Anthony Campbell  wrote:

....> 
> The people who made the cave images were essentially modern humans,
> anatomically exactly like us. Until about 30,000 years ago, however,
> they shared their habitat with another species of human, the
> Neandertals. As far as we know the Neandertals, though their brains were
> as large or even larger than ours, did not make any complex form of art.
> Lewis-Williams believes that this indicates that they possessed a
> different form of consciousness and probably a less complex language,
> and he seems to think that, at least to start with, the modern humans
> developed their art (including body painting as well as cave art) in
> order to emphasize their distinctness from their "less advanced"
> neighbours. Once started on this route they continued down it, long
> after the last Neandertals had disappeared.

Oh dear. A different form of consciousness? Apart from the fact that
people not descended from the Altamira gene pool also seem to have the
"same form of consciousness" when inducted into the culture that we
have, and they have identical linguistic abilities, conceptual skills,
and so forth, what, exactly, could be *meant* by "different forms of
consciousness"? We can't even specify what we *mean* by
"consciousness".

About 30 years ago, Paul Feyerabend tried to run the line that Greeks in
the time of Homer had a different concept of bodies, based on the art
forms of the time. It was bunkum then, and it is bunkum now...

[Not attacking Anthony, so much as Lewis-Williams as reported.]

....
-- 
John S Wilkins PhD - www.wilkins.id.au
  a little emptier, a little spent
  as always by that quiver in the self,
  subjugated, yes, and obedient.  -- Seamus Heaney
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