Why History?

Hello, History as a subject is fascinating. Often repeats itself. When I'm faced with a task, my mind asks what did I do last time. I get into some real tangles if I'm trying to update an app or that kind of thing. Comfort zones almost until I'm up against something completely new or different. I also enjoy its discussion value. It's enjoyable, when I listen to our members sharing their take on a subject. Sometimes there may be controversy. Lots of history when seen from different stand points can look odd. I had a neighbour who years ago had an Austin ten, motor that he called 'My Girl '. Depending how he parked it, it could be green or red. That would be odd on an insurance claim form. Please carry on sharing.

That is because, in a way, humans are not the most intelligent animals on the planet. Humans just happen to be mammals that, so far as we know, have evolved the largest prefrontal cortex. An experiment was done with rats. Every morning, they were released into a maze which ended in a number of different dead-end slots. Some food (cheese maybe) was placed in a certain slot. Let us assume it was slot number 4. After a random scramble, a rat would end up frustrated in an empty slot. So it went back and tried different routes until it found slot 4. The same the following day and so on: but almost straight away, every day the rat would not waste time trial and erroring, but just take the shortest route to slot 4. The rat/s quickly learned where the food was. Now here's the interesting thing. After a few weeks of slot 4 having the food, the food was put into slot 11 instead, and in slot 11 every day thereafter. Of course, on the first day of slot 11, the poor rat found slot 4 empty, then franticly ran everywhere until it found slot 11. After that, it always went straight for slot 11. The rat quickly learned, and mentally accepted, that slot 11 was the business, so forgot about slot 4. No need to remember it; in the past, done and dusted, no further use. But humans don't do that. They keep going back to slot 4, hoping in desperation that the food has been put back into slot 4. That explains much about human behavior. E.g. people staying in abusive relationships for years, sometimes ending in their murder. Or staying in a hated job for years. We used to have a colleague who was very prickly and liked to moan about everything. His behaviour started to cause workplace problems. The head of department first talked to me and my then boss. I made the comment, and although it sounds funny, was a serious comment: "Mr X is not happy unless he is being miserarble." And we human animals have much bigger prefrontal cortexes than rats.

Hello, Thank you for that. History is a controversial subject for me as I have my faith which I won't argue about or push it on anyone. It's the methods of recording that for me are the controversial issues. In particular pre-history. In our own UK history, where certain events were ripped out of history books, like the Irish potato famine in England. The Irish knew all about it. The same happened in Scotland where Scottish colonialism was ripped out of their history books. Most Scots haven't a clue about Darien affair which actually was Scottish bankruptcy 1690, that brought Scotland into union with England. They came to Whitehall with begging bowls. Pre-history I have issues with. If our Earth is six billion years old, which is what our text books tell me, how come we still have a moon. The moon is on a mathematical projectory, where it moves away from the earth one & half inches per year. That's currently confirmed. If we take that phenomena back in time just one billion years, the moon would be so close to the earth it would be well inside the velocity of escape. It would be just like a giant meteorite. I'm not going to argue that either because I'm not a scientist. Many scientists question that anyway, I don't just mean biblical scientists either. A mollusc's shell was carbon 14 dated, at some great age, but the animal only died a few years ago. This is a quote from a scientist journal. "As it turns out Carbon-14 dating on shells has been found to be completely unreliable even found dating living Mollusk shells as being thousands of years old! This error is due to unique chemical reactions that add "dead carbon" into younger samples which give false older ages." Likewise I can't argue as I'm not a scientist. I will let them throw pots & pans at each other.

I've never been a fan of the saying "those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it" because circumstances change and sometimes there's nothing useful from past events to learn other than 'stuff happens'. The person who stays in an abusive relationship isn't failing to learn from the past, but is not projecting into the future. They're choosing a familiar, if scary present, against an unknown scary future. They don't have the self confidence or enough self preservation to choose the unknown. Those who live on the flank of Vesuvius are definitely failing to learn from the past but in the meantime they live in a very nice part of Italy. A study of human nature can be done in the present rather than worrying too much about the distant past but individuals aren't average, they can throw assumptions into the bin. Observing the current Ukraine war, demonstrates that past tactics won't necessarily work with new armaments. Would Russia have expected the Democrats under Biden to be Ukraine's supporter rather than the Republicans under Trump? Who would have thought that the Republicans would be on Russia's side? A leader like Trump can throw the entire rule book in the trash. We are not the people of 100 years ago, let alone 1000 years ago. Physically we've change, emotionally we've changed, we have very different experiences and can't be predicted based on those historic people. Who would have foreseen the end of population growth without a massive natural phenomenon like the plague? In most countries of the World, industrialisation has resulted in a lower birth rate and potentially it might spread to all countries. It turns out that the human female drive to produce as many (or any) babies as possible isn't actually a thing. People whine that they can't afford to have kids but live in such style that their ancestors would believe them to be lords and ladies. Those who look to the 70s and bemoan the current unaffordability of homes need to look further back in time, where almost nobody could dream of owning their own home. I know enough about the past to know that it would be interesting to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. But if WW3 breaks out, I'd have to say 'boy, was I wrong'. All of which is an argument against 'why history?'

Hello Helen, I cannot progress any further & I cannot argue because of my faith, which is a faith disciplined by respect. I believe that what the world calls WW3, is on its way, as I'm seeing that as a progression of very recent history, but it's also what Scripture describes as "The great tribulation period", which it describes in detail. It's divided into two halves of three & a half years each. The first half is a deception of a false peace, followed by three & a half years of total destruction. I can't by our forum rules argue that, it's a statement that I've read. It looks quite peaceful out in our cul-de-sac this morning.