>Reflectorites (but primarily Glenn, Jim, and Brian):
>
>If I'm grasping this thread correctly, it seems there are many separate
>but related questions being asked/debated here. Conceptualize them
>(correctly or incorrectly) as concentric circles, with the largest listed
>first:
>
>Q1: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for a group
>to be considered human?
I will give my answers. Biblically and theologically, it is the image of God.
I doubt any of us would disagree with that. However, when dealing with past
peoples, and fossil man, the Image of God leaves no fossil evidence (indeed it
is difficult to actually decide what it is). So, failing having the word
image carved into the skulls of fossil man, the next best thing we can look at
is their behavior. Was it like our behavior or not? Thus I would say that if
a being acts like us (especially in regards to ritual/religion) then he is
human.
>
>Q2: Is one of those conditions "civilization?"
Absolutely not. Civilization is dependent upon the invention of the plow to
provide enough food for cities to develop. Unless of course one is prepared
to say that the possession of a plow IS the Image of God.
>
>Q3: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for a group to
>be considered as constitutive of "civilization?"
I would define it as a society based on agriculture. Otherwise, in general,
each man must provide for his family. In agricultural societies, one man can
provide food for multiple families.
>
>Q4: Is one of the conditions of civilization "innovation?"
Only in so far as the plow must be invented.
>
>Q5: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for an artifact to
>be considered "shaman art?"
I think it is a very poorly defined. The science News article says that Shaman
art is based upon mental images. These include: "grids or lattices, parallel
lines, dots, zigzags, concentric circles or U-shaped lines and meandering
lines."
"Dots, zigzags, and other shapes linked to altered states of consciousness
appear in all these works." Oct. 5, 1996, p. 217
However, the 116,000-176,000 year old art at Jinmium, Australia, can be said
to consist of 3500 dots carved into the rock face.
The zig-zag motif is found prior to 33,000 years, much older.
"Bacho Kiro Bone with engraved Mousterian >43,000
...............zig-zags"
~Chris Stringer and Clive Gamble, In Search of the Neanderthals, (New York:
Thames and Hudson, 1993), p. 161
and the meander motif is found as far back as 300,000 years B.P.
"Finally, Edwards accepts Marshack's contention that the fine engraved
lines on an ox rib from the Acheulian layer at the site of Pech d l'Aze in
France appear to be similar to the 'meander' symbol or iconographic unit of
notation that becomes an important element in the cave art of the Upper
Paleolithic period. If this engraving is a meander symbol,it suggests that
the complex cognitive development claimed for Homo sapiens sapiens near the
end of the Pleistocene epoch was presaged in the mental and cultural lives of
Homo erectus sometime before 300,000 B. P."~D. Bruce Dickson, The Dawn of
Belief, (Tuscon: The University of Arizona Press, 1990), p. 45-46
>
>Q6: Given that agreement on the answer to Q5 is reached, If the answer
>to Q2 and Q4 is "yes," is "shaman art" a
>necessary and sufficient condition for a group to be considered "human?"
>
Agreement????? Are you serious? :-)
NO!!! I have never produced a single piece of shaman art and I doubt that Jim
has either. Thus by making shaman art some sort of sine qua non of humanity,
which Jim has done, excludes both of us from humanity.
>Q7: If the answer to Q2 or Q4 is "no," is the value of "shaman art" merely
>inconclusive as a necessary and sufficient condition of a group's being
>considered "human?"
It is extremely inconclusive for the advent of humanity. Humans can be humans
without making art. However, when art is found, you can be sure that a human
made it.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm