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OfflineMuufokfok
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Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time
    #14484041 - 05/20/11 11:49 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13452711

Quote:

The Amondawa were first "discovered" by anthropologists in 1986

An Amazonian tribe has no abstract concept of time, say researchers.

The Amondawa lacks the linguistic structures that relate time and space - as in our idea of, for example, "working through the night".

The study, in Language and Cognition, shows that while the Amondawa recognise events occuring in time, it does not exist as a separate concept.

The idea is a controversial one, and further study will bear out if it is also true among other Amazon languages.

The Amondawa were first contacted by the outside world in 1986, and now researchers from the University of Portsmouth and the Federal University of Rondonia in Brazil have begun to analyse the idea of time as it appears in Amondawa language.

"We're really not saying these are a 'people without time' or 'outside time'," said Chris Sinha, a professor of psychology of language at the University of Portsmouth.

"Amondawa people, like any other people, can talk about events and sequences of events," he told BBC News.

"What we don't find is a notion of time as being independent of the events which are occuring; they don't have a notion of time which is something the events occur in."

The people do not refer to their ages, but rather assume different names in different stages of their lives or as they achieve different status within the community.

But perhaps most surprising is the team's suggestion that there is no "mapping" between concepts of time passage and movement through space.

Ideas such as an event having "passed" or being "well ahead" of another are familiar from many languages, forming the basis of what is known as the "mapping hypothesis".
Researchers with Amondawa people The Amondawa have no words for time periods such as "month" or "year"

But in Amondawa, no such constructs exist.

"None of this implies that such mappings are beyond the cognitive capacities of the people," Professor Sinha explained. "It's just that it doesn't happen in everyday life."

When the Amondawa learn Portuguese - which is happening more all the time - they have no problem acquiring and using these mappings from the language.

The team hypothesises that the lack of the time concept arises from the lack of "time technology" - a calendar system or clocks - and that this in turn may be related to the fact that, like many tribes, their number system is limited in detail.
Absolute terms

These arguments do not convince Pierre Pica, a theoretical linguist at France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), who focuses on a related Amazonian language known as Mundurucu.

"To link number, time, tense, mood and space by a single causal relationship seems to me hopeless, based on the linguistic diversity that I know of," he told BBC News.

Dr Pica said the study "shows very interesting data" but argues quite simply that failing to show the space/time mapping does not refute the "mapping hypothesis".

Small societies like the Amondawa tend to use absolute terms for normal, spatial relations - for example, referring to a particular river location that everyone in the culture will know intimately rather than using generic words for river or riverbank.

These, Dr Pica argued, do not readily lend themselves to being co-opted in the description of time.

"When you have an absolute vocabulary - 'at the water', 'upstream', 'downstream' and so on, you just cannot use it for other domains, you cannot use the mapping hypothesis in this way," he said.

In other words, while the Amondawa may perceive themselves moving through time and spatial arrangements of events in time, the language may not necessarily reflect it in an obvious way.

What may resolve the conflict is further study, Professor Sinha said.

"We'd like to go back and simply verify it again before the language disappears - before the majority of the population have been brought up knowing about calendar




very interesting :strokebeard2:


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"I'm guessing the 'ancient lost drug' of india is psychedelic mushrooms. The correlation between sacred cows (in hinduism) and magic mushrooms growing on cow dung is too strong to ignore, if you ask me."

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OfflineNymphaea
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Re: Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time [Re: Muufokfok]
    #14484106 - 05/20/11 12:08 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

I just got done with one week camping trip in a rustic state park and I never looked at the clock.  Time slowed WAY down while I was there, and it didn't matter anymore. 

I am planning on living like these people someday, they are not slaves to the clock.


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OfflineFunguspants
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Re: Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time [Re: Nymphaea]
    #14484380 - 05/20/11 01:12 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

So you're gonna give up everything you worked so hard for, the people you know, and basically everything attached to this world to go live by yourself and have no one around to tell you what time it is?

lol.


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:macdre::scumbagsteve::chillin::scumbagsteve::chillin::scumbagsteve::macdre:


AWWWWWWWWWL DAY SUCKA WAT

"I... I don't want to die"

"BITCH SOMETIMES WE GOTTA DO THANGS DAT WE AINT WANNA DO"

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OfflineDr. P. Silocybin
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Re: Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time [Re: Funguspants]
    #14484480 - 05/20/11 01:36 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

why does he have to be in isolation? he could live in the wilderness with a community of people he knows and loves, but reject society and abandon clocks. they could even continue to use modern conveniences like ovens, cars, power tools, whatever just no clocks.

