LL-L "Evolution" 2010.08.15 (09) [EN]

Mon Aug 16 00:49:14 UTC 2010

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 15 August 2010 - Volume 09
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From: Hellinckx Luc <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>

Subject: LL-L "Resources"

Beste Roger,

You wrote:

In a tabel companring vocabulary between English, Danish, German, Dutch,
Swedish and Islandic.

the English "tomorrow" is translated as "morgen" in German but "temorgen" in
Dutch.

I never heard "temorgen" for "tomorrow".

Me neither...but...,"temorgen" does have the meaning "this morning", in my
native dialect:

'k Zèn temereged nàà de mèt gewést = Ik ben te morgend naar de markt geweest
= Ik ben van de morgen... = Ik ben deze morgen ...

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx, Halle, Belgium

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From: Henry Pijffers <henry.pijffers at gmail.com>

Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2010.08.15 (06) [EN]

Marcus Buck skreev:

>
> That's a 'terminus ante quem' (limit before which) not a real dating,
isn't
> it? I would guess that language is much older than that although the
> development most likely was continuous and any "X years ago was the time
> language became sophisticated" is rather arbitrary.
>

I've read a theory once that technological development and language go
hand in hand. If one human being discovers a new technology, he won't
be able to teach it to other humans without the aid of language. That
would mean homo habilis (the first homo to use stone tools) would have
used language already, which would the date to 1.5 Mya. Of course one
can always debate on how big their language capabilities were. And
then there are the great apes, that have shown certain language
capabilities.

> Another string of thought:
> If Homo sapiens had the brains 150,000 years ago why did it take him so
long
> to develop extensive knowledge and why was the development so rapid in the
> most recent period?
>

I would think 6 billion brains tend to develop things faster than a
couple thousands could. Besides that, most developments are based on
previous developments. The more we figure out, the more combinations
we can make and the faster it goes.

> why didn't
> we develop any relevant civilization before 10,000 BP? It clearly was some
> kind of social evolution that lead to modern civilization.
>

Maybe there was, but we just can't find the traces anymore (ok,
unlikely). Maybe there was plenty room to go around and so there just
was no need to develop social structures.

> It's notable that the arms race of technology, the begin of agriculture
and
> the end of the ice age coincide. But I do not see the connection. The end
of
> the ice age is a very important event with far-reaching consequences
> world-wide, but agriculture should have been possible even before. The
> agriculturally interesting areas were just in different regions. So how
did
> the end of the ice age trigger the development of agriculture?
>

Recent insights say that it may have started 20,000 years ago already.
But here's one theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas#The_Younger_Dryas_and_the_beginning_of_agriculture

(Btw, technically we are currently in an ice age, because the earth
currently has ice caps. What people commonly call an ice age, is
actually a glacial (where the ice caps advance). We are currently
living in an interglacial, in which the ice caps retreat.)

good gaon,
Henry Pijffers

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>

Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2010.08.15 (06) [EN]

> From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>
> Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2010.08.15 (02) [EN]
>
> From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
>
> p. 16-18 Jean-Marie Hombert (director of the CNRS and linked to the
> university of Lyon) dates, in an interview, the origin of modern
> languages (with a complex syntax) 70.000 to 55.000 years ago, based on
> the hypothesis that for crossing sees and oceans a spohisticated level
> of language is supposed to be necessary. Distances over see over 100
> km needed a developped form of communication for preparing food for
> more than 3 days etc.
>
> That's a 'terminus ante quem' (limit before which) not a real dating,
> isn't it? I would guess that language is much older than that although
> the development most likely was continuous and any "X years ago was
> the time language became sophisticated" is rather arbitrary.

Yes, I found this thing annoying and I'm glad you've posted such a good
argument.

> Is curiosity a wholly social phenomenon? Why did nobody invent the
> wheel before 6000 BP? A wheel is less useful without streets or draft
> animals, but even to a stone-age man living in the flat steppe a
> pushcart is useful e.g. to transport his tent, isn't it? Did they have
> so few belongings that they could transport it on their backs and
> carts were just unnecessary?

I think it is a social or, rather, political phenomenon. You might think
about American Indians, they could have been inventive but they had a
lifestyle they were happy with and plenty of space to live it in, why make
an effort in new directions? Changing a formula that works can be a recipe
for disaster.

I'd guess that even if a cart could be used to transport a tent, there are
always less inventive solutions that can be found. For example, design a
tent whose parts are no more than the family can carry on their backs, or
learn to make a tent from widely available materials. This is a lot easier
than trying to figure out how to make a wooden wheel last for hundreds of
miles (which probably involves knowing how to forge a metal band), not to
mention how to make a low-friction axle to fit it to a cart that's not
turning.

One thing I would suggest from observation (even although it's a highly
unsatisfactory thought) is that technology is mainly inspired by war. If the
population rises and people start to get territorial, eventually there's a
pressing need for a three-man chariot, and the handcart comes along later as
a spin-off, maybe supplied by out-of-work chariot-makers.

It perhaps all goes back to home economics: food, shelter, transport,
clothing. All you need is spears, a good pair of legs, and the hides you get
from the animals you kill. It's not until you have a pressing need to kill
other people that you need any more than that.

It's not really different today. Countries spend immense amounts of money on
developing weapons, and much of our peace-time technology arises from
spin-offs from such things.

We could consciously attempt development for the sake of development, but I
think that for the most part, we don't. For example, the space programme
inspired quite a few spin-offs, but people really aren't happy with paying
too much for it; they mostly don't see the point.

Even "big science" seems to be some sort of warlike posing, "our
atom-smasher is bigger than your atom-smasher".

Sometimes you hear the threap that the Greeks had steam power, why didn't
they put it to good use? It's because they couldn't drill pistons.
Principles of steam power were known off-and-on for long enough, it's only
when the English desperately needed to find a way to bore deep, smooth
cannons for their warships (and finally did) that making pistons became a
practical possibility.

I think this is the normal way of things with technological advance: the
natural world just doesn't present the sort of challenges that demand
thinking that far outside the box, only warfare does that. Maybe in future
enough people will realise that the planet is going to die, if not one way
then another, and nature will finally be challenging enough for us!

Oops, well off-topic! But it is an attempt to answer a direct question that
was posed.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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