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> sects of people were uncooperative and competing with each other all the time And those groups who cooperated with in-group better have repeatedly outcompeted groups that didn't cooperate as well.
Up to a point. Successful cooperation seems to be through family ties or common upbringing, such as the vikings or spartans.
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>>> Surprisingly, it’s not our shared language or even our ability to dominate other species that defines us but rather, our shared fictions. Shared fictions seems to just be a euphemism for culture. I wonder why he doesn't just call it that.
Social construct is closer to what he talks about. As for why he had to use a non standard formulation for this ... I believe it's marketing.
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I love this episode but was surprised that wikipedia said this: > It is often cited as one of the best episodes of the both The Next Generation series and the entire family of the several Star Trek television series.
It was definitely the most innovative episode. My favorite was the first Borg episode where they finally met someone they couldn't defeat that wanted to destroy them. OP: an example of shared fiction he uses in the book is the law. The law is a fiction in the sense that it is not a physical object, but a group of shared concepts that allows society to be built to a higher order. "Sapiens" is a great read.
How so? I always hated that episode because it's a straightforward story of developing communications through a language barrier, except that Star Trek is very clear that language barriers don't exist. So it just ends up being an incoherent plot hole.
But the concept of a language barrier isn't exactly new.
> Surprisingly, it’s not our shared language or even our ability to dominate other species that defines us but rather, our shared fictions. I read his book where he talks about this. It makes some sense: you can operate at varied scales if you have shared fictions. When you meet a complete stranger, you're both members of the human race, sharing a desire for a better future. Meet a fellow countryman, and there are so…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> sects of people were uncooperative and competing with each other all the time And those groups who cooperated with in-group better have repeatedly outcompeted groups that didn't cooperate as well.
Up to a point. Successful cooperation seems to be through family ties or common upbringing, such as the vikings or spartans.
Reading the book right now. What's concerning to me is that we are currently seeing the dissolving of myths across the board, whether it be religion, faith in public institutions, or facades that we kept before social media existed. Is the breakdown of social cohesion a consequence? Letting go of myths seems like an inherent good, but can we survive it?
I believe you are incorrect - we are replacing the old with the new.
Sapiens is a must read for anyone who wants to better understand the fabrics of humanity. It's one of my most favourite books and reading it definitely has opened up my eyes to the world. An example: Humans are the "creators of the world", the most dominant species on the planet and at the top of the food chain by a long distance and yet we are the most jumpy/scary species of all. If a tiny spider would crawl up the…
>If a tiny spider would crawl up the leg of a lion they wouldn't give a bit of a shit. A lion would remain calm, knowing that the spider cannot do anything and it wouldn't even bother to entertain the spider for a split second. > However if the same tiny spider would crawl up the leg of a human there's a real chance that this person would start jumping up and down, perhaps trying to kill the spider or maybe even rush…
The decision-making of other animals may develop generationally, but it has very limited capacity for change within a single organism's life. On the other hand, a human can endlessly rewrite her software on top of the same hardware. We can evolve without waiting for our DNA to change.
Reading the book right now. What's concerning to me is that we are currently seeing the dissolving of myths across the board, whether it be religion, faith in public institutions, or facades that we kept before social media existed. Is the breakdown of social cohesion a consequence? Letting go of myths seems like an inherent good, but can we survive it?
Tolkien (along with C.S. Lewis), a vocal anti-modernist, had interesting thoughts on this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Fairy-Stories
"Tolkien suggests that fairy stories allow the reader to review his own world from the "perspective" of a different world. Tolkien calls this "recovery", in the sense that one's unquestioned assumptions might be recovered and changed by an outside perspective...Tolkien [also] asserts that a truly good and representative fairy story is marked by joy: "Far more powerful and poignant is the effect [of joy] in a serious tale of Faerie. In such stories, when the sudden turn comes, we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through.""
He and Lewis even - despite being practicing Christians - had the wisdom to see even their own religion as a kind of fairy-story, not cheapening it but orienting it within the important role that fictions play in the human condition.
Define "dominate". IMHO bacteria dominate the Earth, but of course, they don't know. They don't even need to know to dominate.
>dom·i·nate >verb >have a commanding influence on; exercise control over. >be the most important or conspicuous person or thing in. Bacteria have a huge effect on all life, but they don't "exercise control" as they are not self aware. Their influence is comprised solely of externalities. Humans by comparison exert far more control over the environment around them. We shape the world to our purpose. I think humanity w…
Less than an oily smear on a marble. "Saving the planet" is laughable, the planet could hiccup and wipe out all life and keep going as before ...
("Don't antropomorphize Nature, she hates that.")