Marine Biological Diversity: Interspecies Communication, Philosophy/Religion, Primate Narratives

Hey Joan and Friends,

Yes, I'd like to facilitate the development of more interspecies' communication and its study using information technology, and perhaps begin to explore abstract concepts like 'nontheism' and 'friendliness,' etc. Using a wiki (editable web pages) seems like a fascinating and practical approach for doing this.

Here's a slightly clearer formulation of my Philosophy / Religion distinction (as forms of belief) than below: http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/10/bonobo-together-nontheist-friends.html. The first group you, Joan, refer to - analytical philosophers, e.g. Willard van Orman Quine ("The Web of Belief"), Richard Rorty and his neo-pragmatism, and Richard Dawkins, for example, are all unambiguously nontheistic, and nonreligious. It's part of their ways of thinking and cultures (i.e. philosophy and evolutionary biology). The latter two, William James and Huston Smith, assume aspects of theism and religion in their analyses; Harvard's William James explains belief, and Smith explains religion. Most major religions I know of circle around theistic/deistic concepts, even Buddhism, in practice, I find. And Taoist temple practices in China, for example, theify or deify seminal Taoists, I think. {Concerning Taoist thinking, I find Laozi and Zhuangzi's writings alone edifying}.

Primatology potentially offers whole new kinds of narratives vis-a-vis religion and human experience, and there are a number of higher primates who use language. Here's a later version of Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's TED Talk video (ted.com/talks/susan_savage_rumbaugh_on_apes_that_write.html), where not only do Bonobo write, but they also attempt music making, through imitation. Religious 'memes' - Dawkins' 1976 term for replicating cultural units (e.g. words, but he uses the example of a novel and a summer dress) - are very 'contagious,' but I don't think other higher primates besides humans have caught one of the 8-10 major religions' (Smith) bugs, in my reading of primatology. And primates are old and stable species!, with relatively little culture; text-based religion seems pretty young to me, vis-a-vis genes and species, as well as vis-a-vis other primates (although Scott Atran and other cognitive anthropologists / evolutionary biologists, which we've mentioned in this email list, begin to explicate religion from an evolutionary perspective). What can nontheist friends learn from this?

The sentence you ask about reads as it was written: "I can think of few examples of what you call 'emergence' or explicit 'nontheistic friendliness' in my readings of the primatological literature, although language-learning by primates (e.g. sign language and logographs) may be just this, in its own [Promethean] way," - except that I've changed the last word from Protean to Promethean, - who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals, in the Greek myth / narrative.

I think nontheist Friends are keeping the hearth warm, and the fires burning, vis-a-vis religion (connectedness and community?), Quakers and reason.

Thanks for your asking for clarification.

With friendly greetings,
Scott

http://scottmacleod.com






Scott,

I think I am missing a lot of what you are trying to say here. Are you suggesting that it would be possible to develop a sort of interspecies' esperanto with which to hold a typewritten conversation about ultimacy with other primates?

I'm also missing the connection between the speculations of primatologists and the list of authors describing non-theistic beliefs. I'm surprised to see Huston Smith on the list, but I'm sure it has been more than a decade since the last time I read his "World Religions." I don't recall anything on non-theism other than the sections on Buddhism and Taoism.

In the next sentence do you mean to begin "I can think of a few examples" or "I can think of very few examples?"

Joan



--- On Fri, 10/30/09, Scott MacLeod wrote:


From: Scott MacLeod

Subject: [NTF-talk] Re: Our Inner Ape.
To: nontheist-friends@
Date: Friday, October 30, 2009, 7:30 PM
- Hide quoted text -


Joan and Nontheistic Friends,

I wonder if as-of-yet unexplored ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy
as method - http://www.webnographers.org/index.php?title=Ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy & http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/search/label/ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy
- could be the basis of a comparative, developing conversation between homo sapiens and other language-using higher primates, about such questions. I wonder, too, what primate researchers Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Frans de Waal and Jane Goodall and the myriad of primatological researchers at universities around the world, for example, would say about these questions of connectedness. Among humans there is a very wide variety of nontheistic beliefs (from rigorous, analytic philosophy, Richard Rortyian philosophy, to William James' "The Varieties of Religious Experience," to Huston Smith's "World
Religions"). I can think of few examples of what you call 'emergence' or explicit 'nontheistic friendliness' in my readings of the primatological literature, although language-learning by primates (e.g. sign language and logographs) may be just this, in its own Protean way.

And "What canst thou say?" I think we're seeing what nontheistic friends are saying here. :)

Are we coded for certain kinds of behaviors, just as labrador retrievers seem to be coded for kindness, as a breed, for example (as are species of higher primates)? See for example - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/10/world-university.html (October 7, 2008 - the picture here is great:) about labrador retrievers. In what ways can we humans learn? Can we humans learn kindness and thoughtfulness, as well as peacefulness, simplicity, integrity, {and social justice} & love and happiness? In what ways can primates learn? They obviously can learn language, which some thought impossible. (See the TED Talk, for one; Koko is another example). Can higher primates learn other aspects of social interaction? Could common chimps learn to become Bonobo?

With friendly greetings,
Scott


http://scottmacleod.com
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University













(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/11/marine-biological-diversity.html - November 12, 2009)