Re: Civilization without fire

On Wed, 29 Dec 1999, BP Jonsson wrote:

>
>My point was that we are conditioned by our metallurgy-based civilization
>to make that false equation, and I honestly did think Nik made it, when he
>said:
That's what I think as well.  Things _are_ a certain way for us and
it's hard to get our minds around how it can be different.  It was the
same with the life on other planets threads we've had on Conculture
and other places: we assume that life forms on small rocky planets
near nice stable stars. Why?  Because that's our only model.

>
>>Well, that's pretty broad, but I suppose you could say that any
>>non-instinctive use of something beyond the animal's natural abilities
>>is technology.  Then in that case, a very low level of technology is
>>possible without fire.
>
>IMO stone age technology way up to Inca level would have been perfectly
>possible without fire.  The food may not have been very tasty, but the only
>thing for which fire is absolutely required in a temperate climate is
>metallurgy.
And cooking pottery.

Padraic.

>
>As for intelligent fish, I have been thinking, and come to the conclusion
>that their language would probably be electric-field-modulation based! :-)
>
>
>/BP
>
> B.Philip Jonsson  <bpj@...> <melroch@...>
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>