Thursday, March 17, 2011

Selecting shells by the seashore

Is not the phrase "self decorating species" a fair description of us homo  hopefullysapiens? They found shells with holes drilled in them that are 75,000 years old ( Blombos.). Apparently as soon as man thought anything, he thought of changing his appearance --- by wearing jewelry. And this helps us understand that phrase in Genesis, that what those paradise dwelling folks did wrong, was get the knowledge of good and evil. Never could figure that out, why would learning something be a bad thing. But maybe it fits in. Maybe even then some of us knew that good and evil is not a classification of verities. That to use this kind of phrase means that one takes the words seriously, rather than the things words refer to. In other words the final reason for the expulsion is they KEPT discussing reality in binary terms, not that they got some insight. So men got the boot because they could not separate fiction from fiction. Women of course were a separate case---they are still doing the innocent silly things you do if you come from a rib. Do you think if I wear a necklace he won't notice how skinny my hips are? (In those days, that's what they worried about---skinny---hips.) 

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