That's carbon dating, of course. My conclusion for now is that humans don't do anything rational at all.
On Thursday, April 2, 2015 at 10:52:32 PM UTC+1, archytas wrote: > > I had a nice afternoon. Turned a bar in Manchester into an old-style > tavern with folk singing and a free barrel of Old Peculiar. The themes > were about returning to Greek and Medieval notions of rationality, which > have long struck me as in need of a few beers to get into. Debate went so > well I hardly needed to say anything. > > The Greeks were all over the place around the relevant time, in Italy and > around the Med. This was the time of the of what Hans Joas dubbed "cosmic > religion" of late Antiquity, a fusion of Greek cosmological speculation. > Babylonian astrology, Egyptian theology, Jewish thought and popular magic. > There were many attempts to translate this into political constitutions. > Most of this was put to the Roman sword, and intellectuals became mystic, > aspiring to find new ways to transcend earthly systems entirely, rising > through planetary spheres, purging themselves of materiality to pure reason > - that human reason that is simply the action of a divine principle within > us. Rationality here becomes beyond spiritual to the mystical achievement > of union with he divine. In the absence of Molly, we did the internal > warming of Old Peculiar and some Lancashire Folk. > > So why look to the past like this? The simple answer is that our present > is still full of it. > > The second area we looked at once the beer was going down was the > Medieval. You need to be half-cut to take what went on then. One of the > strongest features of this time concerns just how humans consider > themselves superior and different to animals. We are still taught this > crap as kids - 'it's rationality stupid'. Cue some cute pictures of > animals problem solving and being very rational (lions hunting at night is > a real killer). And a run out for Allan's soul, with a slight twist. What > separates humans and animals is that humans can imagine they possess an > immortal soul. If the soul is the seat of reason, to say humans are in > possession of one is to say we are rational creatures. > > You need the top shelf now, as these forms of religiosity are the basis of > bureaucracy and rationality. Descartes becomes spiritual and mystic. The > question, of course, is whether we can escape. It's bank holiday here on > Friday. This brings discussion of the archaeology of "heroic societies" > other than just the Attic tragedy kind, as engines of the self-aggrandising > story. > > By the end (people fly home Tuesday) we hope to be able to talk new > economic, perhaps find some partnerships to write something different - or > not write and think of different things to do. After a couple of pints, I > was imagining dating Molly and Allan in about 500 BC to 1500 AD. > -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
