Walpurgis
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Templates
« on: 2003-05-03 20:01:11 » |
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Grant that human thinking does not come from a meme, a mind, a monad, an Idea, a soul, God, or any other dualistic metaphysic.
Grant that:
Human thinking originates from the template of the tactile-kinesic (feeling-moving) body.
Human bodies experience invariants of their hominid existence (suckling, eating, breathing, walking, speak etc. etc.)
Humans are aware (as infants become aware) of being ale to suckle, eat, breathe, walk, speak etc. etc. This awareness is the understanding that "I can.." suckle, eat, etc.
From the template of bodily "I cans" concepts are formed. E.g. from eating is the awareness of grinding/mashing food down. With it, the awareness of softness (lips, tongue, some food) and hardness (teeth, some food). The hard teeth have their own properties (fell how different your incisors are to your molars) - edges, bluntness, irregularity, etc. In eating we are also aware of transforming hard food into soft mush.
From hard, edged teeth analogies can be drawn to other experienced senses of hardness/edge - like with rocks (the homonid learns to make tools from rocks) or utensils (the infant learns that forks and knives do a similar job to teeth).
Such bodily experiences are invariant - all paradigmatic humans experience them, they are universal. From these, conceptual thought arises.
Now speculative questions:
How far does this template of universal experiences influence our cultural constructions: politics, ethics, religions, values, laws, norms, art, language, technologies?
How far does this template of universal experiences influence our existential sense and conceptualisation of art, death, choice, emotions?
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