The following is a series of observations. A certain premium will be placed upon what
could be described as a “unity of expression”.
A second other premium will be unleashed related to emergence. The results will depend, and outcome may
come.
With a two hundred million (200,000,000) year or so
trajectory, head start, legacy—you would think that breast feeding would be a
piece of cake.
“Ruddiger!”
“Yes mama” he calls back, shit grin on his face.
“Ya hungry?”
“Yes mama” he calls back, blessed excitement on his face.
Mammals evolved from a subset of reptiles today known as the
Therapsids. Within this group of reptiles (today with no living analogues) a
selective premium was placed on those Therapsids that could regulate their
internal temperature (and hence their metabolic processes) by a series of more “independent”
(if you will; will you? Besos.)
mechanisms. “Independence” here should
be understood as independence from the environmental conditions, this latter
group of factors encompassing sun light, ambient temperature, moisture,
etc.
A quick comparison of living mammals and living reptiles
will quickly highlight the differences related to metabolic-process-execution
among these two closely related vertebrates.
A crocodile on the Tarcoles river bead will bask in the sun, absorbing
and transforming the UV rays into metabolic energy which then fuels its
muscles, organs, systems. Some, but not
much, heat is gathered by this crocodile from its prey. But remember your pet Boa, Stinky? Stinky only ate minute mice every so often. Stinky’s primary source of energy was the
light bulb.
Mammals munch mucho mas frequently. Mammals have different classes of teeth,
something that reptiles lack. This dental
variety opens up ecological doors allowing mammals to eat a wider variety of
foods than reptiles can, thus allowing them to eat more frequently…thus
resulting in a metabolic pattern in which a ton of our heat/energy is acquired
from food sources. Other heat-related
differences we may want to point out between mammals and reptiles can be seen
in our hair/fur vs. their leather.
Ok. So this brief overview
must now be placed over the backdrop of hundreds of millions of years, and it
must be tightly interlaced with complexity.
Good?
You would think that this long history that preceded us
would make us expert feeders. Add our
brain to the mix and shit! We’re good to
go.
Such reasoning might be common, expected and even justified,
provided certain assumptions. Let me
point out some assumptions that would be indefensible from an evolutionary
standpoint. The belief that over the passage of time, evolution would mold
structures (organisms, organism-organism interactions, etc) into more
efficient, better-adapted entities. Such
reasoning is teleological and it commonly permeates human imaginations. However, it is not defensible when we examine
the history of life forms on Earth and it is incompatible with what we know of
how evolution by means of natural selection, gene flow, genetic drift and
mutation, operates.
The belief that
rational thought is key to everything.
Comparative biology and evolutionary ecology have yielded a depth of
knowledge concerning the variation exhibited by life forms as they carryout
basically the same essential processes:
growth and development, reproduction and death. We stumble upon our crocodile friend again,
and this time, Ruddiger is throwing dried horse manure at it from the safety of
the Tarcoles bridge. Croco is a bit
annoyed, but the cloud cover really makes moving unappealing, particularly
given the harmlessness of Ruddiger’s stunt.
Now, Redneck Willy shows up on his pick up truck and begins
chasing Croco with a flame thrower.
Croco, with heat on his ass, bolts into the water with the speed of
Usain Bolt. Croco is really young, and
yet, his instincts provide him with basically all the tools to survive. He can eat, defend himself, swim.
Ruddiger on the other hand has just turned 7. His brain is just about ceasing to grow. That’s right, his brain took 7 years to reach
adult size (compared to around 3 for a Chimp).
And at 7 Ruddiger very much acts like a Chimp still. He’s not greatly coordinated yet, and his reasoning
abilities are not ready for him to match the challenges of the world without
the aid and supervision of elders.
Two strategies to develop behavior and locomotive tactics: 1)
a lot of instinct with little room for learning; 2) little instinct with tons
of room for learning.
Evolutionary ecological
axiom we can draw from this: the more a group of animals rely on learning, the
greater the variation in exhibited behaviors.
If we follow this evolutionary observation, then tolerating cultural, psychological,
etc, differences among humans emerges as a necessity, given that humans as
animals are the learners par
excellence.
Milk. It’s
yummy. It’ provides you with
immunological force. It stirs oxytocin
in your chest. Endorphins follow. Endorphins in my chest, can’t we rest our
heads together? Endorphins that make you
grow in tandem with the growth of your sense of security in this world. Mammal: emerge gently for we hold your hand
and keep you warm too.
The past 12 days have been some of the coolest of our lives. As far as love flow goes, well it’s gone
pretty well. I have witnessed how Kate
and Santiago learn to feed and share moments with hormones and jazzy
undertones. It’s beautiful. It’s not easy to let go and learn to be in
your body again. But with help and love
and education and relaxation, our boy has put on an easy two lbs over these 12
days.
Primate as context: remember the value of touch.
Perils of out of context jibber jabber:
To assume a literal end of the world by
decontextualizing Mayan cosmologies and notions of time. Time is not universal, or even something on
its own. Read the first 30 or so pages
of Kant’s A Critique of Pure Reason
and the 8 or so first chapters of Einstein’s Relativity and I think you will be thoroughly convinced. From these two sources, as well as from
comparative ethnography we know that time, thus, is understood culturally; and,
given that humans learns so God damn much, and this learning, in turn, is
necessarily tied to variation of learned behavior, we must remember that
notions of time will vary from society to society, generation to generation. Further, any cultural notion never stands
alone, but is rather upheld by a network of notions, feelings, aesthetics and
metaphysics.
I am no expert on the Mayans, but I once heard an expert
talk about their “cosmology”. Dr.
Anthony Aveni (http://anthonyfaveni.com/)
gave a brilliant lecture once at New College, Sarasota, in which he detailed
the relationship between Venus’ orbit, Mayan lore about God, time and
renewal. At any given time, Dr. Aveni
told us, the Mayan “priests”, “astronomers” (what have you) could tell where in
the sky Venus would be for the next hundred years or so. That’s some detailed knowledge. Evidence of their mastery can be seen in many
of their architectural feats, which match the rising moon, sun—Venus—at key
points during their movements, resulting in magnifiscent displays of
astronomical-architectural magic. Dr.
Aveni made the point that the ruling class used the notion of renewal tied to
Venus movements to underpin the legitimacy of their rule. Bear in mind that out of the millions of
Mayans who lived during the peak of the Mayan empire (Classical period), only a
handful comprised the elite class. The
vast majority were subsistence farmers, in many ways similar to the European
peasantry of later years.
Venus was a God that much like Shiva under Hinduism, would
renew with destruction. Life and
death. Yin and Yang. Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono to John Lennon’s
art. If you want to be literal and
think that the Mayan’s thought that the world would end ,then feel free to
mis-comprehend.
Finally, the third “M” of this post relates in one way to
Marketa Irglova. Dj Santiago has been
killing it with some crazy tunes these days.
Thought you’d want to listen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs0SXMtCy3c
Peace,
Nesto
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