From Magic To Science

THE PALAEOLITHIC ERA - ALSO KNOWN AS THE STONE AGE -

3, 500 000 years to 10, 000 BCE - 99% of the period of human technological prehistory is during this period

The first Homo Sapiens evolved in Africa 200, 000 years ago during the middle palaeolithic era 300, 000 50, 000 BCE. By this time humans had become incredibly intelligent beings who could not only reflect upon themselves and the world around them but could also reflect upon their own existence within the world. Being self-aware meant that humans were aware of themselves as themselves in other words, it s was obvious to humans that they themselves were the object of their own consciousness.

With this level of perception, it was only natural that humankind would come to question their own existence in the world. The topic of exactly when and where philosophy first began to develop is still debated, but the simplest answer is that it would have begun the first time someone asked why they were born, what their purpose was, and how they were supposed to understand their lives. at any time in the distant past. The earliest known human burial was in the Middle East 100, 000 BCE.

The term philosophy may apply to a formalised secular or religious system of thought, a personal construct, or a communal understanding of belief, but in each case, the purpose of the system was to develop theories about existence, such as:

What is the meaning of life?

What is the purpose in life?

What is the meaning of existence?

Who am I?

What is my nature?

Where do we go when we die?

Who made us?

Is there a maker?

Picture this, you are one of the human beings, living hundreds of thousands of years ago. You`re out on the plains of the Serengeti, shooting the breeze with your fellow hunter-gatherers when one of them asks the group, what is death,? and where do we go when we die?

EARLY MAN DID NOT JUDGE ANYTHING WITH LOGIC AND REASONS

Because you are living in the palaeolithic age, you cannot access the education and the insight of other people s wisdom because it doesn t exist yet. There are no social constructs, no objective reality because there has been no collective human interaction and there is no knowledge base. There are no prevailing ideas about the world, religion. biology, logic, or even what constitutes truth - as far as you are concerned all suggestions about the meaning of life are plausible. True, any ideas put forward would be limited by ignorance but the upside is, all proposals would seem reasonable including ideas that would be classified today as magical or based or the paranormal.

The world was a complete mystery to the early hunter-gatherers because there are no universals laws so that enormous ball of yellow in the sky - it could have been anything, a god, another world, an eye, or even a beast. The people of that time must have very been confused about its essence and behaviour, why it was so luminant some days but on other days hid behind fluffy white things or disappeared completely. - taking with it all light and warmth. Was it displeased? Did something happen to make it go away? Does it watch us? Will we go to it when we die?