sdv wrote:
>
> Brad
>
> The estimated max number of humans on Earth without language, culture
> and
> science is approx 250,000 based on body size of humans and required
> amount of
> biomass required to feed it. The reason for our existential solitude is
> directly related to the existence of language, culture and science. For
> this
> reason nothing will ever make us happier - except perhaps genetic
> re-engineering.
[snip]
O clear intelligence, force beyond all measure!
O fate of man, working both good and evil!...
(Sophocles, "Ode to Man", _Antigone_)
Though the ether was filled with electromagnetic waves,
All was dark....
Until man opened his seeing eye, and there was light.
(Ludwig Wittgenstein)
Without language, there would be no enumeration of anything --
there would be no questions and there would be no opinions.
There would not even be nothing (scientific experiment: try
to produce an enumeration or a question or an opinion or whatever
without language, and then, when you [don't!] "think" you
have succeeded, present me in a clear scientific
form -- but without language, ex hypothesi -- the evidence
you have thus found, so we can test it -- without language,
ex hypothesi!).
Yes, language has brought us *all things*, from torture
to tenure, etc.
I fail to see, however, how language is necessarily linked with
empirical solitude (as opposed to being the transcendental
condition for both solitude and community, etc.).
Hermann Broch's novel, _The Sleepwalkers_, ends by recalling
a story from St. Paul: A Roman jailer awakens to the thought
that he has fallen asleep on his watch and the Christians
he was supposed to keep locked up have probably escaped.
The jailer prepares to kill himself for his dereliction of
duty. But the voice of the prisoners rings out:
Do thyself no harm, for we are all here.
I believe that language can be bene-dictory in our
real here-and-now lives, even though I will readily
grant you that, often in fact -- even once would be once too
many times! but in fact the occurrences
are "TMTC" (too many to count, as they say in the
nuclear industry...).
A student is subjected to an SAT test. Here is one example --
and not at all a "really bad" example, but a good example
precisely because "people think nothing of it" -- of how "existential
solitude" and language are related.
Is "man the measure of all things"?
I think a better question is: "Who are the measurers and
who re the measured, and why are the one the one and the other
the other?"
Karl Marx envisaged a human world in which
the government of men shall be replaced
by the administration of things.
I don't think the notion of seeing how far we can go
in making as many as possible be as much as possible
*measurers* and making as few as possible be as little as possible
*objects of measurement* has even begun to be tried.
(Historical question: Did freemasonry have anything
to do with the development of such ideas in medieval
times?)
I agree, we need a kind of "biological reengineering":
Instead of aspiring to a "Brotherhood/sisterhood of humanity",
which would be *biologically based*, let us aspire to
a "Fellowship of humanity", i.e., free affiliation based
on language and not blood.
"Yours in discourse...."
+\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [log in to unmask]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
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