The technological development is a natural product of a combination between the flexibility of the hand and cognition
If we review all the cultures throughout history, it seems that each of them is characterized by a certain level of technology, starting with the most basic technology, whether it is the prehistoric period or whether it is remote tribes nowadays or ending with a high technology culture. The universality of this principle raises the likelihood of its validity even among extraterrestrial cultures. This actually raises a key question, what are the basic conditions without which no technological development is possible. In other words, what are those elements that were used by intelligent life, in the case of the earth, it means man, at the beginning of their development and which formed the infrastructure for technological development in the future. For this purpose we will examine what animals do to obtain food and what prehistoric man did to produce tools that were used for his various needs.
Observations of the behavior of animals have shown that some of them are able to use the objects in their environment to obtain food. For example, in East Africa there are eagles that use stones to get food. "They hold the stones in their beaks in such a way that allows them to crack the thick and hard shell of ostrich eggs with repeated blows. "Pharisees living in the Galapagos Islands take a different approach. They insert "a thin twig with a pointed end...into narrow cracks and stick them in the flesh of insects hiding there". A similar path is taken by chimpanzees in Gambia and Tanzania. They use twigs to hatch termites from nests hidden in the trunks of trees and to make honey."
Although these are different animals whose habitats are far apart, they use the same principle of action. The aids in any object to obtain food. The eagle and the pheasant use their beaks and the chimpanzee uses its hands. These animals, with the aim of satisfying their hunger (otherwise they will not survive) make use of various objects from their environment to deal with a critical problem for them. This type of action has various explanations. According to one explanation, this action is genetically embedded in the animals and according to the second explanation, this action indicates some sort of intelligence. Whatever explanation we use, the picture that emerges of these animals is that by using their body organs they will not be able to get their food. The eagle probably won't use every stone to crack the ostrich egg. A stone that is too small will not reach its destination. The lemur and the chimpanzee will look for a suitable twig to get their food. A search operation is required here to find the appropriate object. The very search and estimation of the object's size, which is required from the search, indicate some kind of insight, even if it is minimal. This action can be defined as the beginning of technological evolution. Therefore, on every planet where life exists and where intelligent life of any technological level exists, a step of this type was the first step in the development of technology. In order for an animal to be able to take this first step, its body must have organs that will allow it to grasp these objects. If this possibility does not exist, no technological development will be possible. Animals that can illustrate this fact are the dolphins. Dolphins are recognized as extremely intelligent animals, but they do not have any proper organs that allow them to grasp objects.
If we jump several steps forward and reach the ancient man, he seems to perform complex actions. He knows how to make tools for himself that he uses for hunting such as the spear, he carves stones and he knows how to light a fire. Compared to the chimpanzee and the eagle, he performs extremely complex operations that require quite a bit of sophistication. If we take the spear as an example, then he has to find suitable trees from which to make it. A heavy tree will not be able to fly long distances and it also takes a lot of force to throw it. When the ancient man decided to use arrows, he had to be at a minimum distance from the hunted animals, without question they would feel him and at the same time this distance would allow him to escape when they discover him. When man needed fire, he would rub two stones together. What actually happened here is that in the operation he performed on two substances he got something that is new. The fire was surely familiar to him from forest fires, but in this case it is the fruit of his labor and he has control over it.
In both cases, planning and organs are required that allow delicate operations to be carried out. Unlike the eagle and the chimpanzee who perform one technical action, the primitive man performed a series of actions. The organs he used for this purpose are the palm and fingers. The structure of the hand is such that it allows grasping different objects in different positions and with different degrees of strength. Sometimes the grip will be strong and sometimes the grip will be loose. For every action he performs he must use both hands. With one hand he holds the object on which he wants to perform any action and with the other hand he performs the action.
Sometimes he will do the action while holding the bone with both hands. Complex operations are basically impossible to perform with one hand. You must therefore use both hands. If, for example, there were in our world animals that walk on all fours with high intelligence such as dolphins, if they wanted to perform some minimal technical action like that of the chimpanzee, they would have to do it with one leg and that too for a short time so that they would not lose their posture and avoid falling. Therefore, this technology, also found in the possession of the ancient man, could only have been carried out since his ancestors during their evolution went through a process of erecting, at the end of which the front walking limbs became hands.
