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> This discovery confirms that the Neanderthals were, like us, fully developed spiritual beings capable of sophisticated artistic expression. That feels a bit

> This discovery confirms that the Neanderthals were, like us, fully developed spiritual beings capable of sophisticated artistic expression. That feels a bit like an unsupported claim to me. It may be so, I am not saying Neanderthals weren't spiritual beings capable of sophisticated artistic expression. I am just wondering how you would confidently conclude that from the existence of (a thing which is probably) a flute. In a slightly larger sense, it feels like a lot of claims about Neanderthals do this same thing: the presence of a specific artifact becomes not only evidence of technological sophistication, but proof of some deeper philosophical or spiritual consequence. I'm fascinated by early hominin, and try to follow this stuff as a lay person. So much interesting progress in such a short time. But, I'm not comfortable with the level of speculation I frequently see among communicators in this field, personally.

beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago
The connection between artistic expression and "spiritual beings" is also odd. What if they were just playing some songs around a fire? What if the flutes were for emulating bird songs? Maybe it was a kid's toy. The presence of artistic expression need not require some complex or even simplistic spiritualism, only a kind of basic aesthetics, a desire for creative expression.
- mastazi 3y ago
  I get your point but > Maybe it was a kid's toy. We shouldn't be dismissive of kid's toys, I think they fully qualify as indicators of intelligence. Fish fry or newborn reptiles don't play flutes.
  - Tagbert 3y ago
    I think the objection is equating "intelligent" with "spiritual being". Those are not necessarily coincident.
    - mastazi 3y ago
      Yes, true, my bad. I have a history of not understanding what the word "spiritual" means (I think I've read every possible explanation over the years, I still don't get it), so I usually tend to find a proxy for it when I'm reasoning about something. In this case I was using "intelligent" as my proxy.
    - Mistletoe 3y ago
      Aren’t they, though? I’ll know AI is intelligent when it worries about being turned off.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        How will we know if it is actually worrying, or if it's just regurgitating our own worries like a VHS tape of the famous Bladerunner or Hamlet soliloquies? When it can provide its own answer, it will have already been smart for a long time.
        Mistletoe 3y ago
        How do we know a person is not regurgitating worries?
        ben_w 3y ago
        Assumptions, and often incorrect ones at that. I keep finding the Münchhausen Trilemma popping up whenever the possibilities of AI consciousness are discussed, more specifically I keep seeing circular and dogmatic arguments against it. I only see "cogito ergo sum" or "there is a thought now" when I myself bring up those quotes. Having an A-level in philosophy at mere grade E, I'm almost certainly less qualified than ChatGPT to discuss it, of course…
    - analog31 3y ago
      Indeed, I think I'm an intelligent person, but I also don't think I'm spiritual in any way that I'm aware of. And I can play the flute.
- webnrrd2k 3y ago
  I'm certain that it was made by some 20-ish year old Jethro Tull-like neanderthal cranking out Aqalung, just trying to get with the ladies.
- dr_dshiv 3y ago
  Can we please operationalize “spiritual?” It’s obviously important. Can something that is not conscious be spiritual? I doubt it. So sentience is at least required. Can something that is not empathic be spiritual? I doubt it. So, I’d propose that “spiritual” at least requires consciousness and empathy. Then it seems to require some other transcendent aspect which often involves the dissolution of the ego. So, it requires an ego to be dissolved. Any objections?
  - mellavora 3y ago
    Yes, a few objections, or at least requests for clarification. You propose that necessary conditions for "spiritual" are "consciousness" and "empathy". These phenomenon are regularly seen in trees, and also in most motive forms of multicellular life. You then propose that sufficient conditions would additionally include existence of an ego AND its dissolution. If ego is the thing that gets in the way of spiritual, then wouldn't beings that don't have ego be inherently spiritual? And for those beings that have an ego, given that the ego is made from the non-ego, how do you distinguish between when they are spiritual and when not? I've found that my self is often less aware of my spiritual aspect than I would like, but I'm also very seldom aware of how I coordinate my heartbeat or how I breath or digest food. How do I know that I'm not enlightened? And just because I "know" this, does it make it true? Does it matter more if I believe in God or if God believes in me? What is this barrier between me and enlightenment? isn't the ego just as much an expression of "spirit" as the heartbeat?
    - dr_dshiv 3y ago
      > You propose that necessary conditions for "spiritual" are "consciousness" and "empathy". These phenomenon are regularly seen in trees, and also in most motive forms of multicellular life. Empathic trees? I want to know more.
nomel 3y ago
