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Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

nautil.us

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Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#71

Post by marginalia_nu »

tyg13 wrote: post #70
marginalia_nu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, there are entire human civilizations we know have existed that we barely have archeological evidence to make sense of. We know they had language, culture, technology and we've found shells, bones and rubble. That, and the fact that we've found one antiktythera mechanism and nothing like it before or since raises questions. It seems implausible for a culture to produce a singular advanced mechanical comput…

To the contrary: the fact that only one ever was found, to me, suggests that it was the work of one brilliant mind whose work was not understood or continued by their culture.

Even if it is a single creator, does it seem realistic that this was the first and only machine they built?

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#72

Post by Pompidou »

rationalist wrote: post #23
StackOverlord wrote: post #20

Evidence for a Large Anomalous Nuclear Explosions in Mars Past J.E. Brandenburg https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2015/eposter/2660.pdf

That was interesting until the last slide which had pictures of "objects" imaged on mars. At least one of those images has been debunked (random elevations creating coincidentally-interesting shadows). If that slide was a joke, they should have made it obvious for those looking at the slides without context of a presentation.

" The new images of the Face at Cydonia Mensa confirm eyes, nose, mouth, helmet structure with additional detail of nostrils and helmet ornaments being clearly seen in new images with details at approximately 1/10 scale of the face. New imagery confirms the pyramid structure seen in Viking images of the The D&M pyramid and new high resolution images show evidence of collapsed brickwork. New images of a face found at Galaxias Chaos (the Utopia site) confirms facial structure with eyes, nose, mouth and helmet. High resolution imagery shows symmetric brickwork around the nose region. The civilization appears to have been primitive and indigenous to Mars. Taken together, the evidence suggests that Mars was the locale of a planetary nuclear massacre."

John E.Brandenburg

https://www.tsijournals.com/abstract/evidence-of-massive-the...

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#73

Post by hutzlibu »

FredPret wrote: post #55
blueflow wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which happened for all fossils already and they are still there.

Fair point, although not all of them, and not all of those that do remain. If styrofoam ever starts rotting, maybe the styro-philes will eat 100% of each cup and poop out only completely normal organic matter. Nobody will ever find it!

Can we develope such a microorganism please?

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#74

Post by MR4D »

DannyB2 wrote: post #4

If there were an industrial civilization here before us (modern humans) then it would be astonishing that in all of the fossils we have discovered, we've never yet discovered a single ancient nut, bolt, screwdriver, wrench, etc. Not one single wire or cast metal part. As per the article, that civilization would have to predate all of the vast history of evolution that we know of. Wouldn't some higher life forms from…

If it were more than 65 million years ago there would be no evidence due to plate tectonics destroying all evidence. Still could be on the moon or another planet though.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#75

Post by mabbo »

Presuming that such a civilization did exist, another important point as to why there are no artifacts found could be that they aren't on the surface anymore.

Plates shift and subduct. Huge sections of land suddenly (geologically speaking) find themselves under the ocean. Just read about "Doggerland", or "Beringia", and you realize that the history we have is only the history of things that remain on the surface of the earth.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#76

Post by melagonster »

naasking wrote: post #49
BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a good point, and I don’t have an answer. In my mind I was thinking of more obvious examples, like camels being introduced to Australia. Or cichlids from Lake Victoria being introduced into isolated lakes in North America. The idea being that you would notice some very obvious out-of-place fossils. I also assume that these species, often invasive, would outlast the civilizations that introduced them. So you co…

We would naturally just assume that the same species appearing in different places just implied that those places were closer together in the past + migration. And so we have Pangaea before continental drift. If we lacked progenitors of those species in some places, we would just call it a temporary gap in the fossil record, of which we have many. We're pretty good at inventing explanations. Eventually these gaps mig…

but we have good prove of continental drift now. before we getting enough evidences, this theory just a joke.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#77

Post by hutzlibu »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #32
tarikjn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not pre-human but challenging the understood modern human timeline of industrialisation — We have not found the tools, but we may have found the products; in the form of stone-based vases that archeologists attribute to the Early Egyptian Period but are believed to be from much earlier, and would have required tools that have not been discovered yet. The channel UnchartedX make a compelling argument about this hypoth…

You were assuming that their industrial civilization would look anything like ours. Why do they need nuts and bolts? Why couldn’t they have use some natural form of biodegradable materials?

Then they made some leaps.

Casting iron(copper) is relativly easy and powerful.

Experiment with hot things in fire and you will discover it after a while.

"Why couldn’t they have use some natural form of biodegradable materials?"

Like bones for bows and spears? Humans did that, but metal is apparently more effective and useful.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#78

Post by melagonster »

hoten wrote: post #48
xoa wrote: post #31

A civilization that got to "industrial" but didn't make it to the nuclear and particularly space age certainly seems like it could leave little trace over long periods depending on how the cards fell. However, if nothing else our civilization has made a habit of disposing of geosync satellites past their life time into super synchronous graveyard orbits that will last a really long time. At the rate things are going…

If we weren't already tracking those decommissioned satellites, would we know they were there?

A small object can easily kill everyone in spacecraft. unfortunately, we should track most of garbage in our orbit.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#79

Post by SiVal »

hooande wrote: post #38
DannyB2 wrote: post #4

If there were an industrial civilization here before us (modern humans) then it would be astonishing that in all of the fossils we have discovered, we've never yet discovered a single ancient nut, bolt, screwdriver, wrench, etc. Not one single wire or cast metal part. As per the article, that civilization would have to predate all of the vast history of evolution that we know of. Wouldn't some higher life forms from…

This assumes that their technology would be similar to ours. They could have used biological mechanical parts, made from plant or animal material. They could have had radically different theories of mechanics or construction that better fit the state of the planet at their time. In general the statement "They couldn't have been civilized because they aren't exactly like us" limits what we look for and how we look for…

If they were so advanced that they left the ordinary material world behind, then anything is possible. Otherwise, they would probably be like us in the sense that their in-use technologies would span every level from lowest to their own highest. As our tech improves, we continue to use the wheel and shaped stone and conrete, iron, steel, glass, knives, ceramics, etc. We still use things that are pulled out of the ground (like our distant ancestors) while also using the latest AI algos.

So, a very wide range of "industrial civilizations" would be expected to leave behind lots of basic natural materials in artificial forms. Their basic natural materials would be about the same as ours because they are found in nature and not very diverse (compared to high tech pharma chemicals or digital algos), so we ought to be finding lots of evidence of pre-human low(ish) tech, even if they were quite high tech.

Re: Could an industrial civilization have predated humans on Earth?

#80

Post by paulryanrogers »

MR4D wrote: post #74
DannyB2 wrote: post #4

If there were an industrial civilization here before us (modern humans) then it would be astonishing that in all of the fossils we have discovered, we've never yet discovered a single ancient nut, bolt, screwdriver, wrench, etc. Not one single wire or cast metal part. As per the article, that civilization would have to predate all of the vast history of evolution that we know of. Wouldn't some higher life forms from…

If it were more than 65 million years ago there would be no evidence due to plate tectonics destroying all evidence. Still could be on the moon or another planet though.

We still have fossilized bones that old and older. And even if they had corroding tools there would likely be cast fossils proving their existence.
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