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Offline28064212
Special Agent Dale Cooper
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Re: Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time [Re: Muufokfok]
    #14484635 - 05/20/11 02:11 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

that is beautiful :super:
it's the way to go


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InvisibleDieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
Re: Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time [Re: Dr. P. Silocybin]
    #14484659 - 05/20/11 02:15 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Dr. P. Silocybin said:
they could even continue to use modern conveniences like ovens, cars, power tools, whatever just no clocks.




All of those require clocks in order to work.  :themoreyouknow:

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OfflineDr. P. Silocybin
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Re: Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time [Re: DieCommie]
    #14484686 - 05/20/11 02:22 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

:orly:  how does my chainsaw require a clock?

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InvisibleDieCommie

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Re: Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time [Re: Dr. P. Silocybin]
    #14484705 - 05/20/11 02:26 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

If its gas powered it needs a clock to time the combustion, exhaust etc.  If its electric then it needs a clock to time the oscillating electric field it gets power from.  Its hard to think of any device outside of a simple lever or pulley that doesn't require a clock.

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OfflineDr. P. Silocybin
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Re: Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time [Re: DieCommie]
    #14484747 - 05/20/11 02:34 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

but that doesn't affect me at all, it dosn't make me a slave to a clock, its just an internal mechanism that makes the chainsaw work. It just regulates the timing of the machine, its not actually measuring time like a watch. I could use it and still be completely ignorant of the time, which is the point.

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Invisibleifoundwaldo


Registered: 09/28/10
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Re: Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time [Re: Dr. P. Silocybin]
    #14484764 - 05/20/11 02:38 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Dr. P. Silocybin said:
but that doesn't affect me at all, it dosn't make me a slave to a clock, its just an internal mechanism that makes the chainsaw work. It just regulates the timing of the machine, its not actually measuring time like a watch. I could use it and still be completely ignorant of the time, which is the point.




Yes, you could use it. Until it breaks and you have to fix it.
Or until you need to modify it for a specific use.

So... other people can worry about time and make modern conveniences for your benefit, but you won't understand how they work. That's progress...


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InvisibleDieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
Re: Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time [Re: Dr. P. Silocybin]
    #14484768 - 05/20/11 02:39 PM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Maybe... But you would still require that other people are building clocks for you and putting them into devices that you use.


Quote:

It just regulates the timing of the machine, its not actually measuring time like a watch.




Whats the difference?  :wink:

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OfflineNymphaea
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Re: Amazonian tribe lacks abstract idea of time [Re: Funguspants]
    #14489005 - 05/21/11 10:12 AM (12 years, 9 months ago)

Quote:

Funguspants said:
So you're gonna give up everything you worked so hard for, the people you know, and basically everything attached to this world to go live by yourself and have no one around to tell you what time it is?

lol.




I'm going to live with a community of people that I am friends with now.  And I am not giving up much that I have worked for because I am young and my possessions are very few.

I probably will use many modern conveniences (satellite internet for example), some which require clocks to operate, but I will never NEED to look at a clock again while I am out there.

Of course that's not the point of doing it, but it's a nice byproduct.

Right now we are preparing and gaining the knowledge we need.

We are thinking about generating geothermal energy, although I have no idea how viable that is yet. 

I believe American society is somewhat of a cruel trick.  It get's you addicted to what it can give you.  Much of your 8 to 11 hours of work your putting in each day to get by here is not for yourself but for someone else.  In fact MOST of your work is for someone else.  Usually an asshole.  The assholes who got you to work like crazy in the first place so you could get your hands on the "American dream".  Your happy with the life you have so you keep on working while the fruits of your labor are given to someone else.  The reason your happy is because that's the way the system works, and if it didn't we wouldn't be down with the system.

I've realized there are plenty of other choices for happiness besides going to college in order to get a better job.

This country steals from its people and uses their money to finance military domination over the world for strategic corporate purposes...fuck that.   

I'm also maybe going to turn this commune type thing into a campground/business eventually.


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:huxleyfacepalm:


Plant Trees

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