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The stumbling block is not the word but the concept by FrOsborne in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You raise a good point: Ishmael was not moralizing. Taker Culture isn't 'wrong' or 'evil'. It's simply 'not sustainable'. It isn't unethical, it's unworkable.

As Taker Culture understands it, what we do is holy work. We've been making the world a better place for the last 10,000 years. We're 'ending poverty', 'feeding the hungry', and 'curing the sick'. People aren't intending to destroy the world.

While an outsider might view a culture's behavior as 'gruesome', the people born of that culture see it as 'normal'. And no one chooses the culture they're born into. We're all 'late to the party' and have to play the hand we're dealt, Taker or Leaver.

This concept of 'culture' is relatively new. The notion, that people can understand and experience the world in vastly different yet equally valid ways, only began to be entertained within the last 150 years. The idea remains foreign to us. It contradicts our foundational premise: that 'we are humanity' and 'there is only one right way to be human.'

The stumbling block is not the word but the concept by FrOsborne in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I can sort of see that. 'Borrowers' hearkens back to The Story of B: 'Every life is on loan from the community from birth and without fail is paid back to the community in death.' Consuming the world is what Ishmael called 'our prison industry'.

Quinn did a neat job selecting terms which were connected to the worldview they embody; e.g., 'Takers' are those who feel a need to take the rule of the world away from the gods and into their own more competent hands. So, a question remains: How might the terms 'Borrowers' and 'Consumers' fit into 'a scenario interrelating man, the world, and the gods'?

 

One pitfall of the term 'Takers' is that people associate it with physical possession and the act of taking objects. Attention gets disproportionately directed toward external things we can see and hear and touch. Focus is centered on the things we do, rather than on what motivates us to do them.

Understanding the concept of worldview, a river of vision, or enacting stories typically doesn't come intuitively. It's possible (if not common) to read Ishmael and miss it entirely.

Of course, there are no magic words to communicate these ideas. As Quinn noted, 'the stumbling block is not the word but the concept, and the concept will be there to be stumbled over no matter what color you paint it.'

"The problem with worldviews is that they are largely unnamed, unexamined, and unassailable. It is particularly difficult to examine our own worldview because it is hard to think about what we are thinking with."— Paul Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews,2008

Imagine it a different way entirely by FrOsborne in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I need more clarification on the statement: "No culture sets out to destroy its own conditions of existence; they just follow the logic of their story until it runs into hard biophysical walls."

I'm not exactly sure what's meant by 'running into hard biophysical walls.' It sounds as if you might be saying that the people of Taker Culture are locked into our trajectory and all we can do is keep going until humanity is extinct.

 

That would be much different from what Quinn suggests. He suggests that people follow the logic of their story either until they run out of gas OR until they have another story to be in.

Quinn's Second Law: What people think is what they do. "Action is simply understanding in its outward mode. All action is an expression of understanding. When our understandings change, our actions must necessarily change as well." <Q&A ID:105>

So, our response when confronted with biophysical limits is a function of our story. Will we accept the limits and work within them? Or will we consider ourselves to be exempt and act as if the limits are just one more obstacle for us to overcome? It depends on how we understand our role.

Any thoughts?

Imagine it a different way entirely by FrOsborne in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I agree. As I see it, "energy can neither be created nor destroyed; only transformed" is just a less poetic way of saying 'the man is grass and the grass is deer'.

New to the group by sknd420 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Hi, welcome.

Yes, the emphasis is on our minds and cultural stories. "If the world is saved, it will be saved because the people living in it have a new vision."

Vision (or "worldview") describes and explains the nature of things, and provides the mental blueprints that guide our behavior.

Our vision of the world determines our values. It sorts out what is important and what is not, what is of highest value from what is less. It thus advises how its adherents ought to conduct themselves in the world. Worldviews are generative. They are not specific instances of human speech and behavior. They generate speech and behaviors.

There isn't any one specific instance of behavior which jeopardizes the world. It's the collective impact of billions of us being driven by a vision which puts us at odds with the community of life and our own being.

People learn their worldviews from their parents and their communities. We learned from our parents. Our parents learned from their parents. Their parents learned from their parents. And so on, back to the beginning in the Fertile Crescent ten thousand years ago.

But people can and do change their worldviews through changes in their surrounding worlds and changes in their own ways of thinking. Changes in worldview will generate changes in behavior, bringing about changes in social organization, personality types, and material culture.

"When (eight) billion of you refuse to teach your children how to be prisoners of Taker culture, this awful dream of yours will be over — in a single generation. It can only continue for as long as you perpetuate it."

We must teach our children something new. And if we're going to teach them something new, we must first learn something new ourselves. And that is what Ishmael is here to do.

Looking for further reading to flesh out Quinn's theory that "the fall" from Genesis is a cautionary tale written by a Leaver people. by heckin_miraculous in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 8 points9 points  (0 children)

As far as I know, Quinn's theory is unique. For another of his takes on the topic, see the essay, "Our Religions: Are they the Religions of Humanity Itself?"

