quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: The Dogon and software designer Laird Scranton are irrelevant to the topic, the religious beliefs of the Egyptians
Laird Scranton explained how the Dogon, Maori, and Egyptian creation story parallels modern theoretical physics of the big bang and the creation of matter. This knowledge existed in Egypt all the way to the Kush dynasty. Its in the Shabaka Stone. Its not difficult to understand. Maybe it was easier for me because I could already see the "god/goddess" Nu as a metaphor for the quantum.
quote:Originally posted by sam p: Thanks for the post and links. Laird Scranton has some keen insights into ancient times.
Its funny how he is dismissed as the software developer dude.
Posts: 1254 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: when you say "language failed" in 2000 BC, nobody knows what you are talking about
I believe there was once a single worlkdwide language that was natural to human beings. This language arose as an elaboration of an existing animal language that was used by proto-humans when a mutation made complex language possible. This mutation was very highly adaptive because it gave humans the ability to not only better cooperate for survival but it allowed for the transmission and accumulation of knowledge from one generation to the next. This language contained all accumulated human knowledge as "divine" concepts. The idea of "weight" was "tefnut" for instance and the rules of grammar caused speakers to use the concept properly; in accord with all known science of the time.
This language spread with the human race from Africa but its nature prevented it was splintering into many new languages. The nature of the language was always to be governed by reality and the laws of physics and known science. There were certainly many dialects as it spread but there was contact and people could always update one another on new learning keeping these dialects from dividing into distinct languages.
This language was by nature metaphysical because it contained to rules of science and the logic that underlay it. As human understanding grew the language became increasingly complicated and the average man began becoming tongue tied. It became increasingly difficult to put simple thoughts into the proper words so the language became unusable. This necessitated the adoption of modern language where we simply state what we mean. Of course confusion is rampant because each listener takes a different meaning.
With language no longer tied to anything each dialect became a distinct language and these languages divided into more languages still. Today there are many languages which are mutually unintelligible. The ancient language was understood by all and it reflected the natural wiring of th human brain so even babies were born with a rudimentary understanding of language. Babies still have this (it's why they babel) but it isn't reinforced by its parents because the ancient language failed. The parents don't know the ancient language and babies are incapable of teaching it.
We crossed a bridge that can't be uncrossed and in doing so we lost our history and ancient science.
Posts: 393 | From: NW Indiana, US of A | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: The Dogon and software designer Laird Scranton are irrelevant to the topic, the religious beliefs of the Egyptians
Laird Scranton explained how the Dogon, Maori, and Egyptian creation story parallels modern theoretical physics of the big bang and the creation of matter. This knowledge existed in Egypt all the way to the Kush dynasty. Its in the Shabaka Stone. Its not difficult to understand. Maybe it was easier for me because I could already see the "god/goddess" Nu as a metaphor for the quantum.
quote:Originally posted by sam p: Thanks for the post and links. Laird Scranton has some keen insights into ancient times.
Its funny how he is dismissed as the software developer dude.
It's a wonder any new theory can arise in an age where the validity of a theory and the competence of a leader are judged not on their merits but on the educational level of the individual.
It's a wonder any new theory can arise that cuts across specialties in a world where almost no one is considered competent in more than a narrow specialty.
Why can't people see that reality doesn't exist by majority opinion. Reality existed even before the first human used language. Reality doesn't give a whit about my education or anyone else's; only people do.
Posts: 393 | From: NW Indiana, US of A | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Originally posted by sam p: It's a wonder any new theory can arise in an age where the validity of a theory and the competence of a leader are judged not on their merits but on the educational level of the individual.
It's a wonder any new theory can arise that cuts across specialties in a world where almost no one is considered competent in more than a narrow specialty.
Why can't people see that reality doesn't exist by majority opinion. Reality existed even before the first human used language. Reality doesn't give a whit about my education or anyone else's; only people do.
Maybe she doesn’t know that Scranton has cutting edge knowledge of the hieroglyphs. He’s up there with Asar Imhotep. With Egypt its always race.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT9-XIHsjec This video lays it out. Its entitled, Linking Egypt and West Africa. That’s why I asked Lioness if she believed that these folks of Kemet who were brewing beer during the time of the wholly mammoths really understood what’s in that list. If not then I might be able someone get there. I would rather go with what I know than search for a beer recipe in the hieroglyphs. I’m a skeptic. It takes some doing to change my mind about history. I want objective evidence, collaborating evidence or at least logical related theories. That's my litmus and I'm convinced.
So you really don't think they believed in life after death?
