Philosophy Wire: Burying the dead…

Was burial of the dead practiced by Neanderthals or is it an innovation specific to our species? Researchers have demonstrated, using a variety of criteria, that a Neanderthal child was buried, probably around 41,000 years ago, at the Ferrassie site (Dordogne, France). [1] But why would they do that? If they haven't sensed something more than the things they sensed? Why do the children laugh in the void? If not for things they see without their eyes? Look human. Yes, you are evolved. Yes, you are grown up. Surely you can see everything now. But this is not why you cry less. That is the only reason you do.

Why would you need to discover the cosmos anyway?

If not for your sensing of absolutely nothing inside?

(Who will burry you?)

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Artificial islands… Dull mirrors…

Four engineered islands rising from Scottish lochs are more than 5,000 years old — a testament to the sweat and organizational skills of the early farmers who hauled tonnes of rock to build the structures. [1] Primitive people. Building things. Modern people. Building things. We think we are evolved. But our greatest success is just repeating our selves. Can the sparrow stop being a sparrow? Look at the mirror. You will see your true reflection. Only when you don't see your reflection…

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Primitive people. Dogs. Whispers…

Coinciding with the Pit Grave culture (4200-3600 years before our era), coming from Southern Europe, the Neolithic communities of the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula started a ceremonial activity related to the sacrifice and burial of dogs. The high amount of cases that are recorded in Catalonia suggests it was a general practice and it proves the tight relationship between humans and these animals, which, apart from being buried next to them, were fed a similar diet to humans'. [1] We consider primitive people as less evolved than us. And yet, it is those people who first understood that there is something beyond this life. A secret we tend to forget today. Too much pondering on the purpose of life has made us forget life itself. Too much effort to reach the stars, has made us forget that we started our life from dust and we will end it there. Instead of rising to the universe, we need to lean down to God. Lean down and listen. We used to listen. But then we started talking. Look at those busy people. Rushing to work. All talking, shouting, walking. So much noise. And yet. The forest is empty…

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Bread before agriculture…

At an archaeological site in northeastern Jordan, researchers have discovered the charred remains of a flatbread baked by hunter-gatherers 14,400 years ago. It is the oldest direct evidence of bread found to date, predating the advent of agriculture by at least 4,000 years. The findings suggest that bread production based on wild cereals may have encouraged hunter-gatherers to cultivate cereals, and thus contributed to the agricultural revolution in the Neolithic period. [1] Having bread before agriculture. Having knowledge before experience. Having wisdom before knowledge. Every time the result is preceding the cause. Don’t you see? You have everything backwards… Eat that bread… Thank the Lord… He has already provided… And you have already eaten…

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Caring for people… Staring into the abyss…

A research has revealed just how knowledgeable Neanderthal healthcare was. The study, by the University of York, reveals that Neanderthal healthcare was uncalculated and highly effective - challenging our notions that they were brutish compared to modern humans. The analysis by the team at York suggest they were genuinely caring of their peers, regardless of the level of illness or injury, rather than helping others out of self-interest. [1] We love. We cherish. We care. Despite all the ugliness of the cosmos around us. It is weird, but beauty sometimes goes hand in hand with evil. The cleanest scenes hide the worst crimes. The uglier the people, the more the love and the compassion deep inside their soul. It is the beasts which care more. It is the beautiful people who are truly ugly. In a world full of blood and suffering, the abyss is not a dead end. But a way out…

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Learning language. Not in your brain. Listen to the breeze…

It has often been claimed that humans learn language using brain components that are specifically dedicated to this purpose. Now, new evidence strongly suggests that language is in fact learned in brain systems that are also used for many other purposes and even pre-existed humans, say researchers in PNAS. [1] Luminous beings. Knowing how to speak, long before they knew how to speak. At a time where there were no sounds and planets roamed the empty space and silently spoke of the meaning of life. We used to watch those planets. Staring them in awe. The greatest poets lived back then. Mute poets. Their expression of anticipation and excitement filling the air with words unspoken. “We are here!”, they cried out silently. And ever since, we try to express that same feeling but fail every single time. The feeling is long gone now. Seek it in the air on top of mountains. Find it in the breeze on a lonely shore. Listen to its cry between the tree leaves on an autumn day. You can still utter it. As long as you don’t…

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Without garbage. Primitive geniouses. Modern morons.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-05-03]: A woman managed to live without generating garbage for two years. [1] What “primitive” people had for granted, we celebrate as a feat. We have lost our connection to Reason as it is taught by Nature, we have invented our own “human logic” and now we pay the price for our stupidity. Because the “logical” is unnatural. “Progress” is actually regression. We look powerful building things, producing things, changing things, controlling things. But we end up becoming things ourselves. Cut off from the world. Alone. Once mighty, once Gods. Now just void… With full garbage bags. We dispose of many things because we actually produce nothing. We used to dispose of nothing because we used to produce the World. By being part of it.

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Corn, pest, evolution...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-09-18]: Pest in Brazil has evolved resistance against GMO corn. [1] Every time we try to beat Nature, she shows us that we cannot. Just grow your corn, get tired to fight off pest, eat your corn, re-grow your corn. It sound primitive. But it is the most high-tech solution there is...

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Amazon, tribes, communication...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-08-28]: An isolated tribe communicating with the world for the first time. [1] But no matter how much we have to say, the best things we say are those we don't say at all. Seek the world. And you will destroy your self…

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Secret paths in the snow. Long gone...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-08-18]: Paths of Inuit which passed from generation to generation orally. [1, 2] Valuable knowledge, with no books. Primitive people full of wisdom. Show respect you arrogant modern man. Bow. Listen. Or freeze to death.