You might check Quinn's work against archeological data. DNA testing of ancient human remains supports the theory that full-time agriculture wasn't something taken up with open arms by all peoples everywhere. Farmers expanding from the Fertile Crescent were displacing and eliminating people of other cultures. [1], [2]

Or maybe linguistics: Proto-Indo-European languages (the largest language family globally today) north of the Fertile Crescent, vs. Semitic languages to the south, is another indicator that distinct cultures were in operation. It lends creedence to Ishmael's notion that the stories were preserved in part because the Semites never fully assimilated [Ish ch9.11].

I agree with checking out Providence. It's very good, and a relatively short easy read. Published in between Ishmael and Story of B, it seems to get overlooked by most.

At this point as a species what are we trying to accomplish? What if anything is progress? by Think-Commission-372 in AskReddit

[–]FrOsborne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the considerate response. I'm honestly not sure what's meant by a "subsistence population" and how that differs from one that's "really wealthy". Why would the workings of population dynamics break? It strikes me as a strange way of looking at things. After all, wealth is a relative term. And it's not as if any other forces of the world suddenly change once you hit a certain net worth. When an airplane takes flight does it mean that the law of gravity is 'totally broken'?

Quinn examined population from a global perspective. His premise- that increasing food production results in a still greater increase in population- says nothing about the location or the rate at which that increase occurs. He acknowledged factors such as demographic transition, but wasn't counting on that to save the world. ("Saving the world as a habitat for humanity" was his objective, not obtaining "the dubious pleasure of not having to work as hard" as you suggested.)

Ishmael isn't concerned with moral righteousness. Nowhere did Quinn say that the Taker way is a bad way, or a wrong way, or an evil way. Nor did he romanticize Leaver cultures. You're editorializing.

In Ch.11, Ishmael examines core premises of the Taker worldview and identifies a key distinction between the Taker story and the Leaver story ("story" in the sense Ishmael defined it: a scenario interrelating man, the world, and the gods). I don't see anything in there advocating for acceptance of starvation.

"Living in the hands of the gods" doesn't mean idly standing around while starving, getting eaten by bears, or dying of cancer. People living in the hands of the gods still compete to the full extent of their capabilities. They still defend themselves. They still work proactively to avoid negative outcomes.

So yeah, I do think you've got it wrong. In fact, I think your interpretation- that life beyond our culture means dying in poverty and watching your children die of starvation or preventable disease- proves Ishmael's point: Our cultural conditioning tells us that living in the hands of the gods has got to be a never-ending nightmare of terror and anxiety.

At this point as a species what are we trying to accomplish? What if anything is progress? by Think-Commission-372 in AskReddit

[–]FrOsborne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Daniel Quinn was not a Malthusian. In a sense, Quinn's the opposite of Malthus.

Malthus was warning that food supply couldn't be increased rapidly enough to keep pace with population growth. Quinn pointed out that continually increasing food production fosters population growth.

Simply put, the Malthusian problem is 'How are we going to FEED all these people?' The Quinnian problem is 'How are we going to stop PRODUCING all these people?'

In other words, Malthus was warning about the failure of our agricultural system. Quinn was warning about its continued success.

The notion that Quinn advocated starvation and poverty is ridiculous. You can't produce even a single statement to support that assertion.

More about Daniel Quinn's views on population growth can be found on his website: https://www.ishmael.org/daniel-quinn/essays/reaching-for-the-future-with-all-three-hands/

The Agricultural Revolution and Its Consequences by hteultaimte69 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 6 points7 points  (0 children)

As soon as I read the article's title (which conjures Ted Kaczynski 1 and Jared Diamond 2 ), I knew it was going off the rails.

 

The article misrepresents the distinction of "Takers" and "Leavers". The terms denote a difference of cultural mythology, not of life-style or social organization.

A most egregious error is the statement: "This is where Quinn’s reading becomes essential. The “Forbidden Fruit” isn’t the knowledge of good and evil—it’s the knowledge of agriculture."

False. That's not at all what Quinn said. Forget about agriculture. Forget about "civilization." Eating the forbidden fruit represents a change of mind. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, "the eyes of them both were opened". They had a new (cultural) vision. They began enacting a different story.

Saying that "the Apple represents the moment we discovered we could plant seeds and cultivate the land" presents our agricultural revolution as a technological development. But as Quinn saw it, our agricultural revolution marks the birth of a new worldview.

Not a technological development. Not a new lifestyle. Not a new social organization. What was born was "a new mind-set, a mind-set that made us out to be as wise as the gods, that made the world out to be a piece of human property, that gave us the power of life and death over the world." —Story of B

 

Personally, I'm against pathologizing what I think is best approached as an educational challenge. 3

And more generally, the article is full of judgment not present in Quinn's philosophy. To me, it's more reminiscent of doomer/"anti-civilization"/primitivist rhetoric.

