Eastern philosophy says the self is an illusion

[Dutch Uncle]

That's good point.
That and climate science denial

Agreed 100%. Our nation had a high regard for science pre-Cold War. Science protected us from the Soviets and put mankind on the Moon. After the Cold War, the Republican Party turned toward religion over science. What started with Creationism evolved into anti-Science and White Supremacy.

 

[Saint Guinefort]

Only person talking about science is that crazy stalker.

Science isn't information. Science is the DISCIPLINE OF ASSESSING INFORMATION.

If science can't be used to assess a claim then likely the claim is nothing but pure bullshit.

 

[BidenPresident]

IlaceWords=Stalker

 

[Saint Guinefort]

IlaceWords=Stalker

BidenPresident=Incapable of discussing a topic and just wants to attack people because they have nothing of value to add.

 

[Cypress]

I simply asked where are the mathmatical equations or scientific law someone could use in real life to define when or if it's okay to lie, what's the boundary between righteous anger and fury, how does one choose a friend, what's the drawing line between complete loyalty and remonstrance, is it okay to hate, what is fairness?.

That's the kind of knowledge people need on a day to day basis in real life. They don't really need to know Einstein's field equations or the Schrodinger equation.

Patrick Grimm:
The realm of objective fact is discovered through scientific exploration. The realm of value is explored or developed through a different kind of thinking and a different kind of experience. One could have a compete factual picture of the universe yet not know the first thing of value. One could know all the facts and history and methods of execution, yet not know whether the death penalty is justified.

According to Patrick Grimm, the premninent British philosopher G.E. Moore maintained that the attempt to deduce values from mere fact is a type of logical fallacy he called the naturalistic fallacy. You cannot deduce values from mere empirical facts.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

According to Patrick Grimm, the premninent British philosopher G.E. Moore maintained that the attempt to deduce values from mere fact is a type of logical fallacy he called the naturalistic fallacy. You cannot deduce values from mere empirical facts.

Agreed. "Value" is relative.

What is the value of day old road kill? Zero...unless you're starving to death, then it's food.

The value of all things such as gold, oil or money is relative to what human beings assign to it.

 

[Cypress]

Agreed. "Value" is relative.

What is the value of day old road kill? Zero...unless you're starving to death, then it's food.

The value of all things such as gold, oil or money is relative to what human beings assign to it.

For sure

I think there are some values which are more or less deemed universal, by virtue of the fact all major world religions converge on them.

Our declaration of independence is predicated on a concept of universal values: right to liberty, right to life, right to pursuit of happiness.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

For sure

I think there are some values which are more or less deemed universal, by virtue of the fact all major world religions converge on them.

Our declaration of independence is predicated on a concept of universal values: right to liberty, right to life, right to pursuit of happiness.

Universal for the human race.

In the past, I've wondered about the demise of the Neanderthals. They were the most intelligent species known to come along until Homo Sapiens came along. The "nice" theory is that Neanderthals peacefully died out as Home Sapiens thrived by their own ingenuity. The "not-so-nice" theory is that Homo Sapiens did what they've often been known to do; kill off the competition and hunt down species into extinction. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Getting back to the point, can we say with certainty that the values of Neanderthals is the same as Homo Sapiens? There should be some similarities for all mammals due to physics and biology, but identical?

 

[Cypress]

Universal for the human race.

In the past, I've wondered about the demise of the Neanderthals. They were the most intelligent species known to come along until Homo Sapiens came along. The "nice" theory is that Neanderthals peacefully died out as Home Sapiens thrived by their own ingenuity. The "not-so-nice" theory is that Homo Sapiens did what they've often been known to do; kill off the competition and hunt down species into extinction. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Getting back to the point, can we say with certainty that the values of Neanderthals is the same as Homo Sapiens? There should be some similarities for all mammals due to physics and biology, but identical?

To the best of our knowledge, the Neanderthal did not have cave paintings, sculpture,, ceramics, or any kind of abstract creative expression. It's not even clear if they had religion or spiritually. There are some limited evidence of ritualized Neanderthal burial,, but it has been called into question and is not definitive.

The evidence we have is that homo sapiens were relatively distinct from earlier human species.

 

[Saint Guinefort]

To the best of our knowledge, the Neanderthal did not have cave paintings, sculpture,, ceramics, or any kind of abstract creative expression. It's not even clear if they had religion or spiritually. There are some limited evidence of ritualized Neanderthal burial,, but it has been called into question and is not definitive.

