LS Re: the four layers, catastrophic history


Hettinger (hettingr@iglou.com)
Fri, 28 Aug 1998 16:54:57 +0100


Hi, Donald and glove and LS,

You all said,

> i may be the only one here that wonders this, but if humanity has existed on
> earth for as long as we seem to have, (estimates range anywhere from 300,000
> years to 3 million years, in our modern form) why is it we have only started
> to evolve intellectually within the last few thousand years? actually Pirsig
> says it has only happened in this century!
>
> Fossil and archaeological evidence is in decidedly short supply. That doesn't
> preclude an antediluvian civilization, but even if one existed it would not have
> been as technologically advanced as ours. Surely some evidence would remain?
> Beyond Cayce, I mean.
>

Consider that the last 3,000 years (or so) could be the time after the intellectual
level evolved. The key transition there, I think, would have been in the ability
to pass intPoVs on as intellectual patterns. This means something beyond words.
People (like teachers) found out that particular words and experiences could lead to
particular valued concepts that could be and were transmitted.

The 3 million years before that looks to me like the time in which the social level
predominated. Intellectual ability became possible during this time, and this
enhanced the perceptions of individual humans. So, a set of intellectual patterns
builds within the individual. But there was no was to pass this 'learning' on. The
intellectual human's behavior would have been different from the others, so the
potential was there to affect human social patterns in ways that allowed humans an
advantage, but the patterns weren't passed on as intellectual patterns, only as
social behavior.

Did intellect evolve in creatures previous to human? I think so. But I don't see
evidence that there was ever the ability to pass it on in other than social ways.
And when natural forces remove the lower-level support that a system needs, the
whole thing crashes and it's a long time rebuilding.

Maggie

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