Wednesday, September 14, 2016

... against the concept of "Before History"


1) ... against the concept of "Before History" · 2) ... on Chronological Snobbery, Mainly

What Happened Before History? Human Origins
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiQaabX3_o


0:18

"Never before have we humans lived in a world as sophisticated and engineered to our needs as today."

I'd say that is false. For one thing, the level of technology we experience, per se (which is another thing than "to our needs") may be a recuperation of a pre-Flood level. At least in some parts.

For another, much of the engineering is not to "our needs" but to the needs the engineering engineers US to have. Using two hours to get from home to work over a distance it would have taken a week or more to do at foot is for instance not per se a human need, it is an engineered need. In the Middle Ages, if you worked in town, the usual distance between bed and work was - down the stairs. And the usual distance between work and bed was - up the stairs, other turn to the table, then return to the direction of bed.

0:30

"Food, shelter and security is more or less taken for granted."

As it was in the Middle Ages. As it was in Antiquity. At least in civilised areas.

0:34

"For more than 99.99% of human history"

... assuming the carbon dates for Lascaux being 20 000 years old are correct, of course.

0:37

"Life was completely different"

A certain stone age culture or series of such, was probably what one was compelled to for material and passing reasons right after Flood - but these few centuries were misdated to thousands or tens of thousands of years due to radically lower C14 in athmosphere.

"And there is no such thing as just one human history"

Supposing Mr Neanderthal, Mrs Denisova and Miss Heidelbergensis were not human, of course. Some have said Negroes are not human, that is called racism. I think you are being racist to the above ladies and gentlemen.

0:52

Six million years ago ... as dated by Ka-Ar dating, recently proven useless after Mount St Helen's eruption.

A little later

"2.8 million years ago"

also misdated by Ka-Ar.

1:12

Two hundred thousand years ago = beyond C14 misdatings due to lower C14 level back then = due to the even worse misdater Ka-Ar.

1:25

Homo Erectus (if any such*) = human like us, descending from Adam like us.

* Homo Heidelbergensis doubtless existed. But not always counted as Erectus. Peking man and Java man are more doubtful.

1:47

"So there was some mixing"

- supposing we are really talking of different species or kinds. It proves at least we are not as far from Neanderthals as two fully separate species.

2:09

"Used a lot of tools but did not make a lot of progress for nearly two million years"

- well, that is of course assuming the datings are correct.

And assuming we know the full technological level available to each buried man we find (some tools are not put into graves).

And assuming we know none of them lived in technological privations (like persecuted => cave men hunter gatherers, or like post Flood with soil still unsuitable for agriculture and cultivating linen and cold climate => cave men hunter gatherers).

2:17

"Until they learned to control fire"

... supposing there ever was a time when man hadn't.

2:24

Equivocation on "development of our brain".

Individual development, yes, fat and protein and calories from cooked food do help.

Genetic evolution, no, mastering fires does not produce that. If that was what you meant ... you could theoretically have been unaware of the equivocation.

2:55

Apart from what already was commented on (Erectus or at least the known Heidelbergensis, as well as Neanderthal, simply human, 300 000 years ago a Ka-Ar, i e worthless dating of any specific find), there is no proof there ever was any "proto-language less complex than ours". There is no evidence to back up any pre-historic intermediate between animal sounds only designating the concrete and usually emotional and the full capacity of speaking in conceptual ways, and it is philosophically a very problematic notion.

3:20

The idea of anatomical but not mental humans being there for the timespan between 200 000 and 70 000 years ago, namely 130 000 years, longer than the mental faculties are supposed to have been in place on your view, is racialist to the extreme.

3:36

explosion of innovation around 50 000 years ago?

Well then we are talking carbon dated material. It is on the Biblical view of history not very odd if men making more tools give more occasions for carbon dating and therefore to getting within the span of years misdated only by lower C14 content back when things were alive.

3:48

had a multipurpose brain ... as usual in humans ... and a more advanced/effective language ... than WHEN?

4:28

The abilities enumerated are sides of rationality, whereof other sides suggest a characteristic one can call "universal validity" (or logic as well as of moral Fundamentals), which in its turn precludes rationality being a quality emerging from previously non-rational life.

4:41

"for the next 40 000 years"

- misdating history by carbon involves stretching non-agricultural period way beyond the realistic view of some centuries of technology loss and recuperation after Flood.

4:47

"our ancestors were ONLY one animal among many"

- false, theologically since opposed to Bible, historically since opposed to historic truth described in Bible, as well as elsewhere, and philosophically because an unwarranted assumption.

5:44

12 000 years ago, multiple locations, humans developed agriculture, you said

How about some two thousand or more years before Christ, man in multiple locations recovered pre-Flood actualisation (or comparable) of agricultural know how never lost? That WOULD explain multiple locations, same time.

6:14

"inventing things"

- in fact, weaving had already been there in the pre-Flood society, it was not invented from scratch in the time misdated to 12 000 or 10 000 years ago.

6:25

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"for the first time" - no. It was a recovery.

renge9909
You know, you could just keep your comments in one post.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
For one thing, they are on successive parts of video.

For another, I tried exactly that on a computer which muddled the line breaks into one paragraph.

And third, this way anyone who wants to comment on ONE aspect of my criticism can comment on that one, and those wanting to comment on ANOTHER can comment on that one.


6:47

The first city and very soon Empire was actually built before all this - in Nod, east of Eden.

The communities just after Flood may have been much smaller than cities in conventional sense up to Tower of Babel - which could be Göbekli Tepe or nearby Urfa - nevertheless, they could have belonged to a common humanity empire, first Noahide then Nimrodian, which did not show clearly in archaeological remains.

7:07

"transformed everything we thought we knew ..."

At least in propaganda - declaring "zero" a number or considering Earth as a planet around the Sun is hardly real progress.

As to biology, as far as I know more progress was made by Aristotle and early Scholasticism than by scientific revolution 500 years ago.

Your view of history is very typically modern, it takes prehistory, in great imagined detail, then fast forwards over known Ancient and Medieval history and the goes to Scientific Revolution as if it were a legimate heir to getting agriculture (back).

I will grant you mathematics around and just after that time gained, if no new knowledge rationally defensible against Middle Ages mathematics, at least a few new useful techniques (trigonometry, calculus, and logarithms).

8:01

"today we live in the most prosperous age humanity has ever experienced"

Well, you were a bit weak on the Middle Ages ... we might be more prosperous in terms of available merchandise, but less prosperous in terms of time to enjoy the merchandise we got, for instance, compared to then.

You would not know, you seem to have missed the Middle Ages completely.

8:25

"we have looked deep into the past of the universe with mechanical eyes" ...

Supposing, of course, the cosmic distance ladder starting with parallax is a valid approach (plus a finite speed of light). What if a Geocentric does not believe the things seen through telescopes are really light years away, let alone sometimes millions or billions of them?

Not to mention, there is at least some doubt of men actually walking on the moon.

8:51

"we are not different, but our lifestyle is"

I should think the Middle Ages are far better representative of most of our history than the few centuries of palaeolithic stone age misdated into huge ages of millennia.

If we need to adapt our lifetyle to our being, the Middle Ages will do very well as a model.

9:02

as for skyscrapers, do check the equation:

Two Towers + Aeroplanes + Malcontents going Terrorist = 9-11.

A bit like:

Sufficient Combustible material + sufficient Oxygen + sufficient Heat = fire.

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