The evidence we have is that homo sapiens were relatively distinct from earlier human species.

Grave goods in Neanderthal burials indicate a possible belief in the "afterlife", hence religion.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

To the best of our knowledge, the Neanderthal did not have cave paintings, sculpture,, ceramics, or any kind of abstract creative expression. It's not even clear if they had religion or spiritually. There are some limited evidence of ritualized Neanderthal burial,, but it has been called into question and is not definitive.

The evidence we have is that homo sapiens were relatively distinct from earlier human species.

The 20 year old Smithsonian article below indicates they were intelligent albeit primitive humans.

According to Wiki, they disappeared about 40,000 years ago which seems to be about the time Homo Sapiens Sapiens began to flourish. Looking at the "out of Africa" theory, it seems both early humans would have been around the same areas.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/rethinking-neanderthals-83341003/
Rethinking Neanderthals
Research suggests they fashioned tools, buried their dead, maybe cared for the sick and even conversed. But why, if they were so smart, did they disappear?

“They were believed to be scavengers who made primitive tools and were incapable of language or symbolic thought.”Now, he says, researchers believe that Neanderthals “were highly intelligent, able to adapt to a wide variety of ecologicalzones, and capable of developing highly functional tools to help them do so. They were quite accomplished.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

Neanderthals (/niˈændərˌtɑːl, neɪ-, -ˌθɑːl/;[7] Homo neanderthalensis or H. sapiens neanderthalensis), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. The reasons for Neanderthal extinction are disputed. Theories for their extinction include demographic factors such as small population size and inbreeding, competitive replacement,[14] interbreeding and assimilation with modern humans,[15] climate change,[16][17][18] disease,[19][20] or a combination of these factors.[18]

It is unclear when the line of Neanderthals split from that of modern humans; studies have produced various intervals ranging from 315,000[21] to more than 800,000 years ago.[22] The date of divergence of Neanderthals from their ancestor H. heidelbergensis is also unclear. The oldest potential Neanderthal bones date to 430,000 years ago, but the classification remains uncertain.[23] Neanderthals are known from numerous fossils, especially from after 130,000 years ago

 

[Cypress]

The 20 year old Smithsonian article below indicates they were intelligent albeit primitive humans.

According to Wiki, they disappeared about 40,000 years ago which seems to be about the time Homo Sapiens Sapiens began to flourish. Looking at the "out of Africa" theory, it seems both early humans would have been around the same areas.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/rethinking-neanderthals-83341003/
Rethinking Neanderthals
Research suggests they fashioned tools, buried their dead, maybe cared for the sick and even conversed. But why, if they were so smart, did they disappear?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

I read something recently that the flower pollen found with neanderthal dead and interpreted to represent ritualized burial may be pollen spores that blew into the burial site long after death.

No doubt they were smart. Their cranial capacity was on average a couple hundred CC's larger than Homo sapiens.

Neaderthal strictly evolved in Europe from older hominids, maybe Homo Heidelbergis, so our first interaction with them wouldn't have been until Homo sapiens made it to Europe in the late or middle paleolithic. You pose a good question about why they disappeared.

What made Homo sapiens unique is abstract art and complex language, which supposedly date to at least 50k years ago, give or take. Some people claim a mutation in the FoxP2 gene gave Homo sapiens the cognitive abilities for abstract language.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I read something recently that the flower pollen found with neanderthal dead and interpreted to represent ritualized burial may be pollen spores that blew into the burial site long after death.

No doubt they were smart. Their cranial capacity was on average a couple hundred CC's larger than Homo sapiens.

Neaderthal strictly evolved in Europe from older hominids, maybe Homo Heidelbergis, so our first interaction with them wouldn't have been until Homo sapiens made it to Europe in the late or middle paleolithic. You pose a good question about why they disappeared.

What made Homo sapiens unique is abstract art and complex language, which supposedly date to at least 50k years ago, give or take. Some people claim a mutation in the FoxP2 gene gave Homo sapiens the cognitive abilities for abstract language.

One grave with pollen could be an accident. Two graves a trend. Most graves, if it's the same style of burial is not a coincidence.

Anthropology isn't my area of expertise but it seems if they are habitually burying their dead, there's a reason for it more than the fact the bodies stink after a day or two. They could just move away from the dead or toss them off a cliff. A pattern of burials indicates something else is at work rather than random chance.

 

[Cypress]

One grave with pollen could be an accident. Two graves a trend. Most graves, if it's the same style of burial is not a coincidence.

