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

61–70 of 274 posts

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

#61

Post by pulvinar »

7thaccount wrote: post #29
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…

I find it hard to believe that they can't at all imagine what a tree looks like or imagine a face of a friend. I can understand some difficulty in a perfect image, but nothing?

It's part of the reason why discussions about consciousness often result in people talking past each other, when they start with the assumption that other humans think just like them.

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

#62

Post by p51-remorse »

trescenzi wrote: post #37
7thaccount wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe that they can't at all imagine what a tree looks like or imagine a face of a friend. I can understand some difficulty in a perfect image, but nothing?

The fun thing is that for those of us who cannot it’s as hard to believe others can conjure images. Yes the idea of mental imagery is deeply ingrained in our language but I’d always assumed it was allusion till I learned of aphantasia when I was 30. One of the more cliche, and not super useful tests, is “imagine a ball on a table, someone pushes the ball and it begins to roll. What color is the ball?” For me that was…

So for me I definitely visualized a ball on a table, but the color wasn’t resolved, if that makes sense. After hearing the question asked it kind of snaps out of superposition into a red color (but there was definitely a color-choosing step that happened after hearing the question).

Same thing happens if you ask “what surface is the table on” or “what country is this image in”. It’s layers I can add to the mental state, but if they’re not important they’re just not there.

I’d say the closest thing to what I was “seeing” before the color question is something like a wireframe, or maybe the gray color of a Blender model without colors/textures applied. Grey in the sense that you don’t really notice it’s grey, you just understand the grey color means color is absent.

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

#63

Post by calepayson »

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.

It all starts with imitation of some sufficient fidelity and generality that seeds a runaway evolutionary process. Language evolved to improve the fidelity of imitation much like how genes evolved pathways to minimize random mutations during copying.

Once imitation gets good enough (general and accurate) were capable of spreading behaviors (phenotypes) without having to wait for folks to be born and grow up.

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

#64

Post by tonynator »

p1necone wrote: post #51
7thaccount wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe that they can't at all imagine what a tree looks like or imagine a face of a friend. I can understand some difficulty in a perfect image, but nothing?

I feel like I kinda have this, and I'd describe it like this: With actual vision, there's a pipeline of steps: light hits actual cone/rod cells -> optic nerve fires -> brain stage 1 -> brain stage 2 -> brain stage 3... where each of those stages also have various side effects associated with the experience of "seeing" I can't synthesize "brain stage 1" at all I don't think, I need my optic nerve to send some signals…

Absolutely same. I wonder how much of it is most people being like this and many of those saying "well yes of course I see the apple" without really thinking about it. If someone actually sees the apple, v.s. imagining what it would be like if they were seeing it, they're hallucinating. Not that it wouldn't be cool to be able to do that on command, I just wonder how many people really can.

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

#65

Post by w-ll »

johnnylambada wrote: post #27

It’s fascinating to think about the number of PUs (procedural units) it takes to make a modern tool. Something as simple as a modern hammer must number in the thousands and a mobile phone in the millions or billions.

Billions of transistors in a smart phone, and those took many^many machines to build

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

#66

Post by shiroiushi »

kazinator wrote: post #21

Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge around the Renaissance, with the invention of the printing press. The farther back we go, the more we have to use tongue-in-cheek definitions of "rapidly".

The word "rapid", just like "fast", is a relative term. Turtles move rapidly, compared to snails.

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

#67

Post by thaumasiotes »

Loughla wrote: post #17
thaumasiotes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Indeed, there are two types of people in that regard > One thinks in words No. There are people who believe they think in words, because they haven't bothered to examine the question, but there are no people who think in words. Think about the number of people you've ever seen do a double take at the idea that "I don't know how to put this into words".

I absolutely think in words. There are no pictures or whatever other mental model. There is literally a narrative of words and blackness inside head.

No, you don't think in words. The words in your head are a side effect of the thoughts. They aren't the thoughts.

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

#68

Post by sydbarrett74 »

cpncrunch wrote: post #60

News article says humans, but earliest human (homo sapiens) was around 300kya. The actual paper uses the word hominids rather than humans.

Can we all agree that 'human' should be defined as all members of the genus Homo?

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

#69

Post by visarga »

levocardia wrote: post #52
johnnylambada wrote: post #27

It’s fascinating to think about the number of PUs (procedural units) it takes to make a modern tool. Something as simple as a modern hammer must number in the thousands and a mobile phone in the millions or billions.

That idea is pretty similar to "assembly theory" no? In the sense of how much information or evolution was necessary to generate some artifact, be it a benzene molecule, a stone tool, or an iphone

It took humans 300k years, all of us, our collective output to reach this point. Yet people insist on comparing a human who is part of society with a LLM alone, who doesn't even have search, and very limited contexts, just closed book mode remembering.

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

#70

Post by lifeofguenter »

visarga wrote: post #69
levocardia wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That idea is pretty similar to "assembly theory" no? In the sense of how much information or evolution was necessary to generate some artifact, be it a benzene molecule, a stone tool, or an iphone

It took humans 300k years, all of us, our collective output to reach this point. Yet people insist on comparing a human who is part of society with a LLM alone, who doesn't even have search, and very limited contexts, just closed book mode remembering.

Who is comparing LLM with Humans?

As far as I can tell nobody is.

LLM is a great tool that helps our brains same way a hammer helps our hands.

Post reply on HN