Operation Persistence

[norseman]

 

If they did we would see the fruits of it manifest itself in many other ways that we just do not see with them. 

 

Agreed. One of the hallmarks of the genus Homo is culture. I don't think you'd have language without culture since language is the medium through which it would be passed down first, before writing or anything else (and it's probably the whole reason language develops in the first place). Wood apes demonstrate zero material culture. Not only does that make their use of language highly improbably, it also make it very unlikely that they're Homo. Even Neandertal had art and ceremony and made tools and clothing (and therefore must have had language). Trying to place wood apes in the same category as us and Neandertal is more an exercise in wishful thinking than anything else, IMO.

 

I acknowledge they make sounds that appear language-like, but they're also apparently accomplished mimics. They parrot all kinds of sounds, not just our speech. 

 

 

Plussed.

 

You might like this:

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_pagel_how_language_transformed_humanity.html

[Guest]

It sure makes your site easier to get to than texasbigfoot.  You guys did it for the keyboard-friendliness, didn't you.

 

"Pithy" is the word I think you're looking for. 

You might like this:

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_pagel_how_language_transformed_humanity.html

 

 

Nice!

[Guest DWA]

 

It sure makes your site easier to get to than texasbigfoot.  You guys did it for the keyboard-friendliness, didn't you.

 

"Pithy" is the word I think you're looking for. 

 

Well, it actually is a quicker type.  My fingers do it faster.  But yeah.  How big are their feet really, everything else considered?  Do we call the blue whale "bigfin"?

[southernyahoo]

 

If they did we would see the fruits of it manifest itself in many other ways that we just do not see with them. 

 

Agreed. One of the hallmarks of the genus Homo is culture. I don't think you'd have language without culture since language is the medium through which it would be passed down first, before writing or anything else (and it's probably the whole reason language develops in the first place).

 

Language "is" culture. There are many human cultures that have never advanced beyond spears, bow and arrows and bamboo huts. Isolation plays a part in that, no visual theft, but also yields to whats really needed to survive. It is such a discrepancy, to say language always leads to skyscrapers. It demonstrably doesn't. Also if there are only fleeting glimpses of sasquatch, it is premature to say there is no culture.

[Guest]

Language "is" culture.

Not exactly, but I agree they're likely inexorably linked.

There are many human cultures that have never advanced beyond spears, bow and arrows and bamboo huts.

Sure, and wood apes never advanced even that far.

...to say language always leads to skyscrapers...

...is a ridiculous statement to be sure. Glad I never said that.

Also if there are only fleeting glimpses of sasquatch, it is premature to say there is no culture.

Culture = things. They don't have things or we'd be finding them.

Edited May 23, 2013 by bipto

[norseman]

 

 

If they did we would see the fruits of it manifest itself in many other ways that we just do not see with them. 

 

Agreed. One of the hallmarks of the genus Homo is culture. I don't think you'd have language without culture since language is the medium through which it would be passed down first, before writing or anything else (and it's probably the whole reason language develops in the first place).

 

Language "is" culture. There are many human cultures that have never advanced beyond spears, bow and arrows and bamboo huts. Isolation plays a part in that, no visual theft, but also yields to whats really needed to survive. It is such a discrepancy, to say language always leads to skyscrapers. It demonstrably doesn't. Also if there are only fleeting glimpses of sasquatch, it is premature to say there is no culture.

 

 

Your looking at it wrong. As a species language absolutely has led to skyscrapers. The only proven time in which a species has used language on earth is with us. And taken as an aggregate, humans have used that language to put rovers on Mars, perform brain surgery and build sky scrapers. Yes, some cultures within the species did better than others advancing technology. But the world is constantly shrinking and as more and more cultures become globalized the more they benefit in being "plugged into" the whole of the species.

 

Show me one instance........in which a tribe of natives, in which they were able to get their hands on real clothes, steel knives, high protein food, pots and pans or other modern trade goods chose NOT to utilize them? That is what your suggesting........ 