Anthropology isn't my area of expertise but it seems if they are habitually burying their dead, there's a reason for it more than the fact the bodies stink after a day or two. They could just move away from the dead or toss them off a cliff. A pattern of burials indicates something else is at work rather than random chance.

I don't think very many undisturbed Neanderthal burial sites have ever been found, so we are extrapolating from a very small dataset.

My recollection is that flower pollen was found in Neaderthal burial site in Iraq.

I buried my dog with her favorite toys and a sprinkling of flowers. That is not secure evidence that I believe in a doggy heaven or in spirits and deities. Burial might just be a common sense way to keep your dead mother from being eaten by crows or attracting predators to the tribal community.

The evidence is much more secure that Homo sapiens of the middle and upper paleolithic had rituals involving fertility goddesses and animal spirits. Something approximating real religious practice.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I don't think very many undisturbed Neanderthal burial sites have ever been found, so we are extrapolating from a very small dataset.

My recollection is that flower pollen was found in Neaderthal burial site in Iraq.

I buried my dog with her favorite toys and a sprinkling of flowers. That is not secure evidence that I believe in a doggy heaven or in spirits and deities. Burial might just be a common sense way to keep your dead mother from being eaten by crows or attracting predators to the tribal community.

The evidence is much more secure that Homo sapiens of the middle and upper paleolithic had rituals involving fertility goddesses and animal spirits. Something approximating real religious practice.

Why not just throw the dog in the trash? Eat it? Feed it to other dogs? Chimps don't bury their dead although they do seem to recognize the death. Why are Homo Sapiens, be they Sapiens or Neanderthalensis, different?

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...mains-suggest-neanderthals-buried-their-dead/
70,000-year-old remains suggest Neanderthals buried their dead

Neanderthals really did bury their dead. Archaeologists in Iraq have discovered a new Neanderthal skeleton that appears to have been deliberately buried around 60,000 to 70,000 years ago.

“We are quite confident,” says Emma Pomeroy at the University of Cambridge.

The first evidence that Neanderthals buried their dead emerged after archaeologist Ralph Solecki excavated Shanidar cave in northern Iraq in the 1950s and 1960s. The cave eventually yielded the remains of 10 Neanderthals, including one dubbed Shanidar 4, which was found with clumps of pollen – suggesting the body had been deliberately placed in a grave and flowers scattered on it. The finding was one of several lines of evidence that has led to a reassessment of Neanderthals as highly intelligent and not the shambling brutes of earlier portrayals.

https://www.livescience.com/57714-chimps-kill-mutilate-cannibalize-other-chimp.html
Chimps Kill, Mutilate and Cannibalize Member of Own Group

...It's not uncommon for chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) to attack and kill chimps in neighboring groups, but it's rare for the primates to kill members of their own community, the researchers said. Even more surprising was the abuse directed toward Foudouko's body after he had been killed, they found....

...Foudouko was the community's alpha male from either 2004 or 2005 until 2008, when he disappeared and was seen living alone on the outskirts of the community, Pruetz said. Foudouko reappeared in 2013, and was immediately killed by his former community members, Pruetz said.

Pruetz and her colleagues didn't see the killing, which happened at night, but they could hear it from their camp, she said. The next day, they filmed the chimps interacting with Foudouko's body. That footage shows the chimps abusing and cannibalizing the body for nearly 4 hours, she said...

...Chimps aren't always aggressive — studies show that they can exhibit selfless behaviors and even understand and mourn death — but they do have a capacity for lethal aggression. For instance, a 2014 study in the journal Nature suggested that chimps are naturally violent, Live Science previously reported....

 

[Cypress]

Why not just throw the dog in the trash? Eat it? Feed it to other dogs? Chimps don't bury their dead although they do seem to recognize the death. Why are Homo Sapiens, be they Sapiens or Neanderthalensis, different?

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...mains-suggest-neanderthals-buried-their-dead/
70,000-year-old remains suggest Neanderthals buried their dead


https://www.livescience.com/57714-chimps-kill-mutilate-cannibalize-other-chimp.html
Chimps Kill, Mutilate and Cannibalize Member of Own Group

Higher sentient animals have a grieving process. Throwing my dog in the trash would be insulting to the grieving process.

It's safe to say Homo sapiens are substantially more advanced spiritually, artistically, linguistically, creatively than Neaderthals.