> I am just wondering how you would confidently conclude that from the existence of (a thing which is probably) a flute. It’s not just the flute. It’s the burial rituals, the art, the tools, the anatomy, the crossbreeding, etc. See any introduction to the topic.
- cubefox 3y ago
  So instead of "This discovery confirms" the author should have written "This discovery is one of many pieces of evidence for".
  - bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
    The find is relevant here, the text less so. Read about the find in another text if you dont like this writer.
    - cubefox 3y ago
      Next time.
mandmandam 3y ago
Let's assume the thing is a flute. It's been reconstructed and plays beautifully. The odds of a hyena making such a thing with its teeth are in silly territory; and we have other similar flutes that are nearly as old (relatively speaking). Given that, the fact that they use a scale so resonant with humans that it is still in very popular use sixty thousand years later - that's incredible. I felt the article drastically undersold the awesomeness of that, showing far too much restraint. Have you seen the video where Bobby McFerrin leads a whole crowd to sync perfectly with each other, without rehearsal, thanks to the pentatonic scale [0]? That's spiritual stuff; it's 'sophisticated artistic expression'. That's the same scale that was (almost certainly) intentionally used to make this flute. Here's a great comment from that video: > What Bobby is doing here is transcendent. He gives an audience four notes of a five note scale, with no context, with no explanation, and the audience is intuitively able to grasp what the 5th note of the scale is. Not only that, the audience is able to intuitively understand the way the scale continues, above and below the range they were given. The fact that Bobby says this works with audience anywhere in the world speaks to a deep cross-cultural piece of the human experience and how we understand music and ourselves. Something is happening at the fundamental level here and I think it's lost on some people how truly profound this is. Neanderthals intentionally crafted sophisticated flutes to play this precise scale 60,000 years ago? That's profound alright. 0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk
- mastazi 3y ago
  > That's spiritual stuff; It's also physics, those notes sound good next to each other because mathematically their frequencies are resonant (simple relationships like 3/2 or 5/4 as opposed to, say, 729/512 of a tritone). I'm not saying that it's not awesome that this scale is still in use (it is) or that hearing that flute doesn't make me emotional (it does), just noting that there is a reason why.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    That's true, and it's important. Still, it seems very likely those Neanderthals 60k years ago were playing music for all the same reasons we do, even making efforts to understand the principles enough to make clever instruments. Maybe the Neanderthals even knew about such ratios. It's discoverable by playing with string, or even plants.
tptacek 3y ago
It's an interesting question, right? Arguably, orcas also do musical expression.
masswerk 3y ago
There is a (now rather dated) theory of an hierarchy of arts, where music, being the most abstract and at the same time the most intimate and sensual (AKA spiritual) one taking the crown. If you adhere to this idea to some degree, there may be no way around this kind of conclusion, short of abandoning said theory, since music is supposed to encompass the virtues of all the other arts.
- ben_w 3y ago
  This would imply wolves, dogs, whales and songbirds are all spiritual. I don't know either way, and would be willing to accept either way, but that's the implication I see.
  - bloak 3y ago
    There is very little similarity between music and the sounds made by a songbird. According to an article I read about a scientific paper on the subject, I think, birdsong doesn't have particular notes belonging to a particular scale in the way that nearly all human music does. I can actually hear a cuckoo as I type this ... perhaps it's trying to present a counter-argument? ... but I'm not convinced! and I'm not going to record it and measure the frequencies of the two "notes" ... however, I've just looked it up and apparently the interval starts off as roughly a minor third in the spring and gradually changes into roughly a perfect fourth in the summer! You can incorporate that sound into music -- it's been done lots of times -- but the sound itself isn't music and most music isn't imitative like that.
    - mellavora 3y ago
      This is a strange and limiting definition of music, and rather unfair to the birds. Jokingly, when I sing, it is also hard to tie the sounds coming out of my mouth to particular notes.... seriously, there are birds who sing in a choir/band; the lead singer is the only one who gets laid, his friends "only" help him to sound his best and to give social support to his efforts to impress. Point is a very dedicated effort for a group of animals to coordinate soundmaking as a form of social communication to arouse emotion and bonding. How is this not music? I've seen people write code in languages that don't even have types, like most computer languages do. Obviously they are not programming. That's right, hard-coding in assembler or even strict binary/hex is as far from programming as you can get!

beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago

The connection between artistic expression and "spiritual beings" is also odd. What if they were just playing some songs around a fire? What if the flutes were for emulating bird songs? Maybe it was a kid's toy. The presence of artistic expression need not require some complex or even simplistic spiritualism, only a kind of basic aesthetics, a desire for creative expression.

mastazi 3y ago
I get your point but > Maybe it was a kid's toy. We shouldn't be dismissive of kid's toys, I think they fully qualify as indicators of intelligence. Fish fry or newborn reptiles don't play flutes.
- Tagbert 3y ago
  I think the objection is equating "intelligent" with "spiritual being". Those are not necessarily coincident.
  - mastazi 3y ago
    Yes, true, my bad. I have a history of not understanding what the word "spiritual" means (I think I've read every possible explanation over the years, I still don't get it), so I usually tend to find a proxy for it when I'm reasoning about something. In this case I was using "intelligent" as my proxy.
  - Mistletoe 3y ago
    Aren’t they, though? I’ll know AI is intelligent when it worries about being turned off.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      How will we know if it is actually worrying, or if it's just regurgitating our own worries like a VHS tape of the famous Bladerunner or Hamlet soliloquies? When it can provide its own answer, it will have already been smart for a long time.
      - Mistletoe 3y ago
        How do we know a person is not regurgitating worries?
        ben_w 3y ago
        Assumptions, and often incorrect ones at that. I keep finding the Münchhausen Trilemma popping up whenever the possibilities of AI consciousness are discussed, more specifically I keep seeing circular and dogmatic arguments against it. I only see "cogito ergo sum" or "there is a thought now" when I myself bring up those quotes. Having an A-level in philosophy at mere grade E, I'm almost certainly less qualified than ChatGPT to discuss it, of course…
  - analog31 3y ago
    Indeed, I think I'm an intelligent person, but I also don't think I'm spiritual in any way that I'm aware of. And I can play the flute.
webnrrd2k 3y ago
I'm certain that it was made by some 20-ish year old Jethro Tull-like neanderthal cranking out Aqalung, just trying to get with the ladies.
dr_dshiv 3y ago
Can we please operationalize “spiritual?” It’s obviously important. Can something that is not conscious be spiritual? I doubt it. So sentience is at least required. Can something that is not empathic be spiritual? I doubt it. So, I’d propose that “spiritual” at least requires consciousness and empathy. Then it seems to require some other transcendent aspect which often involves the dissolution of the ego. So, it requires an ego to be dissolved. Any objections?
- mellavora 3y ago
  Yes, a few objections, or at least requests for clarification. You propose that necessary conditions for "spiritual" are "consciousness" and "empathy". These phenomenon are regularly seen in trees, and also in most motive forms of multicellular life. You then propose that sufficient conditions would additionally include existence of an ego AND its dissolution. If ego is the thing that gets in the way of spiritual, then wouldn't beings that don't have ego be inherently spiritual? And for those beings that have an ego, given that the ego is made from the non-ego, how do you distinguish between when they are spiritual and when not? I've found that my self is often less aware of my spiritual aspect than I would like, but I'm also very seldom aware of how I coordinate my heartbeat or how I breath or digest food. How do I know that I'm not enlightened? And just because I "know" this, does it make it true? Does it matter more if I believe in God or if God believes in me? What is this barrier between me and enlightenment? isn't the ego just as much an expression of "spirit" as the heartbeat?
  - dr_dshiv 3y ago
    > You propose that necessary conditions for "spiritual" are "consciousness" and "empathy". These phenomenon are regularly seen in trees, and also in most motive forms of multicellular life. Empathic trees? I want to know more.

