Out of Africa: From whence comes our "minds"

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Out of Africa From whence comes
our "minds"

• The roots of humanity?

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Feelings/Importance

• hate-love relationship with s t
• progress and enslavement
• curiosity
• lack of knowledge about above my head
• are there limits playing God

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Spiritual Journeys
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Cultural Journeys

• hunting and gathering

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Cultural Journeys

• a neolithic revolution

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Cultural Journeys

• an agricultural revolution

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Cultural Journeys

• an industrial revolution

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Intellectual Journeys

• Pre Greek?

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Intellectual Journeys

• Platonic- changing nature must be brought to the
  ideal
• Aristotelian - intricate, ordered, unique,
  purposeful
• Stoicism - gaia and divine
• Epicurean - the physical

• Greek Thought

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Intellectual Journeys

• Structured
• Willed
• Harmonious
• Static
• Kinship

• Medieval Thoughts

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Intellectual Journeys

• human uncentered
• vast
• limitless
• physical
• knowable
• masterable
• mechanical
• material

• Scientific thoughts

Francis Baconhttp//www.classicallibrary.org/baco
n/
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Intellectual Journeys

• ?

• Technological thoughts

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Intellectual Journeys

• academic fields
• genetic engineering
• medical technology, environmental chemistry
• nuclear energy
• social science
• political science
• computer science
• environmental science
• science is authoritative

• Technological thoughts

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Intellectual Journeys

• S T are complex
• Not very interesting
• Difficult to understand
• Resistance to explanation
• galaxies, quarks, proteins, ecosystems

• Technological thoughts

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Biological Journeys?

• ?s

• sapiens -1 million years
• erectus - 3 million years
• pre - rest 30 - 35 million years

we share 47 of our genes with yeast -
Goodenough 2000
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Biological Journeys?

• Most important, the Out of Africa model indicates
  that the human species-and the radical changes it
  has brought about on land, sea and air - is in
  fact a very recent phenomenon in the saga of life
  on earth. Latecomers to the planet, humans are an
  evolutionary "work in progress," whose final
  outcome is yet to be determined.

William F. Allman U.S. News World Report ,
Sept 16, 1991 v111 n12 p53(8
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Integrated Journeys
"What, in fact, do we see happening in the
modern paroxysm? It has been stated over and over
again. Through the discovery yesterday of the
railway, the motor car and the aeroplane,
the physical influence of each man, formerly
restricted to a few miles, now extends to
hundreds of leagues or more. Better still thanks
to the prodigious biological event represented by
the discovery of electromagnetic waves, each
individual finds himself henceforth (actively and
passively) simultaneously present, over land and
sea, in every corner of the earth." Pierre
Tielhard de Chardin

• Running with the Buffalo

"Is this not like some great body which is being
born - with its limbs, its nervous
system, its perceptive organs, its memory - the
body in fact of that great living Thing
which had to come to fulfill the ambitions
aroused in the reflective being by the newly
acquired consciousness ? Pierre Tielhard de
Chardin

• On to the Noosphere

Peter Mayer, Elements
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Conclusions?

• ?

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Next week

• What is science and the Scientific Method?
• Does science shape reality? Models of the
  Scientific World
• Project and Course Topic Planning Session 2
  Project and Course Topic Planning Session