Posts: 1254 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: [qb] when you say "language failed" in 2000 BC, nobody knows what you are talking about
I believe there was once a single worldwide language that was natural to human beings. This language arose as an elaboration of an existing animal language that was used by proto-humans when a mutation made complex language possible.
You have no evidence there was once a single worldwide language.
You criticize religious people for having beliefs but you believe in more unproven far fetched theories than many religious people
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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Scranton has cutting edge knowledge of the hieroglyphs.,,,
. I’m a skeptic. It takes some doing to change my mind about history.
Laird Scranton's wildly exaggerated claims about the Dogon and book promotions have not been supported by scholars. It's not credible
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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Thanks for the link> I have a lot of respect for Laird Scranton's work though much of it I don't understand. I respect it because his results seem to coincide with what I've found. As he says he's eventually going to be given nothing and have to come up with everything. I've been given everything by greats like him and many Egyptologists and really came up with almost nothing. But this nothing might be huge and the very proof that he and other researchers, like Temple and Gigal (and many others) are essentially correct.
In my very limited understanding it appears that language arose in Africa and this language created civilization in Africa first. Civilization spread to Egypt from the west and it became the first great culture. But it was language that created these cultures and that language was highly scientific. It will take decades of study to duplicate their knowledge because it will have to be rebuilt using their metaphysics and guided by the physical evidence.
I don't understand why race, religion, and politics have to even get into this but it seems quite unavoidable. People have their own neat packages of beliefs and don't like evidence that doesn't agree. Indeed, they usually can't even see evidence unless it agrees.
quote: I would rather go with what I know than search for a beer recipe in the hieroglyphs. I’m a skeptic. It takes some doing to change my mind about history. I want objective evidence, collaborating evidence or at least logical related theories. That's my litmus and I'm convinced.
I'm extremely skeptical as well. Many concepts and extrapolations of my theory are very difficult for me to get comfortable with because they flew in the face of things I thought I knew. But most of these things apply to other people ie- the reality wasn't as hard to accept as the reaction of other people. One of the implications of my theory is that there's almost no such thing as what we call "intelligence" for instance. Humans may not even be the most "intelligent" animal on the planet.
quote: So you really don't think they believed in life after death?
Right. I don't believe they thought there was really life after death until 2000 BC when the language changed. They recognized a sort of "quasi-life" after death but it was largely just that they thought you weren't really dead until no one remembered you any longer. If a king were "unjustified" at his death they tried to hurry to get people to forget his existence by erasing him from history. If you died with a heavy heart then you did more harm than good and if your heart weighed less than a feather thn you were deceitful, putting on airs, and insubstantial. For the kings their hearts were phyically "weighed" in the Bull of Heaven operated by maat against a feather. If the scale tipped in either direction the king was not justified and his heart was tossed to the ground where it was consumed by plants and animals around the pyramid.
The pyramid was the king himself after he was justified and then transmorgrified. But the average man and the scientist/ priests wouldn't have considered him literally "alive" in this or any realm. He still existed only on earth and only as the pyramid and in the memories of people. His name lived on in the annals.
When the language died around 2000 BC it died everywhere (except in academia) and science was soon lost as was human history. Even the scientist/ priests couldn't continue using the ancient language for long since it continued to get even more complicated. It's possible that these scientists became known as "nephilim" but this is speculative with very little evidence to support it. In any case it's doubtful anyone could use the ancient language for very long after the world changed. Since it couldn't be translated there was very little ability to preserve anything and since it couldn't be translated the ancient books were allowed to be lost.
Posts: 393 | From: NW Indiana, US of A | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Metaphyisics is not a science
There are a couple dictionary definitions of "metaphysics" and we're using different ones most of the time. This is just one of the ways modern language is "confused"; everyone assumes they understand every definition from context but context rarely presents enough information to make such a determination.
"Metaphysics" are the definitions, axioms, logic, and methodology that underlie science in one of its definitions. Modern science has a very simple metaphyshics that should be taught and drilled into peoples' heads starting in first grade (or even sooner). Babies understand most cause and effect so it can begin being taught very early.
Ancient science had an extremely complex metaphysics but it was natural to the human species and reflected the wiring of the brain so everyone learned it on their mother's knee and were quite literally born with it. By the time a child was ten or twelve he had learned all the nuances of the science if he were bright enough and could rise to his level of competence. The brightest children became the scientists that we mistranslate as "priests" or "seers".
There were a few reasons this science was so powerful. Mostly it's just that people think in language and this language forced thought that reflected reality as they understood it. This made them individually and collectively powerful. Also this science was very ancient and dated back to the very beginning of complex language. It had a 40,000 year history and continuous improvements. They had time to learn what worked and what didn't. The science created little technology though because of its nature. They didn't use experiment and it's largely experiment which leads directly and indirectly to technology. Observation and logic led mostly to theory.
