, awesome machines we have ever created. The F-22 is an illusion, a division of reality, not natural--something imagined and only a function of a few neurons: a pattern with its own laws. There are no laws, no patterns in nature. Laws and patterns are only the workings of our ergodic imaginings. The ergod is the tao--a word, but not the word.
The "Tao" is a grumpy person whineing about whineing..
LOLOL!!!! You'd be the expert on that, spunkets! :^)
Thanks for the chuckle!
LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!! Hilarious, hosepipe! I agree!!!!!
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