<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style></head><body><div style='font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000'><br>This post reminds me a bit of David Brin's Uplift Saga... great books, worth another read if I can find them in my collection!<br><br>----- Original Message -----<br>From: "spike" <spike66@att.net><br>To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org><br>Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 12:59:43 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern<br>Subject: [ExI] dolphins making tools and developing a technology: RE: Psi and gullibility<br><br><br><br>The psi discussion here has produced an insight: if a phenomenon exists but<br>we haven't the memetic infrastructure to support it, we wouldn't recognize<br>it even if we saw it. We would seek alternative explanations, as I do with<br>psi. <br><br>In my misspent youth I recall being taught that humans were the only tool<br>users, but that the notion was being challenged. As a fallback, the text<br>book claimed that humans are definitely the only tool makers. Now we know<br>plenty of nonhuman beasts do that too.<br><br>Check this way cool dolphin behavior:<br><br>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ50PYMXDCQ<br><br>Note that the guy making the mud ring does not himself get fed, but the<br>others do. So this requires some rethinking of our evolutionary memeset.<br><br>spike<br><br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>extropy-chat mailing list<br>extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org<br>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat<br></div></body></html>