The Evolution of the Brain

[Kevin S. Wilson]

On Mon, 19 Aug 2002 00:48:28 -0700, Accelerating Expansion
<accelerating at expansion.com>, wrote:

>> Yup.  Shit happens.

<top-posting just this once so ya'll can see what I'm commenting on>

You know, cutting-and-pasting a bunch of stuff written by people who
know more big words than you isn't quite the same as posting something
insightful, interesting, witty, or thought-provoking. If it were, I
could cement my reputation as King of the USENET with a CD-ROM of the
Great Works of Philosophy. Then the rest of you bunch could go home.

>Reiterations & Recapitulations...
>
>Preface:
>"...Once you pose the problem of what it means
>to be a person, even dumbly, weakly, or with a
>veneer of pride about your imagined difference
>from others, you may be in trouble. Introversion
>is impotence, but an impotence already
>self-conscious to a degree, and it can become
>troublesome. It may lead to a chafing at one's
>dependency on his family and his job, an ulcerous
>gnawing as a reaction to one's embeddedness, a
>feeling of slavery in one's safety. For a strong
>person it may become intolerable, and he may try
>to break out of it, sometimes by suicide,
>sometimes by drowning himself desperately in
>the world and in the rush of experience."
>[...]
>"At its extreme, defiant self-creation can
>become demonic, a passion which Kierkegaard
>calls 'demonic rage,' an attack on all of life
>for what it has dared to do to one, a revolt
>against existence itself."
>[...]
>"Socially, too, we have seen a defiant
>Promethianism that is basically innocuous:
>the confident power that can catapult man
>to the moon and free him somewhat of his
>complete dependence and confinement on
>earth--at least in his imagination. The ugly
>side of this Promethianism is that it, too,
>is thoughtless, an empty-headed immersion
>in the delights of technics with no thought
>to goals or meaning; so man performs on the
>moon by hitting golf balls that do not swerve
>in the lack of atmosphere. The technical
>triumph of a versatile ape, as the makers of
>the film 2001 so chilingly conveyed to us."
>[...]
>"On more ominous levels, [...] modern man's
>defiance of accident, evil, and death takes
>the form of skyrocketing production of
>consumer and military goods. Carried to
>its demonic extreme this defiance gave us
>Hitler and Vietnam: a rage against our
>impotence, a defiance of our animal condition,
>our pathetic creature limitations. If we don't
>have the omnipotence of gods, we at least
>can destroy like gods."
>The Denial of Death(ISBN 0-684-83240-2)
>by Ernest Becker©1973
>
>
>Anathema of Zos: The Sermon to the Hypocrites
>http://www.banger.com/banger/spare/anathema/index.html
>
>Austin Osman Spare
>http://www.kheper.auz.com/topics/Hermeticism/Spare.html
>
>Art and Artist, 1932
>"This very essence of a man, his soul, which the artist
>puts into his work and which is represented by it, is
>found again in the work by the enjoyer, just as the
>believer finds his soul in religion or in God, with whom
>he feels himself to be one. It is on this identity of
>the spiritual, which underlies the concept of collective
>religion, and not on a psychological identification with
>the artist, that the pleasurable effect of the work of
>art ultimately depends, and the effect is, in this sense,
>one of deliverance....But both [artist and enjoyer], in
>the simultaneous dissolution of their individuality in a
>greater whole, enjoy, as a high pleasure, the personal
>enrichment of that individuality through this feeling of
>oneness. They have yielded up their mortal ego for a
>moment, fearlessly and even joyfully, to receive it back
>in the next, the richer for this universal feeling."
>
>--Otto Rank Psychologist and Philosopher
>1884 Vienna -- 1939 New York
>http://www.ottorank.com/
>
>
>Human Evolutionary Advancement
>http://faculty.washington.edu/nelgee/
>As part of the evolutionary genesis of species,
>human beings share the physical and even emotional
>traits of their animal cousins. However, human
>behavior is in most areas quite different from other
>primate behavior. It is the uniqueness of human
>behavior that intrigued and fascinated Ernest Becker.
>Drawing on a broad range of investigations and
>writings, Becker pointed toward human language as
>that which qualitatively sets human thought and
>behavior apart from other primate behavior.
>
>We do not have concrete knowledge of when language
>developed among that peculiar ape species from
>which human beings have descended. Nor are we able
>to adjudicate decisively between the various theories
>for how this development took place. But we are sure
>of the fact that with the development of language,
>human self consciousness was made possible,
>replacing instinctual stimulus-response behavior.
>This is what is, in essence, distinctive about human
>behavior and human existence.
>http://faculty.washington.edu/nelgee/

-- 
Kevin S. Wilson
Tech Writer at a University Somewhere in Idaho