But the people were all scientists and they understood their place in nature and their place in society. Progress and improvement were of great importance to them. Those who came up with new ideas or new devices were celebrated far and wide and their hometowns reaped a reward for them in perpetuity.
It was an entirely different mindset.
Posts: 393 | From: NW Indiana, US of A | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: You have no evidence there was once a single worldwide language.
You criticize religious people for having beliefs but you believe in more unproven far fetched theories than many religious people
I don't really fault people for having beliefs. Indeed, I believe modern religion is founded on applied ancient science. I believe if it weren't for religion and their thinking modern science might never have been invented. There's no right or wrong way to live your life so long as you are making the world better and having some fun.
I, personally, have almost no beliefs at all and wouldn't necessarily recommend this to anyone. To me everything is just a set of probabilities and sometimes they are incalculable. I believe there is about a 75% chance that all the great pyramids were built using the weight of water to lift the stones. If this is true there's a virtual certainty that this is the meaning of the PT.
I started out just wanting to know how the pyramids were built. In the process I've learned some very eye-opening things about people whether I'm right or wrong. I still just want to know how it was done.
Posts: 393 | From: NW Indiana, US of A | Registered: Aug 2006
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Sam P said: I believe there was once a single worldwide language that was natural to human beings. This language arose as an elaboration of an existing animal language that was used by proto-humans when a mutation made complex language possible.
Now you cracked it, the more you spill your madness the more you become clear, your thought process gives me goose bumps and is highly valuable in the ushering of a new age scholarship. I do agree there was once a worldwide "language" or rather a structured means of transfering thoughts, ideas and a person's understanding of the natural world, and this method was used and understood by all human races, but the use of the term 'mutation' in this context to try and explain how this universal language/means of encoding became complex is a bit vague.
By Mutation I take you refer to natural processes that changes a language and language sequence thus a "typo" occurs every once in a while. As a baby, you mimic/copied speech until all the typos(errors) were removed, the same process happened when you learned to read and write.
In Slang(street language), a single word is substituted for another. Sometimes a syllable is deleted or an extra one is added. Fortunately, once a person is exposed to the original language, one is able to repair most of these changes, our education sytems also ensures and maintains this repairs. When these changes remains unrepaired in a word or sound made by animals that will form part of systems of communication, it is passed down to offspring and from one generation to another. In the latter transfer, due to the typos that occured, the understanding part in the language sequence becomes severely affected, but does it mean a language died or is merely characterized by 'typos'?
Sam P said: As human understanding grew the language became increasingly complicated
The two cannot necessarily be separated or viewed in isolation since understanding is the intermediary of all language modalities: Observation is followed by understanding what was observed, speaking(making sounds) by understanding or decoding the sounds made, reading, understanding what is written and writing, understanding the shapes used to represent the sounds.
There is no sound without a meaning
Sam P said: With language no longer tied to anything each dialect became a distinct language.. Today there are many languages which are mutually unintelligible. The ancient language was understood by all and it reflected the natural wiring of the human brain so even babies were born with a rudimentary understanding of language. Babies still have this (it's why they babel) but it isn't reinforced by its parents because the ancient language failed. The parents don't know the ancient language and babies are incapable of teaching it.
"An old man won't hesitate to ask a day old baby about that place of life" this is a 4000 yrs old saying
Modality refers to a certain type of information and/or the representation format in which information is stored. The medium is the means whereby this information is delivered to the senses of the interpreter.
The use of the scarab Beetle by the ancients is one such medium and 2000 yrs ago it was identified as the invisible attribute of God. And yes, this is the premises where all languages departs from and by which human communication systems are informed. Did this invisible attribute modalities change? No!. What changed then? the pairing of sounds/clicks that sought or attempted to communicate the understanding behind this modality.
On the 'natural wiring of the human brain' By design, humans cannot produce anything outside this metaphysical constraint and where so designed to produce speech in its various forms but same objective
By design, a lion's vocal cords were designed for it to produce nothing else but a roar/grunts, but it does not mean all lions sounds the same, their pitch and tones differ.
Alarm calls differ from one chimpanzee troop to another including their use of tools. Since humans and chimpanzee bodies contains +-70% water, I believe this is also reflected in their social behavior. Water always takes the weakest route, so is the path of lightning dictated by the amount of moisture in the sky. Is Human languages informed by a similar law? The ability to ascribe names to things is not limited to the first attempts to give them names
Sam P said: We crossed a bridge that can't be uncrossed and in doing so we lost our history and ancient science.
