The cognitive revolution by ALDO ZAMORA RAMIREZ

Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-12 13:21:23 UTC

Chapter one: An animal of no significance.

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-12 13:25:08 UTC

Summary

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-12 13:32:54 UTC

Humans were just apes that were able to use tools. Then, maybe one day, maybe during years or so, humans learned to talk. With this we can find the point of comparison. Humans are just apes that can talk.

Thesis

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-12 13:40:12 UTC

Human as an animal was just an ape. The human experience was a normal thing before agriculture. We could speak at least 6000 years ago. We know that language was older than that. The Sumerians were older than their writing system, but there were older languages. Spoken language is an old invention. With this said, the author explains that this is what makes us different.

Personal comment.

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-12 13:52:36 UTC

We know that language is what makes us the dominant species on Earth. The oldest written language is Sumerian, but we know of older languages. Proto-Indo-European is way older than Sumerian. The two languages were alive at the same time, but Sumerian is not a proto language, there is an older version of the language, but with no written languages other than this we consider it as a language isolate. Proto-Indo-European is the most well studied proto language, there is a theory that the Uralic languages could be part of a bigger language family that joins with PIE. This bigger family might be as old as, 8000 years old. But even with this, we can not pinpoint the exact origin of language as a whole. With older fossil or archeological evidence of human organization, we are looking for something that could not be reconstructed. This primitive languages could be way complex. PIE was more complex than English and Spanish, so the idea that primitive language was not able to convey info as precise as contemporary language is just nonsensical.

Chapter two: The three of knowledge.

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-13 19:20:29 UTC

Personal Comment

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-13 19:30:44 UTC

The fact that humans are just animals like all the other animals is what makes us biological beings. We can predict our own behaviors with these parameters. Today we know how the animals work and how shockingly similar we are to them. We know there were many humans as well. They were a big part in our evolution. As we research this topic, we can safely assume that we are a mixed race with the other humans. The Homo sapiens killed all of its brothers, and when they were dead is when its story began.

Thesis

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-13 19:31:37 UTC

What makes us different is the fact that we can talk, and we can say things. We can tell how many things are left and tell that to another human to make him understand that there is a need to have more things. We can tell a human about another human that he or she has never met before and make him know that the other human is stronger, wiser or a total looser.

Summary

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-13 19:39:29 UTC

When humans finished killing all of their brothers and sisters, they started to know something. They were now everywhere. They could talk and tell each other about almost anything. Little by little, they ended up conquering the whole world. They came to America and to Australia. An then they created culture.

Chapter three: A day in the life of Adam and Eve.

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-15 00:03:16 UTC

Thesis

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-15 00:06:13 UTC

We do not know anything before the first villages. In fact, trying to understand a day to day about humans is impossible. We do not know what they thought, what they believed, how they spoke, nor what they did. We just know plain facts. Furthermore, we know mostly what they eat and what they drank.

Summary

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-15 00:10:32 UTC

When we left Africa, we made the biggest leap in biology's history. An organism made its way to another continent. And furthermore, this organism was about to change history single-handedly. In the beginning, we did not shine. We were just another ape that was there, killing some animals every once in a while. We started culture with this. Not only that, but we turned language in to our biggest weapon. Humans are the only animal that was able to tell stories. And that was all we needed.

Personal comment.

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-15 00:54:32 UTC

I would like to know how humans used to tell stories. Were there poems that talked about the love that a young man had? Were there stories told by elders to explain the world? Were there lairs that used their knowledge to fool people? If there were people like these, we were not that different. In fact, we are not, we are just a bit fatter. Their language is the mystery that starts history. Their tons of languages, their tons of stories, their ways of expressing. Did they have a verb to be? Did they have a verb to have? These two might sound as the most common thing in the whole world, but they actually are not. Many languages do not have them, they do not worry about what is the being nor what is having. We just know that there is. Maybe knowing only what there is out there and not worrying that much about the ways in which we interact is a better way of thinking.

Chapter Four: The flood.

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-15 00:55:02 UTC

Summary

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-15 01:02:46 UTC

As we finally went to every island, everywhere, humans killed. The only thing we know to do. We destroyed more species than we could ever think. We were not one with nature, we were just an animal. An animal more important than others. An animal more destructive than others. We were the animal that killed the giant sloths. We are the animal that killed the marsupials and the dodos. Likewise, we are the animal that thinks that it has moral or values. They are inventions of others. We could not resist the idea to kill our fellow humans apes, and we will not resist the idea to kill all the other peoples that do not think like us, calling them uncivilized or primitive. Animals were the first.

Thesis.

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-15 01:04:48 UTC

We were never friends of the nature, nor the animals. We were just animals that wanted to survive. Animals that could not measure what they were doing when they killed the last dodo nor the last Mammoth. And we will be like that forever.

Personal comment.

aldo_zamora — 2024-04-15 01:13:48 UTC

The author thinks that we have evolved our ways of thinking. But just seeing what we have done and what we are is quite notorious that we are the same mammal that left Africa all those years ago. He wrongly thinks that we can change how we have been acting all of these years. Before his books and words, we saw the Balkans war, prior to that we saw the Vietnam War and even further behind we saw the worst moment of human history. So we are the same scared monkey that learned to tame fire. We cannot stop global warming because our language is not as convincing enough to show how it feels to die because of the drought. Our most formidable weapon is now our own cage. This way of thinking that started when we killed all of these animals to extinction will keep us killing for ever.