Carranza, OT though a neurologist by training, a mathematician and astronomer by avocation, I do have some rather different views than the conclusions drawn by Jaynes. Since the market is closed where I am I venture this observation FWIW, simply this. On my livingroom wall hangs a reproduction of a painting of a buffalo copied to silk screen print from the a cave at Altamira, Spain. It is by a member of the Cromagnon community and dates to something in excess of 20,000 years B.C.E. Fossil records show no significant difference in skeletal structure between us and them. Similar paintings have been found in several places elsewhere in Spain and in France that are even older based on carbon dating. I gaze daily at that picture over my morning coffee and see no difference in yearning, no different an appreciation of power or awe of nature in the mind leaving its ancient mark upon those dank, buried walls lo these many millinnia from the mind inside my head, or yours, or inside the poets, artists, searchers, all of us we have any record of. I think not much at all has changed...except for a few ice ages, the invention of written language and money, a few spectacular excursions into manipulating our world with our paradigms, and of course the mind of Allan Greenspan who used to say (1966) that he believed gold was a good thing. I think Jaynes is deceived. Now to bed and back to business tomorrow with no more philosophical meandering on my part. Our great game of chess leaves little time for such idle fancies these days, no? Chinese times, yes, Chinese times. The curse, the curse.
Good evening,
Jim Black |