Not even all existing Homo sapien cultures bury their dead. Cremation seems to be a long standing practice.

I'm not convinced burial automatically proves religion. At least not religion in the way we conceive it.

I think that's a sexy and edgy hypothesis a paleoanthropologist might want to assert about Neanderthal. It's the type of thing that gets you published in high impact journals.

A more mundane alternative explanation might be that some advanced sentient animals have elaborate grieving rituals. I have read that elephants have graveyards and return to them to grieve dead family members. I think Owl told me that crows have some kind of elaborate funerals and grieving ritual.

 

[Cypress]

I don't think very many undisturbed Neanderthal burial sites have ever been found, so we are extrapolating from a very small dataset.

My recollection is that flower pollen was found in Neaderthal burial site in Iraq.

I buried my dog with her favorite toys and a sprinkling of flowers. That is not secure evidence that I believe in a doggy heaven or in spirits and deities. Burial might just be a common sense way to keep your dead mother from being eaten by crows or attracting predators to the tribal community.

The evidence is much more secure that Homo sapiens of the middle and upper paleolithic had rituals involving fertility goddesses and animal spirits. Something approximating real religious practice.

So the alternative interpretation is that burrowing animals introduced flower pollen into one neanderthal grave. None of the other neaderthal graves discovered at Shanidar had flower pollen.

Pollen was found embedded in a Neanderthal skeleton at the Shanidar Cave. Is this evidence of an elaborate flowery funeral?

The discoveries made in the Shanidar Cave are some of the most thought-provoking and divisive Neanderthal remains ever recovered. Among the handful of skeletons found scattered within the cave, one appears to have been laid to rest alongside significant amounts of pollen.

Some have interpreted this as evidence of a grand burial ritual as if a funeral was held for the Neanderthal and flowers were placed upon their grave.

However, this claim is not without its controversy. The flower burial interpretation is not widely agreed with and the current consensus is that the presence of pollen is a red herring. Most now believe that the pollen ended up in the cave by small animals dragging flowers into their burrows

https://www.iflscience.com/flowery-...sial-neanderthal-found-in-an-iraqi-cave-67585

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Higher sentient animals have a grieving process. Throwing my dog in the trash would be insulting to the grieving process.

It's safe to say Homo sapiens are substantially more advanced spiritually, artistically, linguistically, creatively than Neaderthals.

Not even all existing Homo sapien cultures bury their dead. Cremation seems to be a long standing practice.

I'm not convinced burial automatically proves religion. At least not religion in the way we conceive it.

I think that's a sexy and edgy hypothesis a paleoanthropologist might want to assert about Neanderthal. It's the type of thing that gets you published in high impact journals.

A more mundane alternative explanation might be that some advanced sentient animals have elaborate grieving rituals. I have read that elephants have graveyards and return to them to grieve dead family members. I think Owl told me that crows have some kind of elaborate funerals and grieving ritual.

It would be your grieving process, not the dog's. Funerals are for the living. Agreed higher animals grieve.

I'm not so sure. Again, not an expert, but from what little I've read, it's controversial. Clearly Homo sapiens sapiens are better with technology.

Cremation is a unique human process just like burial. No other animals do it. If Homo sapiens neanderthalensis did it, how would we know? It was 40,000 years ago.

Religion is often dogmatic and established ritualistic. Burial could simply be a human reaction to grieving, same for cremation. I haven't studied it very well. We're agreed animals grieve, but it's humans that take it a step further.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

So the alternative interpretation is that burrowing animals introduced flower pollen into one neanderthal grave. None of the other neaderthal graves discovered at Shanidar had flower pollen.

The pollen thing could have been accidental, but the evidence of burial due to the disturbance of sediment levels is the clincher for me.

 

[Cypress]

The pollen thing could have been accidental, but the evidence of burial due to the disturbance of sediment levels is the clincher for me.

There seems to be some evidence of intentional burial of Neaderthals. That is true.

The elaborate, ritualistic burial with flowers hypothesis seems to be on shaky ground. It sure is a sexy and edgy hypothesis that has a good chance of publication in high impact journals.

I don't think that physical burial in and of itself proves complex religious beliefs and practices. There are alternative explanations for burial, and other sentient animals have elaborate grieving practices and seem to revere the bodies of the deceased relatives (aka, elephants).

A conservative scientific posture would require supplementary evidence of ritualistic practices, like clay sculptures of fertility goddesses, paintings of animal spirits, or other tangible evidence of ritualistic practices.