Believe you me, this very discussions are a reflection of attempts to re-discover the ancient science. What I like is that the ability to unearth is innate, so is some of the info/knowledge you have on the "dead language"
Posts: 45 | From: South Africa | Registered: Jul 2014
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posted
Sam P said: I don't believe they thought there was really life after death until 2000 BC when the language changed. They recognized a sort of "quasi-life" after death but it was largely just that they thought you weren't really dead until no one remembered you any longer.
Here the use of the term "Afterlife" is also a type of a 'mutation'. By mere combination of two word to express a belief it suggests that it is a concept not borne from an Anglo culture but rather a Lingua Franca term adopted from somewhere else. What informed this concept was mostly images left by the ancients and by far Egypt serves as the oldest. Not to say their decoding of the encoded was accurate
The Bantu belief system does not have a term or a word tht attempts to explain the afterlife or the hereafter. Rather in its various languages forms it is referred to as just 'Sleep' which is a term used to refer to the recently deceased.
For someone who's been dead for a while, a rather complicated term "Tlhokofala" is used. To properly translate this into English language would require a set of 2-3 words which by no doubt creates a typo no matter how closely the translation is to the original. It means "To no longer be visible".
To use such an approach to explain an African belief system is self-defeating, rather use ancient modality as apoint of depature to try explain the subsequent belief systems.
Take it easy on 2000 BC bench mark, it is hard to fill a cup which is already full
Posts: 45 | From: South Africa | Registered: Jul 2014
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quote:Originally posted by MorolongMaropeng: I do agree there was once a worldwide "language" or rather a structured means of transfering thoughts, ideas and a person's understanding of the natural world, and this method was used and understood by all human races, but the use of the term 'mutation' in this context to try and explain how this universal language/means of encoding became complex is a bit vague.
By Mutation I take you refer to natural processes that changes a language and language sequence thus a "typo" occurs every once in a while. As a baby, you mimic/copied speech until all the typos(errors) were removed, the same process happened when you learned to read and write.
It looks to me that we are actually in very close agreement except for a semantic issue. By "mutation" I am referring to a biological change in the human species. In this specific case I believe it was likely a mutation causing greater complexity in the broca's region of the brain and tying it more closely to the brain and other areas dealing with speech. Most animals simply have little use for complex communication but when this arose in humans they could make great use of it and it allowed them to thrive. Since most biological change is sudden it's very likely that this change was the result of mutation. This is speculative since there are other things that can cause rapid change in species.
Humans aren't more "intelligent" than other animals but rather we can pass complex knowledge from generation to generation. We accumulate knowledge where other animals lack the means; complex language.
When the first individual was born with the ability to use complex language he didn't "reinvent the wheel", but rather he expanded on the existing animal language. He had no body of knowledge passed down to him by his parents because the cleverness of humans had enerated no more technology than spears and fire. They were tool users and passed down their technology by showing the young how to do it. With language they could now tell their young how to do it and learn from others.
It's always been language that makes progress possible but the first language used by all is much different than the languages used today.
Posts: 393 | From: NW Indiana, US of A | Registered: Aug 2006
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If he wasn't respected he would not have made this cast or spoken at CPAK. Have you watched the Pyramid code? One of the physicist commented about how the Egyptian periodic chart had more elements than ours. Have you watched the Dogon video?
Posts: 1254 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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quote: " the first language used by all is much different than the languages used today. "
Disagree, the first remains virtually the same today, but "buried" beneath a million later additions/permutations.
Posts: 2021 | From: Miami | Registered: Aug 2014
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quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: Peer reviewed respectable scholarship? Nope, CPAK and The Pyramid Code are 5% credible 95% new age quackery marketing
The Pyramid Code featured scholars in archaeology, egyptology, physics, geology, cosmology, astrophysics, metaphysics, with an indigenous oral traditionalist. Why were they not respectable? How are you going to peer review Scranton? He doesnt have many peers in Egyptian writing and probably none in Dogon. His combined understanding of Egyptian and Dogon writing is either too peerless or close enough that one should not expect peer reviews.
then I can give you additional information that collaborates with his theory.
For example. From the interview
quote:So the first difficulty lies with finding a western source that could have credibly given this information to the Dogon couched in ancient Egyptian words. Moreover, many of these same words are known to exist in the languages of other African tribes, so we would then have to explain how they came to be adopted in those languages. languages.
Isn't that the same thing Asar Imhotep has displayed over and over again.
