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What we have here are competing over-generalizations. There are many sculpture-like artifacts from prehistoric sites. In most cases, we have no proof that they
by mannykannot 3y ago
What we have here are competing over-generalizations.
There are many sculpture-like artifacts from prehistoric sites. In most cases, we have no proof that they are sculptures, just strong evidence, and there's a long tail of increasingly vaguely sculpture-like forms where no strong conclusions should be drawn.
The existence of this tail does not invalidate the strong conclusions about the clearly artificial sculptures, and the analogous conclusion follows for RagnarD's main point about the fossil record.
- fluoridation 3y agoBut, again, you are determining whether something is a sculpture or not based on your knowledge of what sculptures look like and/or where the object in question is when you find it. Without that knowledge you are not able to make that determination. Without that knowledge you can only make much more basic statements, such as tell which one is heavier or larger, or what they're each made of. That's because those properties are intrinsic to the objects, unlike whether they're sculptures. You can't change those properties without changing something fundamental about the object.
- mannykannot 3y agoWe are not talking about a situation where we don't have any knowledge, which brings us right back to my original reply to you.