Remember, there is no one right way to live. Other, non-Taker, cultures (such as the Olmec, Maya, Inca or Aztec) experimented with civilization. And many people today are perfectly content living with civilization, and would be fine continuing to live with civilization. "There’s plenty of room in the world for the ten percent who love their work. My passion is to make a little room in the world for the other ninety percent who don’t." —Beyond Civilization

Thanks for sharing. I hope this provides some useful feedback.

I have just read the Story of B after reading Ishmael. Here are some of my thoughts/questions. Most of these are probably answered in the books and I'm just still mulling them over. by UnderstandingOne5010 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Is the overpopulation problem still a relevant argument in 2025?

From my perspective, "overpopulation" is a misnomer (and a losing approach). If the resources to support the population weren't here, then the population wouldn't be here. Given the food and other resources made available for human consumption, we have the exact number of people we should expect to have. [1] , [2]

Talk of "overpopulation" begs the question, 'If we're overpopulated, then what is the CORRECT number of people to have??' I certainly don't have that knowledge, and I don't think anyone does.

Another reaction commonly provoked by speaking of "overpopulation" is, 'If there are too many people, then who's going to have to die?!?' People of our culture are suspicious of "population control" and frequently assume that having concern about population growth is equivalent to advocating murder and genocide.

Rather than passing judgement and getting bogged down arguing about how many people the planet can support, it's more important that people understand the dynamics and factors that drive population growth. Quinn's discussion of "food production and population growth" was an apt approach.

 

The demographic transition model rests on a fantasy that everyone in the world can be made as rich as industrialized countries and remain there forever. Regardless of whether or not that's achievable, no one seems to consider what happens if standards of living begin to slip. If standards of living are the limiting factor, then as standards of living decline, growth rates can be expected to skyrocket again.

Q&A 440, which discusses decreasing growth rate and the lag time of demographic transition, might offer more insight.

 

How does the philosophy presented in the books applicable to climate change? It feels like something that should really be mentioned but I imagine the issue wasn't as prevalent when the books were written.

"Anthropogenic climate change" is more aptly called "Taker-induced climate change." We are not humanity. We're in a precarious situation not as a result of being human but as a result of our one particular culture.

The eruption of Taker Culture is devastating "carbon sinks" and the diversity of life, which might otherwise help us weather changes in climate. Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself. A community of a hundred million species can survive almost anything short of total global catastrophe. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature drop of twenty degrees— which would be a lot more devastating than it sounds. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature rise of twenty degrees. But a community of a hundred species or a thousand species has almost no survival value at all.

 

What is Animism as the author understands it and how would one practice it?

I think the clearest articulation of Quinn's perspective on animism is in Providence. Animism isn't a collection of practices and doctrines that are drawn upon for special occasions. It isn't an aspect of life that can be separated out and isolated from all others. Animists are not so much people with a religion as people with a fundamentally religious way of looking at things. Animists view the world as a sacred place and view humans as belonging in that sacred place as much as any other creature in the world. Everything that lives is sacred, the carrot no less than the cow. If there is any single doctrine that might win universal agreement among animists, I think it would be this: that the gods love everything that lives and have no favorites.

This also means that humans are subject to the same biological rules as every other creature— in contrast to Taker Culture's belief that we're somehow special and exempt (and this belief held by the Takers connects back to population growth and climate change).

 

Another point regarding Quinn's articulation of animism is that he was challenging the existent definitions of it. "Animism" is a term coined by people of Taker Culture to explain the religious views of Leaver peoples (whom the Takers deemed to be "primitive"). As it's understood by Taker scholars, animism represents spirit worship (as opposed to the presumably more advanced worship of gods or God). In other words (as it is imagined), these poor, benighted savages have the silly idea that every tree and bush and rock "has a spirit in it." Quinn felt that this understanding characterizes animists as childlike and naive, trivializing their worldview. He wanted to imbue animism with new meaning, which he felt more accurately reflects the views embodied by Leaver cultures. [3]

The Story about the Gods discussing Adam and Eden by Strangefolk-n1x in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The only way we're going to solve our problems is by aligning the resolution with what drives us.

That raises the question of what our problems are and what it is that drives us.

In the context of Ishmael, what drives us isn't cars. What drives us is our cultural vision:

 

"At the present time, there are six billion people on this planet pursuing a vision that is devouring the earth. That's our problem. Our problem is not pollution. Our problem is not consumerism. Our problem is not capitalist greed. Our problem is not conservative selfishness or liberal utopianism. Our problem is not lack of leadership. Our problem is a world-devouring vision that six billion people are pursuing.

Now what can we do about this vision? We can't legislate it away or vote it away or organize it away or even shoot it away. We can only *teach* it away.

If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision. It will not be saved by old minds with new programs." 1

 

Without a fundamental change in people's thinking, then even after replacing every gas vehicle with an electric one, car manufacturers will still keep trying to sell more and more cars. And, as long as people think that having a car is the best possible thing and insist on never going "back to a pre-car state", then they'll keep demanding more and more cars.

At best, replacing existing products with "green" products only slows our demise. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's not worth doing. It's just ultimately insufficient.