Posts: 1254 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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I don't understand why race, religion, and politics have to even get into this but it seems quite unavoidable. People have their own neat packages of beliefs and don't like evidence that doesn't agree. Indeed, they usually can't even see evidence unless it agrees.
I cant even see it. I just know that when the rumor of King Tut being related to Europeans was released it made Television news. When the actual DNA results came in it was as quiet as the Sphinx. If the Dogon were a slavic tribe their connection with Egypt would be in the history books by now.
quote: Right. I don't believe they thought there was really life after death until 2000 BC when the language changed. They recognized a sort of "quasi-life" after death but it was largely just that they thought you weren't really dead until no one remembered you any longer. If a king were "unjustified" at his death they tried to hurry to get people to forget his existence by erasing him from history. If you died with a heavy heart then you did more harm than good and if your heart weighed less than a feather thn you were deceitful, putting on airs, and insubstantial. For the kings their hearts were phyically "weighed" in the Bull of Heaven operated by maat against a feather. If the scale tipped in either direction the king was not justified and his heart was tossed to the ground where it was consumed by plants and animals around the pyramid.
The pyramid was the king himself after he was justified and then transmorgrified. But the average man and the scientist/ priests wouldn't have considered him literally "alive" in this or any realm. He still existed only on earth and only as the pyramid and in the memories of people. His name lived on in the annals.
When the language died around 2000 BC it died everywhere (except in academia) and science was soon lost as was human history. Even the scientist/ priests couldn't continue using the ancient language for long since it continued to get even more complicated. It's possible that these scientists became known as "nephilim" but this is speculative with very little evidence to support it. In any case it's doubtful anyone could use the ancient language for very long after the world changed. Since it couldn't be translated there was very little ability to preserve anything and since it couldn't be translated the ancient books were allowed to be lost. [/QB]
How do you know the Pyramids were built for a King?
Just personal theory I see a possible correlation of Rob Bryanton's theory of life after death and the 42 Declarations of Innocence. Bryanton suggest that after death we are in a world that only exist through our projection or definition of it. The Declarations of Innocence and the spells in the Book of the Dead could just be a culture's way of easing their spirit to better project something endearing and worthy of an afterlife.
Posts: 1254 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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quote: " the first language used by all is much different than the languages used today. "
Disagree, the first remains virtually the same today, but "buried" beneath a million later additions/permutations.
The vocabulary didn't change when the language splintered. The only change was that meaning was expressed "directly" and named using a normally shared perspective. Ancient language defined a perspective and formatted the meaning. Ancient language didn't require many words just like computer language requires few words. But all of these words survived intact with the same meaning except the "scientific" words which were no longer applicable in grammar. The science was lost not because of the loss of these words but because language was the metaphysics of the ancient science. We use experiment but they used observation and logic to underpin their science. Since the logic they used was the natural human language and the new languages were "confused" there was no more science. History was lost as well because it was written in the old language and couldn't be translated. Technology survived because it could be passed down father to son but new learning was much more difficult because it had to take place without true science. Many centuries of progress were lost until modern science was invented.
Posts: 393 | From: NW Indiana, US of A | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:How do you know the Pyramids were built for a King?
I don't believe they were built for a specific king. This was a pyramid building society and when a king died, if they liked him, he ascended on the pyramid and was cremated and then the pyramid was named after him. It is modern people who injected all the mysticism in this, in my opinion.
quote: Just personal theory I see a possible correlation of Rob Bryanton's theory of life after death and the 42 Declarations of Innocence. Bryanton suggest that after death we are in a world that only exist through our projection or definition of it. The Declarations of Innocence and the spells in the Book of the Dead could just be a culture's way of easing their spirit to better project something endearing and worthy of an afterlife.
Of course this is possible.
My understanding of the ancient science though says that this science took reality as being axiomatic. The science had no use for things they couldn't observe and consider logically. Of course individuals vary so it's impossible to account for everything each of them believed.
Posts: 393 | From: NW Indiana, US of A | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
Sam p, I guess you are describing the typical deconstruction of an empire after the resources dry up due to overpopulation.
"New languages" included abstractions which had earlier been demonstrated visually by picture/gestures rather than verbal words.
The pyramid was a scaled-up mastaba/ma-step-bench/mohenjo/mound/mother's breast, while the pyramidion/benben was the nubbin/nipple/steeple/tipi; pyramids were reminiscent of the mounds that arose when the floodwaters lowered annually.
The pyramid was a scaled-up mastaba/ma-step-bench/mohenjo/mound/mother's breast, while the pyramidion/benben was the nubbin/nipple/steeple/tipi; pyramids were reminiscent of the mounds that arose when the floodwaters lowered annually.
