Human Connectivity 2

Continuing with the model of doubling our ancestors each generation that we go back, presents an inherent anomaly because we end up - just by going back two thousand years with a million trillion people in our immediate ancestry. That, is said to be more than the number of people who ever lived. So there must be a logical explanation.

The pyramid model means that two uniquely unrelated people came together to parent the next generation. However, a rather different model may show that two parents of one of our ancestors might not have been so distantly related and therefore there may be overlap. An individual may have cousin-parents and thus six great-grandparents rather than eight. Before the time of mass travel when people lived in small villages, individual genes came often from a tight pool .

Expand that out and people begin to connect with one another very rapidly. I think this says something very important about people in general and this challenges ideas of genetic diversity supposedly used to present ideas of superiority and racial separateness. If our ancestors were related then so are we and today we're all very much part of a continuing human web. There are plenty of overlaps and whatever our race and ethnicity, ultimately of course, we all go back to the same source.

Six Degrees of Separation

... Musings from Tor Khan ...

Who is Tor_Khan and why do I have this name? Do I exist as an Internet ID only or do I have another self - a real one, in which I am known quite differently? Another name; another life; another family and another community that I belong to?

Clearly yes, though I'm not sure that I need to dwell on this much beyond those initial questions. There are reasons. See, this blog has provided a genuine place in which I have been able to explore my thoughts, and make my own statement ... some of this I hadn't much thought about when I started. I didn't even really know much about the direction it would take. I was never sure who would read, who would chose to follow and who would "stay the ride". These continue to remain unknowns.

... Musings from a Distance ...

Occasionally, the real and the virtual meet in one place. Yesterday was such a moment. A friend, whom I have mentioned before, stumbled across this space and mentioned it in conversation. Should he chose to visit again, then this is my dedication.

Interestingly I have always been interested in the human chain of connection. When I think of many known people who's names appear in the media and so on, I often trace a connection with them in the usual six, (or even less) degrees of separation (the "Human Web"). E.g. I know of someone, who spoke with someone etcetera, etcetera.

There are many proponents of the idea of a "shrinking" world, but perhaps the architect was Frigyes Karinthy (Hungary, 1887 - 1938) who popularised the idea of six degrees of separation in his 1929 short story, Chains. Celebrity is one thing, but just ordinary people around the world are said to be just six people apart. If this is so, then the possibilities, and the responsibilities are much more significant than we first imagined perhaps.

More so in today's Internet age and with the advent of internet-based social networking (e.g. Facebook). It's rather ironic, because I, Tor_Khan am perhaps less the "Dark Prince" mystery blogger and someone the Reader knows about already. Maybe, therefore, my musings are not that distant ...

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