 

As I have said time and time again, IF Sasquatch is human, and IF Sasquatch is as smart as we are and has language and all of the rest? Then they are a enigma........ they go against our understanding of Biology and Evolution. They stand alone as a species that has the power to better themselves as a species with their own brains and they instead choose to live life as an animal in the forest. What urges they must fight.........the power to create art, music, poetry, tools and all of the rest of the fruits of humanities labor, they turn their back on.

 

It's nonsense. They have none of these urges. Why? Because they do not contemplate them...........it doesn't occur to them that by building a better mouse trap, their lives could be so much easier. We see this in chimps as well. They have done an experiment in which chimps are shown a puzzle with a certain sequence to get a treat. Well watch it for yourself:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIAoJsS9Ix8

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHuagL7x5Wc

 

Chimps are smart...........smarter than children, but they are not dogmatic in learning. Chimps would make a horrible engineering student, to learn how to build bridges for others. But great at getting a treat out of a box for themselves. And that is even if they did possess language.

 

Humans are subtlety more like the Borg or an Ant colony than apes. There is a higher purpose than self. Language is a crucial part of this paradigm.

 

Ultimately it's a chicken vs. egg debate..........did language make us better learners? Or did being a better learner lead to language?

Edited May 23, 2013 by norseman

[southernyahoo]

 

Ultimately it's a chicken vs. egg debate..........did language make us better learners? Or did being a better learner lead to language?

 

 

 

 

I'd go along with that but you are still defining the effects of language and culture through a reference to us. Their culture would be avoid the other humans at all cost, but keep an eye on them too, the intel is handy.

 

Try putting on bigfoot's shoes for a moment.  Human cultures do clash, and as your Ted video mentioned, one typically squashes the other. The only way bigfoot survives this is to hide and hide well. That means don't make yourself easy to find by making permanent shelters, using fire, or staying in one place very long. Less implimentation means less to drag around with you.

 

In the end I agree, they would still be an enigma that defies both the ape and human view of them when the evidence and lack there of are weighed together.

[Guest]

I'd go along with that but you are still defining the effects of language and culture through a reference to us. Their culture would be avoid the other humans at all cost, but keep an eye on them too, the intel is handy.

 

That's not a definition of culture with which I'm familiar.

 

 

In the 20th century, "culture" emerged as a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be attributed to genetic inheritance. Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively. Hoebel describes culture as an integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not a result of biological inheritance.

Distinctions are currently made between the physical artifacts created by a society, its so-called material culture and everything else, the intangibles such as language, customs, etc. that are the main referent of the term "culture".

 

 

The only way bigfoot survives this is to hide and hide well. That means don't make yourself easy to find by making permanent shelters, using fire, or staying in one place very long. Less implimentation means less to drag around with you.

 

Now you're suggesting they all got together and decided to *not* use their abilities as other Homo did. Like, was this done at a global squatch conference? How do they police this strategy? Why are there no splinter groups of wood apes building fires and making tools and such?

Edited May 23, 2013 by bipto

[Guest DWA]

There is considerable evidence that technology is driven bypopulation,e.g., we wouldn't have the internet without the population size that allowed that level of specialization.

Japanese soldiers hiding out after WW II don't build skyscrapers, in other words.

But their prior culture gave them the language.

I really don't consider the topic worthwhile in light of almost no evidence. But population size if nothing else seems to make language and culture just not part of the conversation at this point. Confirm the animal first.

[Cotter]

 

 

 

 

Show me one instance........in which a tribe of natives, in which they were able to get their hands on real clothes, steel knives, high protein food, pots and pans or other modern trade goods chose NOT to utilize them? That is what your suggesting........ 

 

 

 

Not to quite the degree you are suggesting, but the Amish come to mind.

[Guest]

One group of people deciding to eschew technology due to religious practices isn't anything like an entire species supposedly ridding themselves of all vestiges of culture to live in the dirt like an animal apparently just so they can hide from humans. There are no parallels. Zero. It's the stuff of science fiction and simply isn't supportable by the evidence. IMO.

[norseman]

I'd go along with that but you are still defining the effects of language and culture through a reference to us.

 

 

Your framing the debate within a human context not me. 

 

 

Their culture would be avoid the other humans at all cost, but keep an eye on them too, the intel is handy.