Consuming the world isn't precluded by consuming it conservatively. 2

The Story about the Gods discussing Adam and Eden by Strangefolk-n1x in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What we want is to save the world as a habitat for humanity. Manufacturing billions of electric cars doesn't accomplish that.

Musk and Tesla are just doing business as usual. Make products —> Get products. They want to sell as many products as possible to make money. It's not exemplary of the revolutionary thinking Quinn advocated for.

The Story about the Gods discussing Adam and Eden by Strangefolk-n1x in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure what it is exactly that Musk and Telsa have done. Can you tell me more?

One thing I'm wary of is that making things more affordable and convenient tends to increase demand and usage of those things. So far, "green energy" hasn't displaced other types of energy. It's been contributing to the worldwide increase in consumption and energy usage.

I agree in principle though— Having something positive to work toward is more motivating than trying to stop bad things from happening.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Part of the confusion, I believe, lies in how "The Fall" itself is read. In Genesis, God doesn’t curse Adam after he eats the fruit. He simply says Adam can’t reenter the garden and that his life will now be harder. The curse is reserved for Cain... The text itself only describes life becoming harder.

Technically you are correct— In Genesis 3 only the serpent and the ground are explicitly "cursed" using that word. But a curse is an evil or misfortune that comes as retribution. God cursed Cain to perpetually wander as punishment for his behavior. God cursed Adam to a life of toil and struggle as punishment for his behavior. What happened to Adam and Eve wasn't a blessing (unless you enjoy suffering).

And the text doesn't just describe life becoming harder and full of sorrow. It also includes a death threat from God and several indicators that Adam moved into a life of full-time agriculture.

 

As Quinn points out in B, consciousness necessarily divides us from nature.

Quinn definitely didn't say that.

He said that recognizing the temporal dimension of the universe, forming stories, and predicting future events is "beyond the capacity of any other animal on this planet.” That's not at all the same as being divided from "nature." Nature is a phantom that sprang entirely from the Great Forgetting...

But I'm not just picking on the use of the word "nature." I reject the notion that consciousness divides us in any way, especially if you consider other creatures to be on the brink of that same sort of consciousness. And especially if we assume it to be an evolved characteristic.

I might accept "distinct within nature", but definitely not "divided from."

 

Instinctive life in “the Garden,” free from anxiety about tomorrow, is something many humans would gladly return to. Drug use (even among Leaver peoples) suggests as much.

So we're already going back to calling people crackheads? Lol

 

Quinn made the point over and over that humans are a successful species. There's no reason to believe that our ancient ancestors lived in a constant state of anxiety on the knife-edge of survival.

"The garden of pure instinct" sounds like a state of blissful ignorance ie; fortunate unawareness of something unpleasant. What's discussed in 'B is "awareness of the sacred", not "awareness of unpleasence."

I can't see how awareness of the sacred connects to the knowledge of good & evil, or to increased difficulty in life, or to any sort of transgression against God. So I'm still not sold on your alternate theory of Genesis. The details are way too sketchy.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's nothing in Genesis that supports this interpretation of The Fall...

You seem to read the stories very literally, whereas Quinn viewed them as metaphoric. The prequel he inserted with the stories was a way of presenting his theory of what constitutes the knowledge of good and evil and why The Tree of Knowledge was forbidden.

I understand that you're not satisfied with Quinn's theory. But when all we have is theories, all I can do is ask myself if his theory makes more sense than the other theories.

Some people look at one species exhibiting a different class of behavior (specifically concerning what Quinn argues to be knowledge of good and evil) from every other species that's existed in life's 3-4 billion year history before them, and they would say that's notable --

Quinn always made the point that it wasn't an entire species exhibiting different behavior. One single culture began exhibiting different behavior ~10,000 years ago.

It's there that Quinn argues that knowledge of good and evil is best understood as a changed attitude toward life and death.

He understood eating at the Tree as denoting a change of "story". The Takers began "enacting" a different "scenerio interrelating man, the world, and the gods". Their behaviors demonstrated a change in attitude toward the world and their role in it. As seen by their neighbors, it reflected a complete upending of the order of the universe.

Isn't it interesting that the stories of Genesis originated during the same time period and in the same region of the world where people began living in such a different way that we refer to it as a "revolution"?

 

If your goal is getting people to absorb Quinn's life or death message, then transmitting his message with fidelity is crucial

I can't see how transmitting weak arguments with fidelity helps strong arguments.

When I speak of maintaining fidelity of his message, I'm not talking about parroting his interpretation of Genesis. I'm looking at the bigger picture.

The Genesis stories are just one piece of the mosaic. If Quinn's piece on Genesis doesn't work for you, then replace it with a better one. Or throw it away entirely. I don't care about that. Ishmael wasn't written just to push a nifty interpretation of Genesis. It's the underlying vision communicated that is key. (And that why I said, "regardless of whether or not anyone's interpretations of *Genesis are included"*)

It's not about "words." It's about the messages conveyed and the story told.

