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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

#161

Post by trescenzi »

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’s not necessarily scientifically accurate at all but this is the premise of Spaceship Earth, the ride in the big geodesic sphere, at EPCOT in Disney World. It’s an interesting take on history being accelerated by advances in communication technology, and not just language.

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

#162

Post by card_zero »

olalonde wrote: post #136
epgui wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% do not think in words or sentences or language. It feels more like node-traversing a graph of concepts, but it's all completely abstract. While I am able to consciously play back my thoughts linguistically or visually with some effort (and at the cost of efficiency), by default there are neither words nor images. French is my first language, I'm fluent in English, and I know a bit about many languages... But I…

What I am saying is that probably everyone thinks the way you do, it's just that not everyone would describe it in that way. For example, I'm sure you came up with this comment in your head at some point before typing it and many people would describe this as an inner monologue, whereas you apparently do not.

Yep, make a statement like this and somebody will always pop up and say "but me, but I, because I characterize my inner experience as such-and-such and I like to think of myself as special ... that makes the distinction real."

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

#163

Post by adolph »

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

The same came to my mind. I think there may be some elements of assembly which have to do with biological process that don’t apply to “accumulation of technological knowledge,” but I need to reread it.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06600-9

Here, we introduce AT, which addresses these challenges by describing how novelty generation and selection can operate in forward-evolving processes. The framework of AT allows us to predict features of new discoveries during selection, and to quantify how much selection was necessary to produce observed objects, without having to prespecify individuals or units of selection.

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

#164

Post by skywhopper »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #104
AlotOfReading wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word human is commonly used for both modern humans and members of the entire genus Homo. Hominids is a more general superset that isn't strictly correct here. The term hominin is more appropriate in this context and what they actually use in the abstract. In my opinion though, "human" is the better word here for conveying the right mix of informality without implying the specific semantics of "Hominini sans Pan".

Is it? This is literally the first time Ive seen the word human applied to other hominids. I see many discussions about neanderthals and denisovians and so on. I have never seen them referred to as human.

Uh, I guess you aren’t reading the same things I am. Neanderthals were definitely “human”.

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

#165

Post by skywhopper »

Y_Y wrote: post #141
seszett wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never seen them referred to as human. I have never seen anything else. But then in French, they are called Neandertal men and Denisova men . So pretty clearly humans.

I think it's typical in non-technical English to use "humans" to refer to homo sapiens only, unless you qualify it, like "archaic/early humans". Without additional context I wouldn't assume somebody talking about humans meant to include e.g. Neanderthals.

Qualifications like, “600k years ago”? That’s pretty clearly talking about the humans of 600k years ago. “Early humans” are still humans.

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

#166

Post by Thuggery »

jb1991 wrote: post #110
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? This is literally the first time Ive seen the word human applied to other hominids. I see many discussions about neanderthals and denisovians and so on. I have never seen them referred to as human.

I think it’s not uncommon to refer to Neanderthals as early humans, I’m sure I’ve read that in many places. Natural history museum, for example, refers to them as early humans: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/who-were-the-neanderthals.htm...

I have never heard anyone refer to Neanderthal as a human unless they are talking in a "those are cavemen, early humans" way that's wrong. Where is this coming from? Is it a non-English world thing?

Generally Neanderthals are pointed out as an exception to cross species fertility since... humans have some Neanderthal DNA.

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

#167

Post by jb1991 »

Thuggery wrote: post #166
jb1991 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s not uncommon to refer to Neanderthals as early humans, I’m sure I’ve read that in many places. Natural history museum, for example, refers to them as early humans: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/who-were-the-neanderthals.htm...

I have never heard anyone refer to Neanderthal as a human unless they are talking in a "those are cavemen, early humans" way that's wrong. Where is this coming from? Is it a non-English world thing? Generally Neanderthals are pointed out as an exception to cross species fertility since... humans have some Neanderthal DNA.

Wherever it’s coming from, it’s not based on any particular language. Museums in English-speaking countries use the term.

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

#168

Post by lordnacho »

Earw0rm wrote: post #126
Vespasian wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Other species have culture (behavioural traits/patterns and social organisation/cues that are communicated, not innately inherited via genes and development), and other species have tech (making intentional modifications to their environment, creating structures that better support their existence). What seems to be rare is the ability to use culture a medium to store and transmit tech.

It's that Noah Yuval Harari book, isn't it?

What's separates humans is we can construct common fictions that we actually believe in, eg "my job is to maximize shareholder value" where both the corporation and the responsibilities towards it are made up but generally believed.

There's of course a rather large elephant in this room, too, that decides a lot of things about our lives.

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

#169

Post by r2_pilot »

dTal wrote: post #133
p51-remorse wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sta…

You described my experience well as well, except my abstract colorless ball was barely even visual. I was quite happy to entertain the idea of a ball on a table with very few concepts activated - roundness for the ball, flatness for the table, gravity holding the ball on the table. Rather like a physics problem. When forced to dereference a color, it felt like an entire system was booted up. Not only did the ball hav…

I'll also chime in and say I was able to visualize the generic ball-ness and as soon as the question of color arose, I also immediately picked red despite not being my favorite color or anything. I blame childhood depictions of balls lol

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

#170

Post by Turskarama »

jb1991 wrote: post #156
acchow wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course we are not separate species since successful interbreeding did happen (when the populations interacted).

Donkeys and horses are not the same species, but they interbreed. Their offspring are called mules. Although mules rarely have offspring, so perhaps not a great example.

There is supposedly neanderthal DNA in some modern humans, implying that offspring were viable. Breeding resulting in viable offspring is one of the only consistent definitions of what a species even is.
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