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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?

#201

Post by safety1st »

benj111 wrote: post #187
safety1st wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument goes that if the civilization was sufficiently old and short-lived, no we probably wouldn't find any fossilized evidence. For example we've only found about one dinosaur fossil per 10,000 years of dinosaur history. The dinosaurs were around for a long time, from 65-250 million years ago. Humans have only been industrialized for around 200 years. If you imagine a dinosaur civilization that's indus…

But we don't have any evidence for anything approaching civilisation, fair enough humans have been industrialised for 200 years, but they've been building to that point for 10s of 1000s of years.

If there was a stone age dinosaur civilization that lasted for 10,000 years, what evidence of it would survive? We only even have one fossil of a dinosaur per 10,000 years of dinosaur history. They key idea is how sparse our fossil record is compared to the vastness of life's history. Plus we are talking about 100,000,000 years ago - the chance a flint or metal tool, or a stone building would survive that long and be found by us is zero or close to it.

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

#202

Post by bmitc »

fsloth wrote: post #190
colordrops wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another argument goes that they transcending to technology and form beyond what we can comprehend, covered their tracks, and left us be because we aren't interesting or to avoid interfering in our development. Perhaps our perception through the 5 senses and an understanding of reality as a physical universe of spacetime is just a short phase between being an animal and being a multidimension being.

That’s basically a ”rapture” hypothesis. ”We can’t see them because of ancient technobabble sciencemagic lifted them to another realm”. In otherwords this is a supernatural, not natural hypothesis. In other words, that’s more of a religious rather than scientific hypothesis. It’s cool to have inspiration from where-ever, the whole point of religion and art is that they don’t need to be scientific. But one really shou…

> In other words, that’s more of a religious rather than scientific hypothesis.

I get what you're getting at, but I don't think it's so clear cut. Religion is more about organizational beliefs than just beliefs. Many parts of science are pretty far fetched in terms of us only knowing a bit with a very tightly constrained perspective (humans sitting on Earth with limited technology in the Solar System in the Milky Way) but making leaping conjectures. So in fact, science and religion have some shared analogues. (C.f. Paul Feyerabend.)

Certainly, the hypothesis you replied to is incredibly far fetched. But I don't think it's religious. It's more fantasy.

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

#203

Post by ethbr0 »

safety1st wrote: post #167
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…

I think the argument goes that if the civilization was sufficiently old and short-lived, no we probably wouldn't find any fossilized evidence. For example we've only found about one dinosaur fossil per 10,000 years of dinosaur history. The dinosaurs were around for a long time, from 65-250 million years ago. Humans have only been industrialized for around 200 years. If you imagine a dinosaur civilization that's indus…

In order for a civilization to be undetectable, you'd essentially bound terms in a terrestrial version of the Drake Equation [0]

You'd need a civilization that did not produce long-lived technological signatures (e.g. glass panes), that did not have a large number of individuals (i.e. produce remains), that did not substantially alter their environment (i.e. leave geographic markers), AND that did not consume easily available resources (e.g. oil/gas or metal ore).

Which is to say... possible, but not very likely.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#Equation

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

#204

Post by hutzlibu »

InvaderFizz wrote: post #144
hutzlibu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we develope such a microorganism please?

Worms were discovered that eat styrofoam. There was a lot about it going on the news last summer[0]. 0: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/superworms-eat-an...

That is something, but apparently not quite what I want:

"Rinke and his colleagues are not suggesting that superworms should be released into landfills or polluted landscapes to munch through mountains of plastic"

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

#205

Post by cubefox »

safety1st wrote: post #167
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…

I think the argument goes that if the civilization was sufficiently old and short-lived, no we probably wouldn't find any fossilized evidence. For example we've only found about one dinosaur fossil per 10,000 years of dinosaur history. The dinosaurs were around for a long time, from 65-250 million years ago. Humans have only been industrialized for around 200 years. If you imagine a dinosaur civilization that's indus…

> For example we've only found about one dinosaur fossil per 10,000 years of dinosaur history. The dinosaurs were around for a long time, from 65-250 million years ago.

