Genes and the invention of writing

As we have seen, human genes have continued to evolve as recently as 5,000 years ago, a time which saw an explosion in human inventiveness and creativity.  Let's review what humans invented 5,000 years ago in the Middle East:

• The wheel (originally used for pottery)
• Written language, based on a small number of reusable syllables
• Mathematics, originally based on a unit of 60 instead of 10

So what changed in the human mind 5,000 years ago that allowed such creativity?  And how did changes in our genes enable it to happen?  I believe humans changed then in two fundamental ways:

• Humans began to think more abstractly
• Humans became willing to die for abstractions

An abstraction is a way of explaining many separate experiences or occurrences as if they had something in common.  Writing "iii" to represent three animals, for example, is an abstraction.  Abstractions allows you to make statements about similar concepts, instead of treating every situation as a unique occurrence.  This is extremely powerful, since it allowed us to replace unwritten customs with written laws.

At some point, humans started having emotional relationships with their abstractions.  The emotional connection superceded man's own sense of self-preservation, in some cases.  Humans adhered to abstract laws and became incensed by injustice.  Many became religious zealots, which gave them the motivation to spread faith in an abstract God and divine truth.  Man's dignity invested him in abstractions, and he became willing to fight to the death for them.  That allowed abstractions to flourish, and be transmitted to others.

Comments

[BlackSun]

Sorry! I realize the comments weren't showing up because of the Typepad crash. But I really would enjoy a dialogue. You have a lot of interesting things to say!

[BlackSun]

Why don't you close your entries to comments if you're just going to delete them? I thought the whole point of blogging was dialogue? What's UP, I don't think I said anything offensive.

[BlackSun]

You listed some positive attributes of abstractions, as well as the strong negative of religious fanaticism. I guess we could look at abstractions as a form of data compression, which help us to store more information and think more easily, which is a good thing. But they definitely have their downside, such as with stereotypes, which have led to everything from racism to genocide.

A final point, I don't think we needed human-level abstractions to develop a sense of fairness. It has been shown that chimpanzees get extremely upset when other chimps get special treatment.