OH! …. that’s my favourite thought. Having come to a conclusion about some trivial aspect of human evolution, I then realise it has utterly profound ramifications about other parts.
I feel like I am planning the colour scheme and whether or not to have wall paper in my model of evolution, whilst the neighbours have just figured that a leaf keeps out the rain.
Of course, it’s not really that different. All the parts are there, if only you know to ask the right questions and to see the right answers. I’m not inventing much new. But it is fundamentally different as a whole.
Why this post?
The more I understand about our evolution, the more I understand about our ancestors, and, the more I get a glimpse into the minds of our nearest relatives. It’s not so much that I’m humanising chimps, nor Chimpifying humans … but … I am beginning to see the world through the eyes of our distant ancestors. They were not us … Indeed, I almost said “are not us” … because it is increasingly hard to think of them as “the past” when they are so much “in the present” as I think of them.
Of course, they are not real … but neither is my “perception” of someone like President Putin. That perception is entirely one I have cobbled together from available information … the same as our distant ancestors.
I imagine Putin sleeping in a luxurious room strangely with a four poster bed. The only reason for that idea, must be that Putin is constantly figured in luxurious surroundings where the quintessential sleeping arrangements are a four poster bed. I have no real idea of what kind of bed Putin sleeps in … nor whether he sleeps on his back or side, or other similar details.
So, likewise, when I view our ancient ancestors, they have a sleeping position, and like Putin, I know my view of our ancient ancestors can never be right in every detail, but they did sleep somewhere. Whilst many of the details will be fictions, I am starting to fill in the broad brush details and the picture that is emerging is fascinating.