I don't know.
But, geysers create a conically shaped stone that is accreted from the minerals in the cold water. As the water warms it deposits minerals around the conically shaped stone in the center as a mound. I believe they called the central stone a "ben ben" and the surrounding mound "the mound of creation since it was used to create the pyramid which allowed the king to live eternally.
"Zep Tepi" was the mythological time of the first eruption which was when atum created himself thus giving birth to upward (shu) and downward (tefnut). Later Egyptians referred to the "sandbank of horrible face bringing water". The water that came up at Giza carried significant amounts of sand from sandstone with its siderite binder dissolved by the acidic nature of the water. This sand also litters the ground all around the first great pyramid; Djoser's.
Posts: 393 | From: NW Indiana, US of A | Registered: Aug 2006
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Societies in harsh environments more likely to believe in moralizing gods
Posted by TANN Anthropology, ArchaeoHeritage,
Just as physical adaptations help populations prosper in inhospitable habitats, belief in moralizing, high gods might be similarly advantageous for human cultures in poorer environments. A new study from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) suggests that societies with less access to food and water are more likely to believe in these types of deities.
To study variables associated with the environment, history, and culture, the research team included experts in biology, ecology, linguistics, anthropology, and even religious studies. The senior author, Gray, studies the intersection of psychology and linguistics, while Botero, an evolutionary ecologist, has examined coordinated behaviors in birds.
See map image
"This figure illustrates the distribution of societies that believe in moralizing, high gods (blue) and those that do not (red). Light gray shading indicates lower potential for plant growth with the darker areas signifying high potential" [Credit: Carlos Botero]
It's an interesting theory but not much detail is given in the article about the source article. I don't know where the source article is
Univ of Aukland:
“A lot of evolutionists have been busy trying to bang religion on the head but I think the challenge is to explain it,” Professor Gray says. “Although some aspects of religion appear maladaptive, the near universal presence of religion suggests that there has to be some adaptive value and by looking at how these things vary ecologically, we get some insight.”
An earlier study by the same researcher Carlos Botero
Environmental harshness is positively correlated with intraspecific divergence in mammals and birds
Carlos A. Botero1,2,*, Roi Dor3,4, Christy M. McCain3 andRebecca J. Safran3 Article first published online: 27 NOV 2013
Abstract Life on Earth is conspicuously more diverse in the tropics. Although this intriguing geographical pattern has been linked to many biotic and abiotic factors, their relative importance and potential interactions are still poorly understood. The way in which latitudinal changes in ecological conditions influence evolutionary processes is particularly controversial, as there is evidence for both a positive and a negative latitudinal gradient in speciation rates. Here, we identify and address some methodological issues (how patterns are analysed and how latitude is quantified) that could lead to such conflicting results. To address these issues, we assemble a comprehensive data set of the environmental correlates of latitude (including climate, net primary productivity and habitat heterogeneity) and combine it with biological, historical and molecular data to explore global patterns in recent divergence events (subspeciation). Surprisingly, we find that the harsher conditions that typify temperate habitats (lower primary productivity, decreased rainfall and more variable and unpredictable temperatures) are positively correlated with greater subspecies richness in terrestrial mammals and birds. Thus, our findings indicate that intraspecific divergence is greater in regions with lower biodiversity, a pattern that is robust to both sampling variation and latitudinal biases in taxonomic knowledge. We discuss possible causal mechanisms for the link between environmental harshness and subspecies richness (faster rates of evolution, greater likelihood of range discontinuities and more opportunities for divergence) and conclude that this pattern supports recent indications that latitudinal gradients of diversity are maintained by simultaneously higher potentials for both speciation and extinction in temperate than tropical regions.
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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posted
Hold on... maybe not. Maybe America just has more believers however open minded and liberal they might be. I live in Seattle and it does seem to be the hotbed anglo animism.
Posts: 1254 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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quote:Originally posted by Fourty2Tribes: Hold on... maybe not. Maybe America just has more believers however open minded and liberal they might be. I live in Seattle and it does seem to be the hotbed anglo animism.
The map might not represent the current time period
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Fourty2Tribes: Hold on... maybe not. Maybe America just has more believers however open minded and liberal they might be. I live in Seattle and it does seem to be the hotbed anglo animism.
The map might not represent the current time period
Of course its current. We dont know enough about American history to map it in such detail and the USA certainly has become less fundamental.