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: The primitive. The "evolved". Weather control.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-05-30]: The adage "Everyone complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it" may one day be obsolete if researchers further develop a new technique to aim a high-energy laser beam into clouds to make it rain or trigger lightning.  [1] We are control freaks. We are evolved. We can control the weather. A primitive man would just adapt to the weather. A primitive man would just live in harmony with the rain. A primitive man would just play with the snow. A primitive man would just be happy under the sun. But what does he know....

PS. See the article about the Mississippi delta and the "do something" mania of modern people...

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Neanderthal childhood. Modern arrogance.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-05-21]: Archaeologists at the University of York are challenging the traditional view that Neanderthal childhood was difficult, short and dangerous. A research team from PALAEO (Centre for Human Palaeoecology and Evolutionary Origins) and the Department of Archaeology at York offer a new and distinctive perspective which suggests that Neanderthal children experienced strong emotional attachments with their immediate social group, used play to develop skills and played a significant role in their society. [1] We believe we are better than the previous ones. For some reason we have accepted as granted that "newer means better". We cannot accept that the "primitive" are better than us, the "progressed" men. Oh, how arrogant can we be? Think. Remember. Once upon a time you were Neanderthal. Once upon a time you were happy...

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Organic agriculture, progress, old knowledge...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-05-04]:

A journalist tries to reach Chinese farmers organic agriculture. [1]
What is new is actually old.
Only going backwards can you experience real progress...
Dig the Earth with your own hands.
And you will experience  enlightenment.

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Moa, Maori, harmony...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-04-25]: It seems that Maori people ate the last moan birds. [1] Many people use this as an argument against primitive people which seems that they did not live in such harmony with nature as once believed. But why is killing a species not in harmony with nature if that species was not fit for survival you fake ecologists? How perverted must one be to think that not only life but also death are part of harmony in the cosmos?

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Ecology. Primitive. "Do something".

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-03-31]: Spending billions to kill a fish, so as to keep the "balance" of the ecosystem. [1] Had we been "primitive" we would simply eat them. And SAVE billions! But now we are "progressed". We feel we need to "do something". (Feyerabend knew what he was talking about) We need to be "ecologists". Because we are not.

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Denmark. Maasai. Primitive. Civilized.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-03-14]: Denmark youths kill thousands of under extinction dolphins in a way to show they entered adulthood and they are… mature! [1, 2] At the same time the Massai Association has stopped killing many lions due to their population decrease (which happened not due to Massai hunting but due to diseases)! [3] Primitive. Civilized. In their order or reference. Respect is what makes one Wise. Respect to nature. Respect to others. Respect to himself. And we have lost all of them... Oh yes. And respect to the dolphins as well!

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Drugs. Puke. Visions.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-01-22]: Jungle drug Ayahuasca could revolutionize psychotherapy. [1] Νausea. Visions. Vomiting that makes you feel perfect. Mysterious wizards who suck the "evil" out of your belly. Ancient rituals. Being free in the mind. An old secret long forgotten... Only Nature who has locked the secrets of our very nature away from us, can unlock them...

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: First religion before "religion".

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-01-17]: An international team of archaeologists has concluded after a 13-year study of remains discovered in southwestern France that Neanderthals buried their dead. [1] What existed before the first religion? Was there a first religion? Why should there be a first religion? Wander has always been part of this cosmos... Were humans always religious? Or did atheists create the first religion?

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: La Nahuaterique... Blessing in disguise...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-04-19]: A village [La Nahuaterique] between countries, in the borders between Honduras and El Salvador. They feel abandoned because no one cares about them. They typically belong to Honduras, but no authorities from that state do anything for them or acknowledge their existence. They feel unlucky... [1]

 

At the same time tribes in Amazon feel unlucky because the state there thinks their territory belongs to it... [2]

Be careful what you wish for...

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...

Philosophy Wire: Hopi, masks, sacred, logical…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-04-14]: A mask from a native American tribe in Arizona has fetched 160,000 euros (£135,000) at auction in Paris, more than three times the pre-sale estimate. Friday's auction of 70 masks fetched some 930,000 euros after a legal challenge to stop the sale failed. Lawyers for the Hopi tribe had asked for the auction to be cancelled on the grounds that the masks must have been stolen from the tribe. It considers them sacred and blessed with divine spirits. Auctioneers, however, say the masks had been bought and sold in the past and were legally acquired. They said blocking the sale would have implications for the trade of indigenous art and could potentially force French museums to hand back collections they have bought. The masks - mysterious looking faces fashioned from wood, leather, horse hair and feathers, and painted in a vivid array of colours - are spiritual artefacts thought to have been taken from a reservation in northern Arizona in the 1930s and 40s.

 

To Hopi Indians they are sacred - tools through which the living can communicate with the spirits of the dead. The sale of sacred Indian artefacts has been outlawed in the United States since 1990 - but the law does not extend to sales overseas. Protesters repeatedly disrupted Friday's auction. As the Mother Crow mask was sold, one protester shouted: "These are sacred things!" One mask was bought by an association to give back to the Hopis, said the Drouot auction house. One buyer who acquired four masks said he was delighted to be adding to his collection of Hopi artefacts. "One day I might give some back," the collector, who declined to be identified, told Reuters news agency."But if it had not been for collectors in the 19th Century who contributed to the field of ethnology, there would very little knowledge of the Hopi." [source: BBC News, NY Times]

 

Independently of whether the masks must be returned to Hopi or not, one thing is for sure: Western people have for many years now lost their ability to grasp the illogical, the mystical, the mysterious which governs the fate of the world. For them, everything is “logical”. Is it day? Is it night?

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...