Reflection #2

In this section, it discusses paradigms and the way society views life based on their ideal model and the way they are brought up. It states that religion and cultural values shape very much what our paradigms are. Our paradigms decide our attitudes and the way we act and respond to the situations we are faced with in our daily lives. Soon, it moves on to talk about Paradigm Shifts. It discusses the early mankind Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus. In the early stages, Homo Habilis were very uneducated and ignorant animals. They barely had tools and knew nothing of hunting and defending themselves. They had no way of standing up and defending against prey. They ate from the soil and the earth. Later on, the text begins to discuss the Homo Erectus and all of their new discoveries. They begin to create new weapons and discover hunting. They learned the art of killing prey and turning in into food. They stepped up in the creation of tools and now made different tools for different purposes based on survival. All of this lead up to the paradigm of gender roles and parenting. Mothers now had to spend more time with their children and therefore less time in the hunting. Males went out hunting while the female stayed and cooked. According to the author of this text, all of these inventions lead up to major changes in the Homo Erectus species. Small changes such as the creation of better tools and hunting lead up to emotions and feelings coming from these animals. Before, the sexual acts from these species were involuntary and unchosen. Now, these species began to experience pleasure, thought and the ability of choice. They decided whom they wanted to have sexual intercourse with. All of this happening based on the expansions of their brains and intelligence. This species also now began to feel jealousy and feelings of love and lust. The Homo Erectus were also introduced to fire. Something as small as the invention of fire also lead to a new paradigm and way of viewing the world. Fires created more social activities for these animals, seeing as now they could spend more time at night thanks to the vivid lighting. They began to learn communication through the enunciation of different sounds and noises. These fires definitely increased their communication skills and their family bonding time. I believe this time during the early Homo Erectus has really had an impact on mankind. It is incredible how small inventions such as tools, fire, and hunting have impacted society today. These inventions expanded our intellectual capacities. They helped mankind stand up for themselves and survive during harsh conditions. Thanks to these inventions we now eat red meat and have protein in our systems. It has changed all of societies paradigms of how we view the world and live our everyday lives. Communication being one of our most important features was expanded through something so simple as the start of a fire. Imagining life without these changes would be somewhat crazy.