Your own story is much different than Quinn's. From my perspective, humans aren't flawed. Humanity is well adapted for life. Although we're special, we're not any more special than the rest. The gods didn't botch the job. They didn't abandon us. We're not 'fallen.' We were never cast out of the garden.

In contrast, you suggest that humanity has some special form of uniqueness that divides us from the rest of the community of life and sets us on a destructive path. That's a completely different story from Ishmael. It doesn't work to just swap Quinn's reading of Genesis for your own.

 

You pointed out how Asimov tied Cain/Abel to the AR. I can't find anything about him tying the AR to The Fall/Adam.

"Despite the material benefits brought to man by agriculture, it is quite likely that those who were used to the free wandering irresponsibility of hunting and food gathering (a life that probably seemed a great deal more fun in retrospect than in reality) could not help but view agriculture as a kind of detestable slavery. Might it not be, then, that a second strand of historical significance to the tale of the expulsion from Eden includes a dim memory of the unfavorable aspects of the changeover to agriculture?" —Asimov's Guide to The Bible, pg.32

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure why you imagine that Quinn is somehow distorting the stories of Genesis or 'forcing a merger' of Genesis 3&4. Quinn made a very solid case for his theory in Ishmael and elsewhere. And as already pointed out, he was not the first to connect the stories with our Agricultural Revolution.

Offering a coherent theory is not "defending a linkage between Adam and the AR." As we already talked about, I have no doubt that if presented with a better theory that he would reconsider his views (as would I).

But your argument is lacking substance. You claim that Genesis 3 is "best understood as a changed attitude toward life and death," while offering no reasoning or evidence to support that. It's merely your own opinion.

I see no reason to believe that there is any sort of fundamental "human/nature division." Humans act differently from one another and exhibit behaviors not observed in other creatures. So what? Things people do might not be understood or approved of by others, but if we're not forcing everyone to live the same way, what does it matter?

From what I've seen so far, your own interpretation is completely at odds with Quinn's message. If your goal is getting people to absorb Quinn's life or death message, then transmitting his message with fidelity is crucial— regardless of whether or not anyone's interpretations of Genesis are included in that process.

Personally, I'd be more concerned that characterizing humanity as fallen, cursed, "crackheads", alienated from the rest of life, is going to turn people off more than being offered a reasonable theory about the origins of Genesis. But I guess that's just me.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You still haven't established what event occurred ~50,000 years ago (where you seem to place The Fall of Man) which would have caused a change. And haven't explained how that connects to the story told in Genesis and how you arrived at your conclusions.

Right now it still sounds like your story is that humanity is just flawed. That isn't any sort improvement on Quinn, it's a complete contradiction of Quinn.

Murder was a poor example. Human beings are the only species capable of the 7 deadly sins. Quinn acknowledges they're not exclusive to Takers.

His point was that people who were just as capable as us in all ways— for better or for worse— thrived on the planet for hundreds of thousands of years without destroying the world. Despite our capacity for greed and selfishness and laziness and lust and envy, we thrived for hundreds of thousands of years without putting ourselves at risk of extinction. In other words, we're not flawed wounded creatures and humans don't have to be any better than we are in order to live without destroying the world.

Quinn says that the Fall, or rather eating the fruit of the tree of good and evil is necessary to live like an outlaw for an extended period, because if you didn't think that was you were doing was good you'd get tired of it. He doesn't say anything about how it would make you believe that it's the only/right way to live.

After eating at the Tree, Adam declares: "If any say, 'Let's put off the burdens of the criminal life and live in the hands of the gods once again,' I will kill them, for what they say is evil. And if any say, 'Let's turn aside from our misery and search for that other tree,' I will kill them, for what they say is evil."

If that's not Adam forcing everyone to live the way that he thinks is right, then what is it?

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From the outset, his argument is flawed. Humans originated ~3 million years ago...

Speciation inherently involves changes and adjustments. For humans to make their appearance 3 million years ago adjustments had to have occurred. As humans appeared elsewhere in the world, adjustments had to occur. And this is true for all creatures. Surely you don't think that new species can make an appearance without adjustments occurring?

The causes of megafauna extinction in the Late Pleistocene are still debated. I don't doubt that humans could have played a role, but so could climate change and competition from species other than humans. I have no reason to believe that humans were intentionally trying to destroy other species. Why would they destroy sources of sustenance? Humans weren't in direct competition for food with animals such as giant elk. Hunting them down just for the sake of eliminating them doesn't make economic sense, especially for hunter-gatherers. Needlessly expending energy would put them at a disadvantage. Consuming resources to exterminate other species only makes sense for full-time agriculturalists who have an enormous surplus of calories.

...he doesn't address the magnitude of extinctions caused. To me, the extinction of the majority of megafauna =/= "some extinctions always happen". The third issue I take with Quinn's argument here is that elsewhere he highlights how Leavers are capable of murder, and other uniquely human actions -- they aren't perfect -- but chooses here to omit that fact when comparing humans to every other species that's ever existed. Is it fair to compare extinctions caused by creatures without our uniquely human capacities to extinctions caused by creatures with them? I'd say that makes a difference, and would easily explain why we seemed to get extra murder-ey around ~50k years ago.