nomel 3y ago

> I am just wondering how you would confidently conclude that from the existence of (a thing which is probably) a flute. It’s not just the flute. It’s the burial rituals, the art, the tools, the anatomy, the crossbreeding, etc. See any introduction to the topic.

cubefox 3y ago
So instead of "This discovery confirms" the author should have written "This discovery is one of many pieces of evidence for".
- bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
  The find is relevant here, the text less so. Read about the find in another text if you dont like this writer.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    Next time.

mandmandam 3y ago

Let's assume the thing is a flute. It's been reconstructed and plays beautifully. The odds of a hyena making such a thing with its teeth are in silly territory; and we have other similar flutes that are nearly as old (relatively speaking). Given that, the fact that they use a scale so resonant with humans that it is still in very popular use sixty thousand years later - that's incredible. I felt the article drastically undersold the awesomeness of that, showing far too much restraint. Have you seen the video where Bobby McFerrin leads a whole crowd to sync perfectly with each other, without rehearsal, thanks to the pentatonic scale [0]? That's spiritual stuff; it's 'sophisticated artistic expression'. That's the same scale that was (almost certainly) intentionally used to make this flute. Here's a great comment from that video: > What Bobby is doing here is transcendent. He gives an audience four notes of a five note scale, with no context, with no explanation, and the audience is intuitively able to grasp what the 5th note of the scale is. Not only that, the audience is able to intuitively understand the way the scale continues, above and below the range they were given. The fact that Bobby says this works with audience anywhere in the world speaks to a deep cross-cultural piece of the human experience and how we understand music and ourselves. Something is happening at the fundamental level here and I think it's lost on some people how truly profound this is. Neanderthals intentionally crafted sophisticated flutes to play this precise scale 60,000 years ago? That's profound alright. 0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk

mastazi 3y ago
> That's spiritual stuff; It's also physics, those notes sound good next to each other because mathematically their frequencies are resonant (simple relationships like 3/2 or 5/4 as opposed to, say, 729/512 of a tritone). I'm not saying that it's not awesome that this scale is still in use (it is) or that hearing that flute doesn't make me emotional (it does), just noting that there is a reason why.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  That's true, and it's important. Still, it seems very likely those Neanderthals 60k years ago were playing music for all the same reasons we do, even making efforts to understand the principles enough to make clever instruments. Maybe the Neanderthals even knew about such ratios. It's discoverable by playing with string, or even plants.

tptacek 3y ago

It's an interesting question, right? Arguably, orcas also do musical expression.

masswerk 3y ago

There is a (now rather dated) theory of an hierarchy of arts, where music, being the most abstract and at the same time the most intimate and sensual (AKA spiritual) one taking the crown. If you adhere to this idea to some degree, there may be no way around this kind of conclusion, short of abandoning said theory, since music is supposed to encompass the virtues of all the other arts.

ben_w 3y ago
This would imply wolves, dogs, whales and songbirds are all spiritual. I don't know either way, and would be willing to accept either way, but that's the implication I see.
- bloak 3y ago
  There is very little similarity between music and the sounds made by a songbird. According to an article I read about a scientific paper on the subject, I think, birdsong doesn't have particular notes belonging to a particular scale in the way that nearly all human music does. I can actually hear a cuckoo as I type this ... perhaps it's trying to present a counter-argument? ... but I'm not convinced! and I'm not going to record it and measure the frequencies of the two "notes" ... however, I've just looked it up and apparently the interval starts off as roughly a minor third in the spring and gradually changes into roughly a perfect fourth in the summer! You can incorporate that sound into music -- it's been done lots of times -- but the sound itself isn't music and most music isn't imitative like that.
  - mellavora 3y ago
    This is a strange and limiting definition of music, and rather unfair to the birds. Jokingly, when I sing, it is also hard to tie the sounds coming out of my mouth to particular notes.... seriously, there are birds who sing in a choir/band; the lead singer is the only one who gets laid, his friends "only" help him to sound his best and to give social support to his efforts to impress. Point is a very dedicated effort for a group of animals to coordinate soundmaking as a form of social communication to arouse emotion and bonding. How is this not music? I've seen people write code in languages that don't even have types, like most computer languages do. Obviously they are not programming. That's right, hard-coding in assembler or even strict binary/hex is as far from programming as you can get!