Metamorphs, organisms with altered DNA, include:
"Talking animals." (p. 64)
I was brought up to believe that that was impossible. Reason and speech required a soul, which could not be created simply by altering DNA. This body-soul dualism was presented as a revealed Christian doctrine although in fact it had been imported from Greek philosophy where it was consistent with the idea of reincarnation whereas Biblical immortality was of a resurrected body. Belief in souls was defended by philosophical arguments, not by scriptural quotations.
By cooperatively acting on their environment, our prehuman ancestors developed the abilities to speak and think about that environment. No souls need apply. It follows that altering the DNA of other animals might generate speech and thought in them.
I encountered this philosophical disagreement at primary school. Having read Robert Heinlein's Starman Jones, which features an alien animal with limited vocabulary, I remarked that, if animals were more intelligent, then we would be able to converse with them. A teacher replied that, if animals had souls, then we would be able to converse with them. Two opposed world views opened up before me as when pictures of dinosaurs and cavemen were contrasted with pictures of Adam and Eve.
16 comments:
The current consensus is that hominids developed full sapience to deal with their social environment - with each other. We’re far more intelligent than we need to be to be hunter-gatherers.
Mr Stirling,
That explains a lot. In my experience (!), a lot of internal thought is rehearsed conversations. Inwardly, I want to do two things: first, think about something more interesting and helpful; secondly, practice nonattachment to thoughts, in zazen.
Paul.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I think Poul Anderson gave us his speculations, in "The Little Monster," in showing us how the Pithecanthropines had achieved that full sapience, and gaining their own souls.
Ad astra! Sean
I’m dubious about that — their brains were too small.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
A good point, esp. since I'm sure you know more about anthropology than I do. Still, I have rather a soft spot for "The Little Monster." And human full intelligence had to begin at some point in the past.
I thought just now of African pygmies. IIRC, they are or were very small people, surely not that much larger than Pithecanthropines.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: they’re small, but their brains are much larger relative to their bodies. Notice how their heads look disproportionate?
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I looked up pictures of African pygmies, and you are right! Their heads do look somewhat more disproportionately larger than the rest of their bodies. To accommodate, of course, the larger brains needed for full sapience.
Dang! This will have to make me doubt the sapience of the Pithecanthropines we see in "The Little Monster."
Ad astra! Sean
BTW, this proves that Tolkien wasn't being unrealistic about Hobbits -- sentient humans that small are perfectly possible.
The ur-humans, Homo Erectus, our earliest common ancestor post-australopithecine, was about our size.
The differences between H. Erectus and H. Sapiens Sapiens are almost all beneath the neck; in terms of body proportions, limb length, joint structure, feet, spine, etc., we're pretty much identical except that our bones are a little thinner.
This is because H. Erectus was the first hominin that occupied our ecological niche(*); a social, cursorial hunter and apex predator.
(*) our niche before the advent of agriculture, at least, but in evolutionary terms that's only yesterday.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Re Tolkien: I agree! In the days of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins normal sized hobbits averaged four English feet in height or a bit more. And a TALL hobbit could be 4.5 feet tall.
I read with interest your comments about Homo Erectus. Something like this: Pithecanthropines, Australopithecines, then Homo Erectus? And next came the Neanderthals?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: we and the Neanderthals both evolved from a variety of late h. Erectus - H. Heidelbergensis, with a split about 400,000 years ago (not counting some human-Neanderthal interbreeding much more recently).
The current situation, with only one hominid species around, is in evolutionary terms unusual. Until rather recently, say about 30,000 years ago, there were three or more around at any given time, with different adaptations. H. Sapiens coexisted with Neanderthals, Denisovans, late h.erectus, and at least one other highly divergent subspecies for a long time.
What seems to have ended that was that modern humans can adapt better and faster to any environment by cultural changes.
Though the earlier types ‘survive’ in scattered genes due to interbreeding. All non-Africans have some Neanderthal genes, and some populations (New Guinea, Australian aborigines) have quite a bit of Denisovian as well.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I was very interested by these comments. I will be looking up Homo Heidelbergensis. And I am still rather sorry Neanderthals and the "hobbits" of Flores don't still exist.
And I strongly suspect modern humans also KILLED off surviving populations of Neanderthals and other hominins 30,000 years ago.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: probably a mixture of violence and out-competing them by being able to support larger populations with larger-scale social organization.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree that was almost certainly what happened.
And what were Neanderthals really LIKE? How different would they be from modern humans if they still existed? All we can do is conjecture, as Anderson did in "The Long Remembering."
Ad astra! Sean
They were probably less inventive and less behaviorally flexible. Their populations were always much smaller than those of humans in the same environment; the difference seems to have been that our ancestors learned to anticipate and store seasonal surpluses in ways that Neanderthals couldn’t. Thus human populations were constrained by the average -yearl- capacity, and Neanderthals by that of the least productive -season-.
Also,isotope analysis indicates they were more specialized in hunting big game, while humans hunted game of all sizes, and birds and fish - they were lions to our wolves.
Neanderthals also imitated human tools, but their own were more generalized ( not as closely adapted to local environments) and changed more slowly.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Then you are taking a view opposite to what many anthropologists have today. The current consensus is that Neanderthals were NOT as stupid as they were once thought to have been. That they were as intelligent and imaginative as modern humans.
But the points you listed do seem reasonable, and plausible. And should act as a corrective against any excessive exaggerating of Neanderthal abilities. But I still think they would fall within the normal range of intelligence.
If Neanderthals still existed now in large numbers, I can see them gravitating towards jobs requiring strength and stamina, but not all that much brain wattage. Ranching, farming, mining, construction?
Ad astra! Sean
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