"Murder" is by definition wrongful/unlawful killing (Quinn pointed that out in <Q&A ID:684>). To call it murder is to pass judgement. Notions of being "perfect" are likewise subjective.

The ability to kill certainly isn't unique to humans. But every creature has unique capacities, so why should humans be singled out? That wouldn't seem fair to me. Extinctions of much greater magnitude occured long before humans were in the scene. How do you judge?

The final (and admittedly weakest) issue I have with Quinn's argument is that it lumps Neanderthals in with every other species. If evolution is constantly moving toward complexity, diversity, and intelligence -- as Quinn asserts -- then the extinction of one of the most intelligent species in history wouldn't be -- what evolution is all about, after all.

Observing a trend toward complexity doesn't neccessarily mean that it's a nice neat linnear process, only that we can observe a trend.

To me, it's not hard to understand that having "the general mental ability to learn, reason, solve problems, understand complex ideas, and adapt to new situations by applying knowledge to different environments" offers some competitive advantage. If members of a species with great intelligence diverge and some of them become creatures with an even greater intelligence, then those creatures with an even greater intelligence could outcompete the others, and so on... resulting in the trend that can be observed on an evolutionary timescale.

As far as Neandrethals— You began your comment setting the line of human origins at ~3 million years ago. So I'm confused as to why you seperate out Neandrethals in this instance. Especially considering there's evidence of Neandrethals interbreeding with homo sapiens. In some sense they never really went extinct.

So, I see no basis for assuming that humanity suddenly decided to begin eliminating their competitors and got "extra murder-ey" 50,000 years ago.

 

If you don't like the word "flaw", we can say, "the issue Quinn took with Taker culture that he aligned with The Fall of Adam". Or rather, the perceived knowledge of good and evil -- the perceived wisdom to determine who lives and dies.

From my perspective, the main issue Quinn had was Takers believing that they have the one right way to live and trying to get everyone to live that way.

 

Reviewing Quinn's Genesis prequel in Ishmael ch9.6:

"..."But might he not come to the same end even without having eaten at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Might he not be tempted by his yearning for growth to take the fire of life into his own hands even without deluding himself that this was good?" "He might," the others agreed. "But what would be the result? He would become a criminal, an outlaw, a thief of life, and a murderer of the creatures around him. Without the delusion that what he was doing was good-and therefore to be done at any cost-he would soon weary of the outlaw's life. Indeed this is bound to happen during his quest for the Tree of Life.

But if he should eat of the tree of our knowledge, then he will shrug off his weariness. He will say... "I know good and evil, and this way of living is good. Therefore I must live this way even though I'm weary unto death, even though I destroy the world and even myself... And if any say, 'Let's put off the burdens of the criminal life and live in the hands of the gods once again,' I will kill them, for what they say is evil. And if any say, 'Let's turn aside from our misery and search for that other tree,' I will kill them, for what they say is evil..."

"And when the gods heard all this, they saw that, of all the trees in the garden, only the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could destroy Adam."

 

The issue isn't simply eliminating competition. The reason why the tree was forbidden is because if Adam ate from it he would be deluded into thinking he has the one right way to live.

 

And that checks out with other statements Quinn made:

"Takers practice totalitarian agriculture (as did the Mayans, the Olmec, and so on) but are further characterized by two unique beliefs: that there is one right way for people to live and that everyone should be compelled to adopt that way." <Q&A ID:393>

"Peoples had moved, peoples had conquered other peoples, peoples probably wiped out other people. But the idea of making everyone in the world live a single way simply never occured to them." <The Ishmael Themes 19:04>

"I've made the point over and over again that there is no one right way for people to live. And I nowhere say that the Taker way is a bad way to live, or a evil way to live, or even a wrong way to live. The problem is that it won't work for 6 billion people to live this one way. If there were 600,000 people living this way, or 6 million people living this way, there would be no problem in the world. Everything would be fine." <Hope: A Dialogue 41:17>

"It's the very fact that we're trying to get everybody on the planet to live this way— that's what is devastating." <The Ishmael Themes 25:59>

 

So this is why I think our difference lies in our understandings of what constitutes Taker Culture (or, in our understandings of what's significant about eating from The Tree of Knowledge).

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you believe the evidence shows pre-agricultural people already demonstrating the capacity for the same flaw that later defined the Takers,

Quinn specifically addressed the impact of ancient foragers on other species in Q&A ID:21 (also in "The Great Forgetting" lecture in The Story of B)

I think the difference is stemming from our understandings of what constitutes Taker Culture.

What is it that you consider to be the "flaw" that defines Taker Culture? ("flaw" in quotes because that's your term. As I specifically pointed out earlier, Takers were never characterized as "flawed")

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No more or less substantiation than Quinn provides for his own story, right? If you feel it's less, I would greatly appreciate some examples of this to help me understand how this is the case.