Posts: 1254 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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quote:Originally posted by DD'eDeN: the lioness, I meant your first post (13 October, 2014 10:38 AM) had videos, but they're gone now, any (shorter) ones available?
quote:Originally posted by Fourty2Tribes: Hold on... maybe not. Maybe America just has more believers however open minded and liberal they might be. I live in Seattle and it does seem to be the hotbed anglo animism.
The map might not represent the current time period
Of course its current. We dont know enough about American history to map it in such detail and the USA certainly has become less fundamental.
quote: Here's one figure from the study, in which traditional societies with a belief in "moralizing high gods" (blue dots) and societies that are either atheistic or believe in spirits or non-moralizing deities (red dots) are plotted against the availability of one particular kind of natural resource, the potential for plant growth (gray shading). Note that the dots below do not reflect the religions that are currently practiced within these regions; rather, each reflects a traditional society, identified by anthropologists working in the early 20th century:
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Now I really have a problem with it unless its post Islam pre-Columbus. It seems like its picking and choosing to make an argument. Where are my Miley Cyrus Europeans? Some of the their deities didnt give a ****! They got high, drunk and fornicated with humans and animals. Is it going back to Egypt with donkey shows...goat... in the street. Ok I could see Egypt getting a blue dot for the scale and only the scale. They were atheist compared to modern believers. I see the Dinka and Nuer religion so you have a red dot in the Sudan. These regions were once united in culture. That suggest that its more recent. I'm thinking 1,200 years ago.
Posts: 1254 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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The ancient Egyptians believed that, when they died, they would be judged on their behaviour during their lifetime before they could be granted a place in the Afterlife. This judgement ceremony was called "Weighing of the Heart" and was recorded in Chapter 125 of the funerar text known as the "Book of the Dead".
The ceremony was believed to have taken place before Osiris, the chief god of the dead and Afterlife, and a tribunal of 43 dieties. Standing before the tribunal the deceased was asked to name each of the divine judges and swear that he or she had not committed any offences, ranging from raising the voice to stealing. This was the "negative confession". If found innocent, the deceased was declared "true of voice" and allowed to proceed into the Afterlife.
The proceedings were recorded by Thoth, the scribe of the gods, and the deity of wisdom. Thoth was often dipicted as a human with an ibis head, writing on a scroll of papyrus. His other animal form, the baboon, was often depicted sitting on the pivot of the scales of justice.
The symbolic ritual that accompanied this ritual was the weighing of the heart of the deceased on a pair of enormous scales. It was weighed against the principle of truth and justice ( known as maat ) represented by a feather, the symbol of the goddess of truth, order and justice, Maat. If the heart balanced against the feather then the deceased would be granted a place in the Fields of Hetep and Iaru. If it was heavy with the weight of wrongdoings, the balance would sink and the heart would be grabbed and devoured by a terrifying beast that sat ready and waiting by the scales. This beast was Ammit, "the gobbler", a composite animal with the head of a crocodile, the front legs and body of lion or leopard, and the back legs of a hippopotamus.
The ancient Egyptians considered the heart to be the centre of thought, memory and emotion. It was thus associated with interlect and personality and was considered the most important organ in the body. It was deemed to be essential for rebirth into the Afterlife. Unlike the other internal organs, it was never removed and embalmed separately, because its presence in the body was crucial.
If the deceased was found to have done wrong and the heart weighed down the scales, he or she was not though to enter a place of tourment like hell, but to cease to exist at all. This idea would have terrified the ancient Egyptians. However, for those who could afford to include Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead in their tombs, it was almost guaranteed that they would pass successfully into the Afterlife. This is because the Egyptians believed in the magical qualities of the actual writings and illustrations in funerary texts. By depicting the heart balancing in the scales against the feather of Maat they ensured that would be the favourable outcome. The entire ceremony was, after all, symbolic.
Following the Weighing of the Heart, the organ was returned to its owner. To make quite sure that this did happen, Chapters 26-29 of the Book of the Dead were spells to ensure that the heart was returned and this it could never be removed again.
By the late Old Kingdom, posthumous identification with the god Osiris was adopted by the common people. After death, if they had lived their lives according to Maat and could truthfully confess that they had not committed any mortal sin before the divine judges in the Hall of Two Truths, they were admitted into the company of the gods. Coffins and funerary objects of the New Kingdom record that the name of the deceased was compounded with that of the god, and that the face of coffins belonging to men bore the false beard of Osiris.
Posts: 42919 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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THE MEANING OF HUMAN EXISTENCE Edward O Wilson 2014 Liveright 207pp $24
Scott Russell Sanders Washington Post
Where did we come from, with our two-legged stance, horizon-scanning eyes and teeming brain? Human cultures have answered this question by telling stories - about gardens and gods, about sacred places and shaping spirits. For a century and a half, ever since Darwin published his distressing theory, biologists have been insisting that all those creation stories, however comforting and flattering, are false.
