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Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

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

#81

Post by stubish »

davidmnoll wrote: post #46
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.

I would consider this evidence that language predates human vocalizations. We already know deaf children will invent signs and gestures to communicate, and language not dependent on a hyoid bone. Do we have any way of dating the relevant neural structures through genetics?

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

#82

Post by kgeist »

davidmnoll wrote: post #46
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.

What if the first language was a sort of sign language, and vocalizations were only auxiliary, optional? With time, humans who vocalized had a better chance to be understood, and their vocal tract evolved. Humans instinctively gesture to this day when speaking.

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

#83

Post by ysofunny »

fritzo wrote: post #45
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.

maybe unclear to you. may I recommend Orality and Literacy by Walter J. Ong. which talks about how text and writing transformed human culture

the point (which I learned from the book) is how writting transformed human culture but did not define it, humans have a pre-literal (i.e. written) culture whose origin is literally really lost to history

I'm saying that tech transfer can absolutely be speech driven, but I admit that text driven technological transfer is in some ways an improved version of oral-only cultural transmision (i.e. knowledge preservation)

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

#84

Post by Earw0rm »

BlarfMcFlarf wrote: post #53
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 basically only can see in dreams and visions, but rarely remember full images. Basically, everything in my mind is in a compressed symbolic state. The most notable difference is if you ask me to imagine something, there isn’t any detail in the “image” that I haven’t intentionally placed there. “Imagine the face of a stranger you haven’t met before; what color are their eyes?” Idk, I can add eye color to the image,…

Same, at least 90% or so.

I'm terrible at recognising faces - changing a "symbolic" feature like facial hair or glasses will completely throw me - but great at reading maps.

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

#85

Post by Roadeo »

gavindean90 wrote: post #34
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".

But like China had the printing press and gun powder and plenty of other things that went on to be repurposed in the Renaissance. I feel like the narrative of the modern technological exponential growth curve kicking off with the Renaissance is rather Eurocentric and misses that the left end of that graph is likely so shallow as to be hard to differentiate the “before” and the “after”.

Slightly unrelated, but James Burke explains this really well in Connections[1] S01E03.

Basically he says one of the reasons China didn't experience the rapid growth Europe went through during the Renaissance was because Chinese society during those times had a strict hierarchy. You weren't allowed to rise through the ranks with your inventions or technologies, no matter how revolutionary they were. "No incentive, no change."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series...

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

#86

Post by fsckboy »

w-ll wrote: post #65
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

the genius of photolithography (and its descendents) is that each chip is printed all at once, all the transistors at once over several steps for the several layers. This is what makes chips inexpensive.

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

#87

Post by detourdog »

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?

Last week there was an essay posted by Helen Keller describing her own development of consciousness. Great essay and she describes it’s development.

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

#88

Post by rightbyte »

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…

I don't see the connection.

When I am doing math or painting I am not spelling out what to do in my head. You can probably do just fine without an inner monologue.

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

#89

Post by rightbyte »

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.

Turn it around. How would "consciousness" manifest if we behave based on how we think, not how we feel? You meed to prove the opposite too.

There is not a prerequisite of it being either or but I guess it is both.

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

#90

Post by Vespasian »

Earw0rm wrote: post #78
calepayson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's culture, and it's known to exist among animals in a limited way. We don't really know what the upper bound for non humans is, because we don't know exactly what's being communicated by, for example, whale song.

I wonder whether we (as human) are merely the first species that managed to overcome initial barriers to developing culture and tech and thereby preventing any other species to do the same (for now).

It feels like bipedalism, opposable thumbs and strong social behaviour and other factores were the perfect storm at the perfect time.

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