 

 

Why? They are supposedly bigger than us........faster than us, stronger than us, and depending on who you talk to? Smarter than us. So why would their culture have evolved to avoid their puny dumb cousins aka us? Yes today we have tanks and fighter jets, thermonuclear warheads and all the rest........ but 50 thousand years ago we had a sharp little rock attached to a puny stick, and our population was maybe 500 thousand world wide. Not a serious hurdle to overcome if you have the mental faculties to grasp at the brass ring.

 

If everything you say is true? Then by using logic one must deduce that it should be THEIR archaeologists digging up our bones and contemplating why we lost our evolutionary race to them.

 

Try putting on bigfoot's shoes for a moment.  Human cultures do clash, and as your Ted video mentioned, one typically squashes the other. The only way bigfoot survives this is to hide and hide well. That means don't make yourself easy to find by making permanent shelters, using fire, or staying in one place very long. Less implimentation means less to drag around with you.

 

 

No. The only way Squatch survives is by following his instincts which tells him to hide and hide well. It's not a conscious choice, because it's beyond him. Sure the lone hunter......the child that's wandered away, the unattended fishing basket, the venison on the drying racks. That's all fairly easy pickings to a large and powerful Sasquatch. But he has learned through the ages that to simply attack the village in full force is like kicking a hornet's nest. Why? Because Humans unlike Sasquatch use language to build communities, and communities build weapons and well coordinated armies that don't make just one puny stick with a sharp rock attached..........they make thousands of them. This is one of the fruits of language. We don't see any of this with Squatch.........

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end I agree, they would still be an enigma that defies both the ape and human view of them when the evidence and lack there of are weighed together.

[norseman]

 

 

 

 

 

Show me one instance........in which a tribe of natives, in which they were able to get their hands on real clothes, steel knives, high protein food, pots and pans or other modern trade goods chose NOT to utilize them? That is what your suggesting........ 

 

 

 

Not to quite the degree you are suggesting, but the Amish come to mind.

 

 

Do the Amish speak for mankind? Do they enforce their beliefs on the species as a whole? No? Why not? Because the human mind is like a pressure cooker........if you try to suppress it the lid is just going to blow off. You cannot kill an idea. But in order to have an idea, you must first possess the mental faculties to spring it forth into life.

 

If Squatch possessed our mind, a human brain...........they would be gunning for us or would die trying. But they would NOT be content to live out their lives eating the crumbs off of our tables. Sasquatch is content to live out his life in the forest, just the same way a Chimp is content to live out his life in the jungle or a cow is content to live out its life in a pasture. It doesn't occur to them that there is any other way.

[Guest]

Sasquatch is content to live out his life in the forest, just the same way a Chimp is content to live out his life in the jungle or a cow is content to live out its life in a pasture. It doesn't occur to them that there is any other way.

 

Based on observation, I think this is entirely right. 

[southernyahoo]

 

I'd go along with that but you are still defining the effects of language and culture through a reference to us. Their culture would be avoid the other humans at all cost, but keep an eye on them too, the intel is handy.

 

That's not a definition of culture with which I'm familiar.

 

 

In the 20th century, "culture" emerged as a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be attributed to genetic inheritance. Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences, and acted creatively. Hoebel describes culture as an integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not a result of biological inheritance.

Distinctions are currently made between the physical artifacts created by a society, its so-called material culture and everything else, the intangibles such as language, customs, etc. that are the main referent of the term "culture".

 

 

The only way bigfoot survives this is to hide and hide well. That means don't make yourself easy to find by making permanent shelters, using fire, or staying in one place very long. Less implimentation means less to drag around with you.

 

Now you're suggesting they all got together and decided to *not* use their abilities as other Homo did. Like, was this done at a global squatch conference? How do they police this strategy? Why are there no splinter groups of wood apes building fires and making tools and such?

 

 

Hoebel describes culture as an integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not a result of biological inheritance.

 

Are you sure their avoidance of people and camera traps isn't some kind of systematic learned behavior? How could one carry the perception that these two can influence where Sasquatch will go, then believe he has made no conscious effort in that act? Why will it not let you observe them with impunity?