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 Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 6:05 pm
Or more precisely: A Scientific Interpretation of Adam and Eve. Adam is described as a man from which Mankind has sprung, and Eve likewise. Scientific research into genes has shown that all humans in the world have, at one epoch or another, common ancestors. Here I introduce you to Y-Chromosomal Adam, the ultimate Father, and Mitochondrial Eve, the ultimate mother. Now, while current dating systems place them at different epochs in Human development, let us have a look at the Story of Genesis. Wikipedia "When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth." Cain fears that whoever meets him will kill him, but God places a mark on Cain to protect him, with the promise that "if any slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." Cain settles in the land of Nod,[12] "away from the presence of the Lord."[13] This is a passage I have frequently quoted to dispell rumours that the children of Adam and Eve performed incest to beget the Human Race. Cain, the last living son of Adam and Eve joins a community of Humans in Nod, thus indicating that other humans were alive at the time of Adam and Eve, despite not being their Children. The hypothesis of Y-Chromosomal Adam suggests that he possessed something other humans did not. The main idea bandied about is that Adam possessed "intelligence" (Notice here: Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and gained wisdom). He could think and plan in a way other humans of the time couldn't, thus was a better hunter and thus scored with more of the females. My hypothesis which I present to you, here today, is that the tale of Adam and Eve, tells the story of a family in Africa, approximately 600,000 years ago. The father and children possessed of an intelligence that was currently unseen in Humans of the time. This then lead to their superior performance as Hunters, and their families dominance over the rest of the Human species. In this respect, they were the first "Humans", possessing the key human trait. Obviously, the tale is embellished a great deal, to include a talking serpent and a woeful tale of morality, but it bears thinking about yes?
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 7:32 pm
How I see it?
Monkeys learn that they can plant a seed in the ground, and it grows.
Later, they find ways to do it better.
This continues until the farm is invented.
The many people who end up learning how to do this are smart. 3nodding
Saying they just got smart out of the blue is...... Nicht gut.
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 8:20 pm
Divine_Malevolence How I see it? Monkeys learn that they can plant a seed in the ground, and it grows. Later, they find ways to do it better. This continues until the farm is invented. The many people who end up learning how to do this are smart. 3nodding Saying they just got smart out of the blue is...... Nicht gut. There's a key distinction between smart and intelligence in this context. A cat that learns to fetch may be smart, but it lacks higher brain functions. It's possible that Adam was the first human in which cognitive thought occured. Of course, whether that was the case or not, you can't deny that he had to do something pretty freaking impressive to become the father of everyone.
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Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 2:00 am
That... is an interesting thought, and so I went digging through some research databases in hopes of finding something relevant. On the evolutionary origins of executive functions. Link is through acrobat.com because I couldn't think of anywhere else to upload .pdfs off the top of my head. Anyway. I think that the parts of the article starting with page 94 are directly relevant to this topic. The two pages before that are mostly background information. Vygotsky, Luria, and Lieberman argued that the beginning of human thought is directly related to the development of language. I agree with this because of a theory I believe is true regarding the period at the beginning of human lives where we don't remember much. The term for this lack of memory is infantile amnesia, and by and large it means that humans simply don't remember things which happen before they are two years or so old. This theory I'm talking about says that the reason we don't remember these memories is we used at those ages different encoding system than one we use when we get older. People use a language-based encoding system, but before one is two years old or so one does not know language, and therefore encodes memories in a different fashion that is completely unintelligible to a brain that processes things based on language. This is important. We know that infants DO have memory, it's been tested by teaching them how to operate mobiles at one month of age or less, and it's clear they remember how to work the mobiles when they encounter them again much later. (Look up work by Piaget if you're interested.) But, we can no longer access those memories that we formed when we were infants. I believe this difference between the language-based processing model that humans typically use and whatever model it is that infants use is the same, or a very similar difference, between the processes that humans use and the processes that animals use. So, basic language could have been the difference between "Adam" and the other animals around. But animals communicate, right? You could argue that they definitely have a type of language. So there's another difference too. They mention in that article what the real biological differences are in the prefrontal lobes of monkeys vs. humans (bottom of first column to top of second column, p. 96). They do mention that the only real difference is humans have so much more white matter. White matter - axons/dendrites, gray matter - cell bodies/nuclei. So, the human prefrontal cortex and the monkey prefrontal cortex don't have a marked difference in size (proportionally), just an increase in connections between existing cells. I guess I could boil my point down to Adam and his family being superior hunters because they were the first creatures to come up with some very precise form of communication/language sophisticated enough to allow for strategy, and they were able to use these... can I say words here?... in very flexible ways so that they were still able to communicate exactly what was happening in a situation that was changing. Maybe he was the person to invent the grunt version of prepositions, articles, or some other part of speech that doesn't necessarily mean anything but makes what can be communicated more flexible, and which can form associations between otherwise unrelated ideas. Human intelligence is just a manifestation of having more tools available (words) and having more neural connections between these tools than other creatures. Sorry for writing a small book in your thread, and sorry it's so disjointed. xD Edit: If you'd like to take a closer look at any of the supporting evidence these people use in their paper, just point out the citation and I'll find and upload it for you too, just in case you don't have access.