Dinosaurs presumably fossilize very badly compared to many artificial artifacts, like buildings made out of machined stone.

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

#206

Post by rini17 »

cubefox wrote: post #205
safety1st wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument goes that if the civilization was sufficiently old and short-lived, no we probably wouldn't find any fossilized evidence. For example we've only found about one dinosaur fossil per 10,000 years of dinosaur history. The dinosaurs were around for a long time, from 65-250 million years ago. Humans have only been industrialized for around 200 years. If you imagine a dinosaur civilization that's indus…

> For example we've only found about one dinosaur fossil per 10,000 years of dinosaur history. The dinosaurs were around for a long time, from 65-250 million years ago. Dinosaurs presumably fossilize very badly compared to many artificial artifacts, like buildings made out of machined stone.

Stone does weather too. It either needs uninterrupted dry climate (not really possible for millions of years) or being placed inside a stable geological formation (we don't usually build that way).

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

#207

Post by pvaldes »

ElFitz wrote: post #175
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…

I recall someone asking on World Building StackExchange what aliens could find in a few tens of millions of years or so if the human race were to disappear today [0]. The answer was "not much", aside from discrepancies in metals distribution, with intriguing concentrations of iron oxyde, nuclear waste, or gold. I am aware it certainly isn’t the most scientific or authoritative of sources, but they made interesting po…

> What aliens could find in a few tens of millions of years

Much more than we are finding. The earth would be a mess with plenty of really puzzling events.

Wild tomatoes with narcissus and flounder genes for example.

Sudden extinction of entire groups of animals and plants in only a few thousands of years

Radioactivity holes and missile holes fossilized with metals in the bottom

Cities, and cemeteries in particular, would be a geological nightmare waiting for an explanation. A collection of grey granite from Canada carved in lames of uniform thick, polished for no reason and accumulated in a point. At 20 meters away another set of lames of Chinese black granite and 30 meters away a lot of yellow marble only known from Italy. All wrapped in asphalt, gravel, glass and concrete. Dumpsters would also be very strange places with plenty of plastics and chemicals that shouldn't be there.

Gems also. Diamonds carved in impossible shapes all ending in a more or less conical tail in the whole planet. Lots of things shaped like a heart. Strange collections of elements with unique properties of the periodic table found always together: Mixed minerals found near, gold, silver and platinum, at tens thousands of Km far away from its known mines. As they are often saved in fireproof boxes, would had survived miraculously in burnt areas.

Implants. Titanium fossils shaped like the femur of an animal (and always the same animal) and porcelain teeth would be enough to show a civilization and signal us in charge of it.

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

#208

Post by withinboredom »

cubefox wrote: post #205
safety1st wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument goes that if the civilization was sufficiently old and short-lived, no we probably wouldn't find any fossilized evidence. For example we've only found about one dinosaur fossil per 10,000 years of dinosaur history. The dinosaurs were around for a long time, from 65-250 million years ago. Humans have only been industrialized for around 200 years. If you imagine a dinosaur civilization that's indus…

> For example we've only found about one dinosaur fossil per 10,000 years of dinosaur history. The dinosaurs were around for a long time, from 65-250 million years ago. Dinosaurs presumably fossilize very badly compared to many artificial artifacts, like buildings made out of machined stone.

Man, I’ve been in castles that are less than a thousand years old that are barely recognizable. Machu pichu is a good one as well.

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

#209

Post by cubefox »

rini17 wrote: post #206
cubefox wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example we've only found about one dinosaur fossil per 10,000 years of dinosaur history. The dinosaurs were around for a long time, from 65-250 million years ago. Dinosaurs presumably fossilize very badly compared to many artificial artifacts, like buildings made out of machined stone.

Stone does weather too. It either needs uninterrupted dry climate (not really possible for millions of years) or being placed inside a stable geological formation (we don't usually build that way).

I'd bet stone weathers many orders of magnitude less than dinosaur bones.
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