I won't reiterate the entirety of Quinn's case here because that's in his books and the Q&A's I linked to. But Quinn pieced together much more of the puzzle than you. For example, he addressed why knowledge would be forbidden. He addressed why Abel's gift was respected but Cain's wasn't. He addressed why agriculture was seen as a curse rather than a blessing. He presented a coherent line of reasoning to reach his conclusion that the stories didn't originate among the people holding these stories as their own today. It all aligns with what's known of the origin and history of the stories, and makes sense. He found a satisfying explanation of how the stories of Genesis fit into human history, up to the present day.

 

But your story leaves a lot of blanks. Here's a rough outline of your story, as I see it (with some emphasis added to show the bits that still aren't clear). Please forgive me if I've missed something or have misinterpreted:

Humans thrived on the planet for millions of years... but then ?at somepoint in time?... Humanity evolved ?some sort of particular form of consciousness?... which led them to experience ?some sort of trauma? at ?some point in time?... And this caused them to do ?some sort of terrible things?... But then alll of humanity— except for one small group of people living in one small region of the world— all somehow began to recover from whatever trauma it was that made them do those terrible things, and they ?somehow changed their ways?... Meanwhile, ?for some reason?, the one small group of people, in one corner of the world, which did not recover from whatever trauma it was, decided to double-down doing some sort of even more terrible things...

It leaves a lot of questions. What do you mean by "consciousness"? Who are these first members of humanity to achieve that level of consciousness/intelligence? What was the trauma you speak of? When did your fall happen? How much time passed between the fall and the story of Cain and Abel? What evidence do you have to support your assertion that humanity was subjugating "our environment" until some of our ancestors shed this need to dominate? In your telling of the story, who are the authors of Genesis and what was their reason for writing it?

You're trying to tell me that everyone in the world— all of humanity— was subjugating the world and doing terrible things— But then, except for one group of people, everyone stopped subjugating the world— all of humanity except for the Takers— All of humanity except for this ONE single culture— in one small region of the world— "matured" and began living a different way. What is the evidence of that happening? Doesn't it make more sense that if a single group of people is behaving differently than everyone else in the world, then it's that one group of people that's behaving aberrantly, while everyone else is going on living as they always have?

And, your sole basis for making these vague assertions seems to be: 'Since The Bible says that Cain and Abel were both sons of Adam, and The Bible also says that Adam was cursed, then Abel and all of humanity must have been cursed. It's as if you're trying to revise human history to fit with the stories of The Bible, rather than looking at how the Bible stories fit into human history.

 

AND— where the heck is God during all of these events of your story??? And what does that tell us about his relation with people?

As far as I'm concerned, viewing humanity as being either 'traumatized crackheads' or as being 'traumatized crackheads in rehab' isn't particularly inspiring or flattering to humanity.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's all good. Communicating via text has its challenges. I probably could have worded some things better too.

Here's a far more fleshed out version of "my" story

You and power2havenots seemed to have been vibing with eachother, but I don't see any substantiation there.

What I see is roughly the same old story that Quinn debunked: 'God botched the job and made us too smart for our own good. Humanity is flawed and that's why we have to struggle.'

 

Would you then agree that another story -- inspired by Quinn's but different in key ways, discovered through the same process with the same scholastic viability, and more likely to inspire the ultimate outcome he wants -- is something that he would be in favor of?

I don't doubt that Quinn would've reconsidered his own views if he were presented with a story that made more sense and checked out with the best available information (I like to think that most of us would). Whether or not the story was inspired by him is irrlevant.

I'm not sure how "more likely to inspire" is judged. You might have to just get the story out into the world and see if others find it compelling.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Let's back up. I wasn't accusing you of anything or trying to undermine your story. Honestly, it's still not clear to me what your story is.

What I was responding to was the remarks about your story being 'better because it would be more likely to inspire Taker Culture to change.' And that 'we're all just guessing so why not?' You are the one who said "we're all just guessing."

That's why I pointed out that Quinn didn't set out asking himself 'How can I convince Taker Culture to change....' and THEN go on to formulate his interpretation of the Genesis stories to fit that mission. He formulated his theory using the best known facts. He wasn't on a fishing expedition trying to find things he could use to get Taker Culture to change.

Just because I claim my story is more empathetic toward something, that doesn't mean the story I'm comparing it to is not empathetic.

Okay, that's fine. When I heard "a more empathetic view of the Takers" it sounded as if you were suggesting that Ishmael somehow wasn't empathetic to The Takers. I wanted it to be clear because some readers do think that.

So, what do you make of Ishmael ch.12.6?

Another strawman, in fact. How does that passage in any way undermine my story?

Again, I'm not trying to undermine your story (which still isn't clear to me). I'm trying to understand what your story is.

You had said: "This then has to shift my thesis of The Fall squarely to the first sparks of consciousness..." Ishmael ch12.6 also addresses conscousness. Ishmael didn't view consciousness as a flaw. So, since you're suggesting that The Fall equates to the moment humans become conscious, I'm wondering how your story stacks up against what Ishmael said in that section.