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Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 6:34 am
[speculations]
Perhaps Adam had an unusual ability to think of new ways to express himself, which everybody else didn't, to make others understand him.
Perhaps Eve could spot more details of her surroundings than everybody else, and could understand how things are more easily.
These abilities may have been frightening for others to witness.
Perhaps Eve wanted to prove a point, but did a taboo action. People wanted Eve dead, but Adam distracted them long enough for both to escape. Both goes into exile from their homes; their Garden of Eden.
Who did what should be irrelevant, as the main point is they were feared and exiled together.
Some time later, they were raising two sons. They thought their sons what they've discovered so far.
One day, the sons are out doing stuff together. Suddenly they notice a woman (*gasps*)!
They both are attracted to this woman, and tries to impress her. A brother succeeds, the other fail and discover jealousy.
The jealous brother kills the other brother (and possibly the woman), and discover regret.
Some time later, the brother stumble over a tribe. If this is the tribe of Adam and Eve, a generation should have passed anyway.
The brother manage to settle down, and teach the tribesmen what he have learned.
His story is passed down from generation to generation as folk tales (and therefore spiced up a little by every generation), and grow popular in certain civilisations (including the early Jewish one). The tale is written down.
[/speculations]
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Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 3:57 pm
Dystopian Lover That... is an interesting thought, and so I went digging through some research databases in hopes of finding something relevant. On the evolutionary origins of executive functions. Link is through acrobat.com because I couldn't think of anywhere else to upload .pdfs off the top of my head. Anyway. I think that the parts of the article starting with page 94 are directly relevant to this topic. The two pages before that are mostly background information. Vygotsky, Luria, and Lieberman argued that the beginning of human thought is directly related to the development of language. I agree with this because of a theory I believe is true regarding the period at the beginning of human lives where we don't remember much. The term for this lack of memory is infantile amnesia, and by and large it means that humans simply don't remember things which happen before they are two years or so old. This theory I'm talking about says that the reason we don't remember these memories is we used at those ages different encoding system than one we use when we get older. People use a language-based encoding system, but before one is two years old or so one does not know language, and therefore encodes memories in a different fashion that is completely unintelligible to a brain that processes things based on language. This is important. We know that infants DO have memory, it's been tested by teaching them how to operate mobiles at one month of age or less, and it's clear they remember how to work the mobiles when they encounter them again much later. (Look up work by Piaget if you're interested.) But, we can no longer access those memories that we formed when we were infants. I believe this difference between the language-based processing model that humans typically use and whatever model it is that infants use is the same, or a very similar difference, between the processes that humans use and the processes that animals use. So, basic language could have been the difference between "Adam" and the other animals around. But animals communicate, right? You could argue that they definitely have a type of language. So there's another difference too. They mention in that article what the real biological differences are in the prefrontal lobes of monkeys vs. humans (bottom of first column to top of second column, p. 96). They do mention that the only real difference is humans have so much more white matter. White matter - axons/dendrites, gray matter - cell bodies/nuclei. So, the human prefrontal cortex and the monkey prefrontal cortex don't have a marked difference in size (proportionally), just an increase in connections between existing cells. I guess I could boil my point down to Adam and his family being superior hunters because they were the first creatures to come up with some very precise form of communication/language sophisticated enough to allow for strategy, and they were able to use these... can I say words here?... in very flexible ways so that they were still able to communicate exactly what was happening in a situation that was changing. Maybe he was the person to invent the grunt version of prepositions, articles, or some other part of speech that doesn't necessarily mean anything but makes what can be communicated more flexible, and which can form associations between otherwise unrelated ideas. Human intelligence is just a manifestation of having more tools available (words) and having more neural connections between these tools than other creatures. Sorry for writing a small book in your thread, and sorry it's so disjointed. xD Edit: If you'd like to take a closer look at any of the supporting evidence these people use in their paper, just point out the citation and I'll find and upload it for you too, just in case you don't have access. Interestingly, The Bible also makes mention of Adam speaking "a language from which all languages were born". Many biblical scholars search for the "Adamic Language". @Gakre: Well, I dare say in this case there were many Eves in Adam's case, but yeah. Something like that.
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Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 4:37 pm
Bicameral brain theory
wahmbulance
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