Darren New wrote:
> Sherry Shaw wrote:
>> Human Supremecist Party Line:  "We *must* be vastly superior to the 
>> apes--we're toolmakers!  Oh, sure, an ape will select a rock to use as 
>> a nutcracker, or strip the leaves off a stick to make a termite 
>> fishing tool, but *we* make tools just all the time!"
> 
> Actually, I think the difference is that people make tools whose only 
> purpose is to make other tools.
> 

Wait a minute, waaaaaaaaiiiit a minute.......If I had found a bigger 
rock and used it to break the tent-stake-hammering rock in half, I could 
have gotten a sharp edge and *chopped* the weenie-cooking sticks off the 
floated-up tree limb instead of just pulling them.......*scraped* the 
leaves off the sticks............

Whoa!  You're a genius! ;)

Seriously, though, I think we all need to get used to thinking of it as 
a gradient, even a really big looong gradient, rather than a dividing 
line.  I don't think the "Lords of Creation" idea is serving us too well 
right now.  But yeah, tools to make tools to make tools....I'd be 
interested to know if those nut-cracking chimps have ever gotten to that 
point, however briefly--you know, the ones who pick out the right base 
to lay the nut on, AND pick out a rock or stick to whack the nut with, 
AND carry the nut-whacker around with them to use again.  It seems like 
eventually some big, burly chimp would miss the nut and whack the base 
hard enough to accidentally chip the whacker into something more useful...

But would (s)he figure out what had happened?  And manage to pass along 
that knowledge to others?  And would a human get a chance to observe it 
in action before those chimps go extinct?  (Heavy sigh.)

Wonder how long our ancestors spent at that point...and how long it took 
the new ideas to catch on...and how many geeky ape-folk became some 
critter's lunch because they got interested in what they were doing and 
forgot to look around every now and then...

Sherry "Yep, We're Apes" Shaw

-- 
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
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1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}//                                   TenMoons

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