From: Grant Callaghan (grantc4@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat 07 Dec 2002 - 16:12:16 GMT
As I signed off on the last message, it also occurred to me that our science
and cosmology were also excessively concerned with beginnings and endings --
from the big bang to the big contraction. All journeys have a beginning and
an end. In linguistics, the beginnings and endings of words have an
influence on how they evolve. The middle parts seems to stay relatively
stable. In archeology, what we seem most concerned with is when a species
began and when it ended. Although life is a continuum, we mark if off into
beginnings and endings and give names to the parts in between. Jurassic,
for example, seems to mark the begining and end of the dynosaurs.
Mitocondrial eve marks the beginning of mankind. This way of looking at the
universe seems so engrained in our nature that it must occupy some deeper
place in our makeup than a cultural meme.
Grant
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