Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

news.asu.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 274 posts

Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

#41

Post by throwaway920102 »

aurareturn wrote: post #22
mkl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a lot of humans don't think in language, or do only some of the time, see e.g. https://www.iflscience.com/people-with-no-internal-monologue... , https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monolog... , https://www.bustle.com/wellness/does-everyone-have-an-intern... .

There are also humans who can’t conjure up an image in their head. Mozilla cofounder wrote a fairly famous piece about his own experience. https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-... If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will and are just a bunch of chemicals controlling our behavior. It…

Mental imagery and mental language could both be a layer above a lower more basic form of abstract thought. You might not need either to think, plan, and reflect effectively.

Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

#42

Post by lmm »

dboreham wrote: post #8
gcanyon wrote: post #5

You have to think that there were breakthroughs in communication technology — not just language in general but possibly also one individual who happened to be good at explaining things, either before or after language, who both taught more people, but also taught them how to teach — that led to step changes in technology.

Theory: there are no humans without language. Consider: what language do you think in?

We don't think in language. If you take the time to become fluent in two or more radically different languages then this becomes obvious.

Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

#43

Post by aurareturn »

thfuran wrote: post #28
aurareturn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also humans who can’t conjure up an image in their head. Mozilla cofounder wrote a fairly famous piece about his own experience. https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-... If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will and are just a bunch of chemicals controlling our behavior. It…

>If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will That seems like a bizarre leap. What's the connection?

Because it implies that we only behave based on how we feel, not how we think. The thinking part is an illusion. Therefore, our “consciousness” has no effect on how we behave.

I’m not willing to die on this hill by the way so if someone else comes along and argues otherwise, I’m open to other ideas.

Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

#44

Post by schneems »

monero-xmr wrote: post #3

I personally believe forms of writing and record keeping are far, far older than we think, having been discovered and forgotten repeatedly. Very hard for something hundreds of thousands of years old to be preserved. Once you can pass on information orally and written through the generations, knowledge will always improve.

> Once you can pass on information orally and written through the generations, knowledge will always improve.

I suggest reading up about how we found the cure for scurvy and then lost it. The problem wasn’t that someone forgot to record “the cure for scurvy is vitamin C” the problem is that people were wrong with what they “knew” cured the disease.

Basically: the act of preserving and carrying on the wrong bits of knowledge lead to a regression with deadly consequences.

The social side of things can’t be ignored either. Rulers, religions, and pop culture can and does choose to selectively remember history. In recent years people even take delight in being uninformed about various topics.

So it seems like there’s a sort of knowledge decay working against general progress. The question is: will progress always (on average) increase faster than that decay or will we reach some kind of equilibrium or perhaps even regress (idiocracy, for example)?

Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

#45

Post by fritzo »

jojobas wrote: post #2

The would strongly point to speech developing around that time, but there's no mention of language or speech in the article - odd.

It's unclear tech transfer is speech driven. People can read machines and reason about purpose without natural language. We've all learned tricks from undocumented code. I've learned mechanical tricks poking around scrap yards.

Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

#46

Post by davidmnoll »

gcanyon wrote: post #5

You have to think that there were breakthroughs in communication technology — not just language in general but possibly also one individual who happened to be good at explaining things, either before or after language, who both taught more people, but also taught them how to teach — that led to step changes in technology.

This was at least 200k years before the advent of speech if you go by the hyoid bone evidence.

Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

#47

Post by davidmnoll »

dboreham wrote: post #8
gcanyon wrote: post #5

You have to think that there were breakthroughs in communication technology — not just language in general but possibly also one individual who happened to be good at explaining things, either before or after language, who both taught more people, but also taught them how to teach — that led to step changes in technology.

Theory: there are no humans without language. Consider: what language do you think in?

As i replied to the parent comment: this was at least 200k years before speech if you go by the hyoid bone evidence

Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

#48

Post by davidmnoll »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #13
dboreham wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theory: there are no humans without language. Consider: what language do you think in?

We think in something Steven Pinker termed “mentalese”. It is distinct from human language. There are many examples of people who are cognitively normal, but either lack or have severely impaired language for various reasons. The distinction between reason and language is not widely appreciated, and is a main if not the primary reason people overestimate the abilities of LLMs.

Stating the mentalese hypothesis as fact is a bit tenuous

Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

#49

Post by MeImCounting »

aurareturn wrote: post #43
thfuran wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will That seems like a bizarre leap. What's the connection?

Because it implies that we only behave based on how we feel, not how we think. The thinking part is an illusion. Therefore, our “consciousness” has no effect on how we behave. I’m not willing to die on this hill by the way so if someone else comes along and argues otherwise, I’m open to other ideas.

Thinking isnt even a path to "free will". Thinking is pretty clearly determined by exterior stimulus just like feeling is.

Re: Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

#50

Post by davidmnoll »

gcanyon wrote: post #5

You have to think that there were breakthroughs in communication technology — not just language in general but possibly also one individual who happened to be good at explaining things, either before or after language, who both taught more people, but also taught them how to teach — that led to step changes in technology.

This matches up well with my hypothesis that language developed as a mediator of institutional behavior and not the other way around. https://spacechimplife.com/institutional-code-and-human-beha...
Post reply on HN