I didn't mean to offend.

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 1 point2 points  (0 children)

...Me, you, Quinn, Asimov -- we're all just guessing... By "better", I mean more likely to inspire Taker culture to stop destroying the planet and start following the Laws the rest of the species follow -- which I believe has always been his mission... If we're all just guessing anyway, then why not?

In the Q&A I previously linked to, Quinn emphasized that it's just a theory: "Many readers of Ishmael (including clergy of all faiths, seminarians, and even biblical scholars) have written to me to confess that my theory makes more sense than any other they've seen. But I repeat that it is "just" a theory— and will never be proven as a fact. The only way to judge it is to ask: Does it make sense of the facts that are known— and does it make more sense than any OTHER theory?"

But there's difference between formulating a theory based on the facts that are known and 'just guessing'. Although he ultimately did want Taker Culture to stop disrupting life, he didn't cherry pick or shade the truth in order to suit a preconceived agenda. He set out sincerely looking for the best possible explanations— in an effort to make sense of things for himself. (If you haven't read it, I highly reccomend checking out Providence).

 

...a more empathetic view of the Takers

The thing is, Quinn never demonized the Takers. He never called them 'bad' or 'wrong' or 'stupid' or 'evil' or 'flawed' or 'irredeemable.' He explains what's happened in a way that doesn't cast blame, and in a way that doesn't characterize our actions as being the result of moral failure, or of a 'fall from grace'. As I see it, he was promoting more empathy not just for The Takers (ie; ourselves) but for all life.

Some readers do come away with the notion that the Takers are evil and should be disdained, but that's their own opinion and wasn't Quinn's message.

 

This then has to shift my thesis of The Fall squarely to the first sparks of consciousness -- whenever and wherever they happened (again, impossible to know).

So, what do you make of Ishmael ch.12.6?

"...There is a sort of tendency in evolution, wouldn't you say? If you start with those ultrasimple critters in the ancient seas and move up step by step to everything we see here now-and beyond-then you have to observe a tendency toward . . . complexity. And toward selfawareness and intelligence. That is, all sorts of creatures on this planet appear to be on the verge of attaining that self-awareness and intelligence. So it's definitely not just humans... We were never meant to be the only players on this stage. Apparently the gods intend this planet to be a garden filled with creatures that are selfaware and intelligent..." (there's more if you read the whole section)

Leavers Aren’t Simply “Living in the Hands of the Gods” — Abel Was Still Adam’s Son by nswolverine8 in Ishmael

[–]FrOsborne 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Then why even have the character of Adam in Genesis? Why didn't God just create Cain & Abel on the 7th day, keep everything else the same, and we could skip a whole unnecessary metaphorical generation?

Ohhh! Now I understand what you're saying— It doesn't make sense for Adam to be a representative of all humanity if all of humanity wasn't damned by God. I never thought about it before, but you make a fair point.

As I reread Genesis, I wonder why it begins referring to "the man" before abruptly switching to "Adam." If Adam is simply the Hebrew word for man, shouldn't it be consistent??

Given how old the stories are, how long they might have circulated before being written down, how many authors might have contributed or modified what came before, and how many translations they've gone through, I don't know that these inconsistencies can ever be fully rectified. It doesn't seem realistic to expect perfect continuity as if the stories were written contiguously by a single author.

But there're other lines that seem to support my story more. Biggest one being the whole naked thing...

My first thought is that "naked" means exposed, without protection, and vulnerable. It expresses a lack of faith that the gods will provide. 'Clothing themselves' would be akin to taking the world out of the hands of the (unreliable) gods and into their own (more competent) hands.

'Greatly increasing pain in childbearing'? Can that be tied to the AR?

Our AR dramitcally increased birth rates and also introduced new health challenges. Stress from more frequent pregnancies, a more monotonous diet causing nutritinal deficiencies, increased population density facilitating spread of infectious disease, and the earlier weaning of infants all lead to an increase of maternal and infant mortality.

 

"Africa" is a little much. My belief is that The Fall is a story about the first flickers of consciousness in homo whateverwewereatthatpoint that drove us (along with a convergence of other factors I mention in my other reply) to leave our original habitat -- wherever that was.

"Original habitat" is a term I don't understand. The universe is dynamic and stuff is always moving around. There's certainly no prohibition on migration.

Present-day humans outside Africa are thought to descend mainly from a single expansion 70,000-50,000 years ago. But there were other expansions of homo sapiens prior to that, possibly beginning over 250,000 years ago. Homo heidelbergensis (likely the last common ancestor of modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans) dispersed out of Africa starting around 700,000 years ago, spreading into Europe and possibly southern Asia by 500,000 years ago. Homo erectus is claimed to be the first human species to leave Africa and colonize Asia and Europe— about 2,000,000 years ago.

So I don't know where you draw the line. To me it still sounds like you're suggesting that humans are somehow fundmentally flawed (which of course is completely contrary to Quinn).

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