I hope everyone had a restful three day weekend! Unfortunately, we have to get back to work.
During the three part program as presented by NOVA, what were your thoughts on what you have seen? What did you find to be really interesting about each of the three part program?
After watching the program, where did you think that humans developed a soul as we began talking about towards the end of class on Thursday morning.
I'll get things started by saying that the introductions on all three parts were somewhat the same and that it seemed a little boring at the beginning, but as soon as the program developed it started to rise some interesting points within the program. Even though the beginning of each of the programs seemed to started out the same, I really liked how NOVA was able to piece each part together so that their audience wouldn't be to confused about what is going on. In other words, I am trying to say that NOVA somewhat followed a sequence of Human evolution by starting to talk about the human brain in Part I and how it compare to a chimp's brain. Then in Part II, NOVA began talking about Homo erectus and how they start to develop some traits of a human, such as emotions, living in society, and caring for each other. What I found to be interesting in Part III was the bottleneck effect and how everyone on Earth is basically 99% genetically related and dispute the fact that we all look differently, the reality is that as Homo sapiens, we are not that genetically diverse.
In regards to the human soul, I think that it started to develop with the Homo erectus because the NOVA program in part II stated that at this stage of human evolution, human beings started to develop a sense of emotion, caring for each other, and living in society. Another point that was rises within this part was how the longevity of living increased even though an elderly person may have lack teeth to eat and they can have someone to eat for them. It is at this stage that I think the human soul developed because personally, I think having a soul requires one to care others and try to put yourself in their position and see what that person may or may not be thinking at a certain time. In other words, I am trying to associate a sense of empathy with the human soul. Having empathy like having a soul is unique to us (humans) because with empathy, we develop emotions such as the emotion of guilt. The emotion of guilt can help define the concept of a soul because having guilt can help us moral decisions about what is right or wrong.
What was really interesting to me was the explanation of how these scientists found out all this information about the bones and remains they found. I think the different theories about why the apes started to walk on two legs were interesting, because any one of them probably could have been the case. What I also found to be interesting was the concept of when certain "humans" in history began to socialize. The concept of socializing seems to be the root of many human traits, like language and compassion for one another. I think symbolism began to arise and meaning of life became more important. The concept of humans constantly adapting to the environment works well. Survival of the fittest could come into play here as far as which species were the strongest in surviving the changing environments and adapting to become better hunters. I really liked the three segments and I found them to be really interesting. I think they did a great job at trying to tie together different aspects of humankind.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found to be the most shocking aspect of this series was how climate change created the beginning of the increase in mental capacity. I mean, when you think about it in the BIG picture, IE, the earth was formed, and when enough chemical changes took place life began, there is a definite parallelism that is important to note, but still, that was a very informative three hours.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to the human soul question, I am afraid that I will have to cheat, I think that the human soul evolved with the human body. This is because it would be unfair to simply choose a random point in time and say that "this is when human specialness started." So many significant aspects of humanity which are unarguably integral to the way we define ourselves evolved over such a long period of time that I see no other way to answer this question. Our emotions evolved a long time before we had more than a cutting tool, but we couldn't make a simple ranged weapon.
The three segments were very interesting and enlightening. The lack of genetic difference seemed to be the most shocking thing to me. When you look around and see the diversity in physical appearances around us every day. The most shocking thing to me was thinking about how there was once many different species of humans and that we were the ones that made it through. The way that the scientist were able to compare the fossils to ours to show a transition between human and ape was probably the most interesting thing in my opinion. In terms of the development of the soul, I believe that it must have inherently been around but its significance and impact did not develop until socialization. When it comes to the soul and the way that it guides people towards the right thing, is inherently related to the interaction amongst one's peers. Overall, i like the videos and think we should watch more.
ReplyDeleteThe information presented by these scientists were very interesting and informative but nevertheless raised some questions for me. The presentations were quite interesting mainly how they drew out the order of how evolution unfolded. Some of the arguments seemed very solid to me. For example, the transition to bipedalism as means of reducing energy expenditure. Others however, seemed like they were speculations that can be overruled by other arguments. For example, speculating when emotion developed and why. This implies that other species don't have emotions the way we do. I don't believe that these other species didn't necessarily have emotions or had no care for each other, however, it is possible that expressing these emotions are a function of brain capacity; a space which they used in other aspects for their own survival.
ReplyDeleteWhat I felt was extremely interesting was the analysis of the neanderthal fossils and the fact that they were able to tell the story about something that was hundreds thousands of years old. This really goes to show how far technology has come. The reconstruction of the young boy's skeleton and analysis of his environment was very intriguing to me.
ReplyDeleteWhat I enjoyed about these videos were all the little facts about evolution. All the time periods and details about evolution. It is really amazing to think back that far and to try and imagine what the world was like. I had never really thought about how long 6 million years was, watching this made me try and imagine that and its really tough to do.
ReplyDeleteThe time period was the thing that intrigued me about the videos.
I personally enjoyed a lot the details that were given about evolution. I am wondering how the world will be and see us in the future, thanks to technology and scientists we have a little piece of our past, how we transcended from life and within the decades, how we had to adapt and evolve for our needs as well. I believe the concept of the soul is the same it just transformed the "meaning" with religion and development of significance...
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed all the facts about evolution as well. I'll disagree with the original poster in that the soul entered in with Homo Erectus. I dont think there is any way for us to (either by science or thelogy) justify when the soul came into being, because that would have required us to know exactly what the soul is, and be able to define it in tangiuble kind of terms...which we can't really do. Furthermore, I don't really know that outside of the theological realm, we can say that humans are the only ones with souls.
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