In our own day, no biologist has been more persistent or eloquent in correcting our misapprehensions about human origins than Edward O Wilson. At age 85, author of more than 20 books, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, recipient of numerous major awards for science and public service, he could easily rest on his laurels. He might be content with having made pioneering contributions in the study of entomology, biodiversity, sociobiology, island biogeography and environmental psychology, along with having popularized the term "biophilia" to describe our fascination with the living world.
Instead, Wilson tries yet again, in "The Meaning of Human Existence", to convince ordinary readers of the scientific view that humans have evolved, along with millions of other species, from earlier life forms, entirely by natural processes, without guidance from any supreme being. He has his work cut out for him. According to the most recent Pew Research Center poll, roughly two-thirds of Americans reject this view of evolution, which undergirds all of modern medicine and the life sciences.
Ironically, the religious faiths that are the chief source of this skepticism are themselves a product of evolution, Wilson tells us in this slender volume, which has been short-listed for this year's National Book Award in non-fiction. Following Darwin's lead, he argues that natural selection operates not only at the individual level, but also at the level of groups. Throughout our evolutionary history, those groups that bonded most firmly against outsiders enjoyed greater reproductive success - and religion is the most potent binding force that human cultures have produced.
Wilson acknowledges the benefits that arise from religious faith, including moral codes that instruct believers to relieve suffering and care for the vulnerable. One of his previous books ("The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth" 2006) took the form of a letter addressed to a Southern Baptist minister, seeking common ground in the effort to preserve bio-diversity by invoking the stewardship ethic implicit in the Bible. In his new book, however, perhaps in response to the sectarian strife that engulfs so many nations, Wilson laments that "the great religions are also, and tragically, sources of ceaseless and unnecessary suffering. They are impediments to the grasp of reality needed to solve most social problems in the real world. Their exquisitely human flaw is tribalism."
Tribalism is only one consequence of what Wilson calls the "Paleolithic Curse: genetic adaptations that worked very well for millions of years of hunter-gatherer existence, but are increasingly a hindrance in a globally urban and technoscientific society." Among other ways in which our genetic adaptations ill suit us for contemporary conditions, he notes our penchant for racism, our refusal to curb population growth, our failure to cooperate with one another on a scale commensurate with the challenges we face and our devastation of the natural environment.
Having become the dominant species on the planet, are we doomed to self-destruct? Calling himself "at heart a congenital optimist", Wilson answers with a qualified no. We can avoid undermining the natural conditions on which civilization depends by drawing on our "social intelligence", another legacy of our evolutionary journey. The abilities to communicate, collaborate through division of labor and behave altruistically within organized groups are traits that have arisen "on only twenty known occasions in the history of life", principally among insects, such as termites and ants.
While he draws parallels between the behavior of ants - on which he is the world's leading authority - and human social behavior, Wilson is careful to say that we are not slaves of instinct, as insects are. As he has done since his early and controversial book "On Human Nature" (1978), he argues here that our "behavior has a strong genetic component", which shapes, but does not determine our actions. Unlike insects, we can think about the consequences of our behavior, and choose to act differently. We can choose to bring fewer children into the world, stop burning coal, plant trees faster than we cut them down, judge people by their character rather than by the color of their skin.
To posit such a power to choose, as Wilson does repeatedly in "The Meaning of Human Existence", raises a conundrum that he never squarely addresses, not even in the chapter titled "Free Will". He predicts that neuro-scientists will soon identify the physical basis of consciousness, revealing the material processes that give rise to our emotions and thoughts. If what we call mind is only a side effect of material processes, which proceed from a skein of cause-and-effect that reaches back to the big bang, then the conscious "self" may believe that it freely chooses how to behave, but that belief, Wilson implies, is an illusion.
"Confidence in free will is biologically adaptive," Wilson argues. It protects us from fatalism. Reassured by imagining that we exert conscious control over our lives, we keep on reproducing our kind. But in a material universe governed entirely by physical laws, he concedes, free will does not exist "in ultimate reality". Then what is the point of exhorting readers to embrace the theory of evolution, to preserve the Earth's wealth of living things, to overcome bigotry, and put an end to war? How could we, by conscious effort, change our actions or beliefs?
Despite this seemingly fatal flaw in his enterprise, we should be grateful that Wilson, so late in his illustrious career, still appeals to reason and imagination in hopes of enlightening us about our nature and inspiring us to change our destructive ways.
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