In Part 56 I told you about the various energy
revolutions and energy regimes that followed the emergence of life on Earth.
Here is a recap:
Thermophilic
regime
~3.8 billion years ago | Photo-energy
revolution
Phototrophic regime
~2.1 billion years ago | Oxo-energy
revolution
Aerobic regime
~0.5 million years ago | Pyro-energy
revolution
Pyrocultural regime
~12000 years ago | Agro-energy
revolution
Agrocultural
regime
~400 years ago | Carbo-energy revolution
Carbocultural regime
Humans are 'thinking
reeds'. Their emergence on the scene (cf. Part 57) had a
societal and cultural aspect, which impacted very strongly what would otherwise have been purely
raw, blind-forces-of-Nature evolution.
Humans have
been instrumental in the creation of an ‘anthroposphere’,
comprising of the following four 'anthroposystems' (Niele 2005):
Human
knowing
(leading to discovery, or new observation).
Human
capacity
(leading to invention, or new creation).
Human
action
(leading to innovation, or new practice).
Human
living
(leading to diffusion, or new way of living).
The
anthroposphere emerged ~2.5 million years ago, near the end of the aerobic energy regime. Early humans
observed the hardness of stones and the sharpness of some shapes of stones.
This was ‘discovery’ or earth wisdom
(the first of the four anthroposystems listed above).
The next stage
was ‘invention’, namely the creation of tools (axes, cleavers, picks) by
striking stone against stone (stone
technology).
Innovation
followed invention. The invented tools or artefacts were used for procuring and
processing food (foraging and scavenging).
All this
changed the way of living; an example was the emergence of the practice of cave dwelling.
Man the
toolmaker and cave dweller could survive and thrive through his earth wisdom or
comprehension of his surroundings. The dominance of the human species triggered
the pyro-energy revolution, resulting in the pyrocultural energy regime.
The aerobic
regime had changed the face of the Earth. The new-look planet got ~20% oxygen
in the atmosphere, and supported plants and animals. Niele (2005) has pointed
out another important fallout of the aerobic regime, namely the appearance of wild
fire on the scene. A new energy gradient had emerged, with wood plus oxygen
serving as the energy source. The energy sink for this gradient was carbon
dioxide plus water.
In due course,
humans acquired mastery over fire. This was a development with far-reaching
consequences. Anthropogenic fire can be said to have marked the beginning of
the human civilization. It engendered the beginning of the pyrocultural energy
regime. The new energy-dissipating structure (based on wood-burning) was societal
in nature. Fire mastery meant several things: Heating; lighting; roasting of
food; scaring away animals, and most significantly, the emergent social
intercourse around the fireplace.
The societal
aspect of the pyrocultural energy regime had ever-spiralling fallouts. The
ever-increasing energy dissipation (through burning of wood) took the System
Earth farther away from equilibrium, leading to the emergence of new kinds of
complexity. Since the fire economy was a societal dissipative structure, the
emergent phenomena were cultural by nature (Niele 2005). As people tended to
assemble around the fireplace, emergent phenomena like coordination,
communication, spoken languages, symbolic thinking, etc. were the result.
Evolution of
complexity in an energy-dissipating system involves a driving force and a shaping force. The driving
force here, of course, was solar energy trapped in wood. The shaping force was human ingenuity.
Thus, for the
pyrocultural energy regime:
Energy
source:
Wood plus oxygen for creating controlled fire.
Energy
sink:
Carbon dioxide plus water.
Energy-dissipating
pathway:
Societal structure around the fireplace.
Chief
drivers:
Humans.
The key
phrases for the four anthroposystems characterizing the pyrocultural regime are:
Symbolic
thinking
(discovery);
fire
technology
(invention);
hunting
and cooking (innovation); and
nomadic
bands
(new way of living).
Humans had observed
wild fires and the burning of wood, and also experienced the heat of the fire.
They soon learnt how to create and sustain this fire in a controlled manner.
The fireplace became a daily practice, making cave dwelling more attractive.
This had a major influence on the life style of people. They could not only
hunt with their tools, they could also cook the food.
There is a new
(2011) book Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, by Nathan Myhrvold et al. Among other things it explains
in an appetising manner how cooking made humans smarter. Cooked food is akin to
pre-digested food in certain ways. Therefore it takes the load off the
intestines, thus making extra energy available for the brain. This was one of
the factors leading to an increased brain size of humans, compared to the apes.
Since humans
cook their food, they spend just 5% of the day eating. Uncooked food is hard
and stringy, requiring hours of chewing and still not giving the same level of
nourishment. The extra time available to early humans enabled them, among other
things, to look for new kinds of food, gather fruits, or lie in wait of animals
for hunting.
The fireside
not only resulted in the emergence of nomadic culture, it also provided the
right milieu for the development of symbolic thinking. The fireside
became the hub of social evolution, and its most important fallout was the
uniquely human trait of symbolic thinking. This led to the development of
language, as also an increasingly sophisticated way of looking at Nature.
The coevolution of brainpower and technology, or 'memes' and
artefacts, accelerated. [As I shall discuss in a future post, memes are the
social equivalent of genes.] Humans even created ‘nonuseful’ artefacts like
jewellery and musical instruments.
Emergence of
symbolic ‘doings’ like these has been viewed by Niele (2005) as a Symbolisational
Signal, which triggered the agro-energy
revolution, and the consequent agrocultural energy regime. More on that next
time.
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