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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?

#131

Post by mrangle »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #59
gizajob wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever ground one to prove this?

I've polished things with sand before and used hammerstones, yes. I'm not a stonemason though, just somone who spent a lot of time as a kid playing with rocks. Most people will have some familiarity with emery cloth/sandpaper, which are basically the same principle. We don't even need to look at fancy egyptian statues. Carnelian beads were a common trade item across the Ancient near east and Egypt made this way. It's…

The stones to which you are referring, and larger that are found in and around other structures, are too large to have been cut with the method that you suggest.

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

#132

Post by pempem »

tarikjn wrote: post #116
agentgumshoe wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume back then they weren't too fussed about having 100 people work on a small rock should they desire. I think we just don't comprehend, as mentioned above, how much time and effort could be allowed for back then. I'm sure 100 people could create a near perfect vase given 30 years to work on it (random example).

The feasibility is not a function of the time or number of people. When you remove material, the slightest error is irreversible. By combining error rate, design tolerance bounds and work point size in a statistical model, you should be able to prove that even using the entire known population on earth at the time for several centuries, you would not be able to product near anywhere the number of these specific artif…

If you travel to spaces that are "less industrially developed" you will see an incredibly high level of talent.

This idea that its just not feasible because it is hard ignores existing architecture that we can date in places like China and India, but cannot easily replicate in the US or other spaces because the generationally developed skill and method is not available.

This precision occurs in hard materials like stone, in massive scale as well as in soft materials like cottons and silks which weren't replicated in Europe in previous or current times.

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

#133

Post by cperciva »

jamiek88 wrote: post #63
NavinF wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naw the JWST won't stay there after it loses power. > The points L1, L2, and L3 are positions of unstable equilibrium. Any object orbiting at L1, L2, or L3 will tend to fall out of orbit; it is therefore rare to find natural objects there, and spacecraft inhabiting these areas must employ a small but critical amount of station keeping in order to maintain their position.

Nothing will. The Lagrange points are only quasi stable.

L4 and L5 are "stable" -- but of course on timescales of billions of years even Earth's orbit isn't guaranteed to be stable.

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

#134

Post by mrangle »

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.

Given the tech that is the product of multiple major breakthroughs, I'd rate that to be doubtful.

While I don't think that the following implies that robots existed, to my above point recall that Talos of Greek Myth is a robot.

Which does imply that the concept of such tech was shared across the entire culture. Which, in turn, suggests that related tech is less likely to be the product of one mind.

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

#135

Post by AtlasBarfed »

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…

Eh, industrialization is heavily dependent on metallurgy.

What is the word industrial? Metallurgy, mass production, interchangeable parts, and the steam engine. Materials, tools, efficiency techniques, and energy.

The other aspect of industrialization is the sheer scale of it.

Honestly the only thing that comes close IMO is a lot of the cellular mechanisms. It uses materials in novel ways, efficient protein devices, and ATP energy. But I don't think it would scale to macro levels.

Maybe you could squint and look at ant/insect colonies?

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

#136

Post by joe_the_user »

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

And J.E. Brandenburg's arguments are treated here:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/John_Brandenburg

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

#137

Post by mrangle »

BurningFrog wrote: post #114

The current continents have clearly been evolutionary isolated for many million years. This means there can't have been a civilization that routinely traveled between the continents during that time.

The Yemeni Island Socotra is a remnant continental island. That is, it is an artifact of a continent that no longer exists.

When one digs into the history of Socotra going back about 8 million years iirc, I believe that there is logical evidence of homo sea travel millions of years ago. Going on the timelines of Socotra's emergence as an island, of homo species, and of the evidence of who resided on Socotra.

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

#139

Post by ETH_start »

It's implausible that a species would develop an industrial civilization and then get killed off in an event that doesn't wipe out every other species of vertebrate.

A species with human-level technology could survive even the Chicxulub asteroid that killed off non-avian dinosaurs, given the huge population and vast range that industrial civilization enables that species to attain, as well as the diverse array of energy sources, and robust habitats that become accessible to such a species.

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

#140

Post by john_max_1 »

One thing I always wonder is bury vs cremation.

Hindus, 1/6th of the world population usually cremate their dead.

The bodies are gone.

And the bones are washed away into ganges.

I would guess Hindus in USA or Europe would do the same.

An archeological study of skeletons in 4000 AD would drastically undercount groups that cremate their dead. Or won't it?

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