In terms of the technological process, here we have a meeting between cognition, appropriate organs for performing technological action and need. When the eagle or the chimpanzee uses a twig they must do so because they must find food. There is an insight here (albeit minimal) that they can find a solution to the feeling of deprivation by using the client's object from their habitat and which needs to be held in one of their boots. Hence the conclusion that need is actually the first motive for the use of objects. And indeed, Harris insisted on this while he was following the behavior of chimpanzees. It became clear to him that these animals show a high skill in making tools and using them.
They spontaneously create tools and use them on their own. "Using objects they found on purpose or at random, for example if you provide them with boxes to stand on, sticks that can be connected to each other and bananas that are out of reach, they learn to quickly place the box under the bananas, connect the sticks together, climb onto the box and drop the bananas. Similarly, they learn to use small sticks to attract large sticks to them, and with the big sticks they attract food placed outside the cages." Hence, on any planet where there is intelligent life that uses technology, whether it is a low-tech society or a high-tech society, the beginning of technology is in animals that felt the need to use various objects to obtain food. Regarding the ancient man, it is known that he created tools that are not in nature and that are made of wood, bone and stone. This is already a new stage in which man takes objects from nature and processes them for his needs. In doing so, he actually creates tools for his use. These are complex and delicate actions that go beyond the need required of the chimpanzee to grasp a twig. The complex and delicate operations require developed motor skills. This ability is a function of the structure of the hand.
The palm of the hand should be wide enough so that it is possible to grasp various objects with it. The structure we are familiar with is a "square" hand with five fingers, where one finger, the thumb, is turned to the side and each finger is made of several joints. This structure of the palm also makes it possible to hold and wrap objects of different degrees of strength. Thanks to the articular structure of the fingers, it is possible to carry out various manipulations that are essential for carrying out operations on the objects that are held and processed. In addition to this, the connection of the palm to the forearm is such that it can be rotated by 180°. A careful examination of the palm shows that there could be other structures of the palm that would allow the same function, such as a palm with 3 fingers and a thumb or a palm with only 3 fingers but their layout It is wider than the human one, in order to overcome the lack of development of the thumb, even in these cases the fingers should be built with articulated joints.
An accepted division of antiquity is according to the raw materials used by man in the manufacture of his tools. According to this approach, 3 periods are distinguished and they are the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The bronze is actually an alloy of copper with tin or antimony. According to the accepted concept, the initial use of copper came to replace the stone. It is estimated that the copper users found by chance that "copper stones melt in a strong fire and constitute a new material, which, like clay, can be cast in various forms, and which, after cooling, becomes as hard as stone.
A second discovery comes from the use of copper mixed (naturally) with tin or antimony" and that it is this addition that gives copper its significant strength. Compared to the use made of stone, bones and wood, copper can be melted and cast into any shape you want, thus making it more functional. But to get the liquid copper, it was necessary to install a special mechanism and that is the melting pot. Here man first developed an auxiliary mechanism that allowed him to design various essential tools for his needs. This is already a significant difference between the Stone Age and the Bronze Age. This principle also applies to the Iron Age that followed the Bronze Age, but the technique here is more sophisticated. By way of trial and error, it became clear "that by pounding the iron with a hammer and heating it alternately, as well as by immersing it in cold water, it is possible to create iron vessels that are stronger than copper vessels." What contributed greatly to the preference for the use of iron over bronze is its availability and lower production cost than bronze. It is likely that this constant technological development, despite its slowness, over the generations contributed its part to improving the functional capacity of the hand, to the flexibility of the use of the fingers and to the strengthening of the ability to perform both rough and delicate operations.
The infrastructure for the technological potential of any kind of intelligent life therefore lies in five stages and they are: the need to obtain food, the use of objects from the habitat to achieve this goal, a transition from walking on four limbs to walking on two limbs while freeing the front limbs to perform various actions, the recognition that the palm of the hand can be used to produce objects that do not exist in nature, searching for raw materials for the production of these objects, while building auxiliary mechanisms for their production and constantly trying to improve these objects.
Sources
1. Yanai Zvi - Following the Thoughts Poetica Tovi Sefer Publishing
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1994 p. 11
. 2 Ibid p. 11
3. Name p. 17
4. Marvin Harris- Bnei Minno Sefrit Ma'ariv 1993 p.
26
5. The Hebrew Encyclopedia Volume 531, p. 532-XNUMX
6. Name. p. 654
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