From: Wade T. Smith (wade.t.smith@verizon.net)
Date: Sun 15 Jun 2003 - 16:19:57 GMT
On Sunday, June 15, 2003, at 12:11 AM, Ray wrote:
> I have no idea what you are saying here.
I had thought you meant that the creativity of the human species was
more active or of a higher caliber in present times than in times past.
This is a common argument used by alien-visitor apologists to explain
the manufacture of things like that Pyramids. The capacity of the human
for creativity has with almost no exception been shown to be a constant.
> Culture emphasizes, focuses and refines it.
Yup. That's its job. The performance model calls this setting the
parameters and (thus) the expectations of the performance.
> [snip of an excellent demonstration of a cultural venue in
> operation...]
> I know that this creativity must be exercised within cultural bounds
Not only exercised, but demanded- your creativity is preset condition
of this culture, and its continuance is dependent upon your expected
performance.
However, after this remarkable exhortation of the imperatives of the
parameters of a cultural venue, you continue with this -
> If the increase in creativity were directly proportional to numbers
> this
> would mean that China and India would be the cultures adding more to
> the
> arts and sciences than any other nations. Is that really correct? I
> don't think so.
Sheer numbers are not, of course, any indicator that cultures are
evolving, or that any specifics are mutating with acceleration, and I
did not declare that such change was directly proportional to the
amount of humanity within individual cultures, as I did not think you
were speaking of anything but the world at large and the amount of
creativity within it. Each culture controls change and distributes it
in different ways.
But your examples are interesting, if overly quantitative. You appear
to have a decidedly anti-far-eastern bias, which I do not believe comes
from any empirical facts. That there has been and continue to be
dramatic and vast additions to the arts and sciences from far-eastern
cultures is, well, as I would think, well shown.
I think your proposition is most extraordinary, not its opposite.
Please provide proof that other nations are 'adding more' to arts and
sciences than China and India.
- Wade
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