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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

#171

Post by dTal »

vasco wrote: post #152
thfuran wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also not seeing the connection to free will. Did the program choose to be broken by a cosmic ray? Did the cosmic ray choose to break the program? Stochasticty doesn't imply volition.

It's the only way I've come up with that allows for free will, maybe other people have other ways. If the universe is not like a computer then I have even less ability to explain where free will would be possible. Cosmic rays are just an example to explain that there's external causes of non-determinism to a deterministic system. Another example I gave above was the limit of precision of the system itself, allowing f…

  10 print "If the universe is non-deterministic, that provides an explanation for free will!"
  20 print "How? Coin flips don't have free will..."
  30 goto 10

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

#172

Post by ljf »

eru wrote: post #95
sydbarrett74 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I would be fairly happy with that definition, but I wouldn't rely on it out-of-context. (I would definitely call Neanderthals "human" in almost any context.)

According to 23andme I am 2 to 4% neanderthal, and I think of myself as human...

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

#173

Post by sethammons »

p51-remorse wrote: post #62
trescenzi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sta…

I imagined a small, red, dense foam ball actively being placed by a feminine hand with matching red nails and a fancy bracelet onto a white marble slab with olive green marbling. The slab is a couple inches thick and overhangs the cabinets below it. The point of view, like watching from my own eyes, is looking down at the counter with the ball being placed by the ephemeral hand as if they stood opposite me.

What color was the ball? I didn't have to think; I knew it was red. However, I can't tell you much about the cabinets or the arm or body attached to the hand. Totally unrendered and void.

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

#174

Post by kman82 »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #153
darby_nine wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll admit this is the first I've encountered the concept that "neanderthals and denisovians and so on" are not human. Maybe not biologically modern humans, but I'd certainly consider them fundamentally human.

We're all part of the genus "homo", but to me, "human" refers to "homo sapiens". I was sufficiently surprised to hear that humans were around 600k years ago that I came here to comment. The Wikipedia article [1] on humans makes the same point. It does acknowledge that some use the term human to refer to all members of the genus homo, but this is not the common usage. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

[flagged]

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

#175

Post by MediumOwl »

Anotheroneagain wrote: post #99

More recent history seems to paint another picture - knowledge is quickly gained as cognitive ability increases, and is even more rapidly lost once it diminishes. Think of not only the replication crisis in science, but also the despair to retain "tacit knowledge" the failure of which often results in outright abandonment and outsourcing to somewhere else. The technology to land on the Moon seems to be effectively lo…

> The supersonic airliner is for some reason not available either.

This whole comment shows a solid amount of ignorance of history, but this particular quote is completely preposterous. "for some reason" is money, plain and simple. Just go read the Wikipedia article on Concorde. And there are plenty of supersonic military airplanes, the technology is definitely there.

> Same happened in Rome, and Rome itself together with Greece rediscovered civilization from a much darker age before them.

Did you ever hear about Ancient Egypt?

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

#176

Post by Amezarak »

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.

> Generally Neanderthals are pointed out as an exception to cross species fertility since...

There's no such rule and Neanderthals are not notable as an exception. Fertility is just a very rough proxy for genetic distance, which is correlated to our arbitrary "species" buckets but by no means a real line or hard rule. Many, many reasonably closely related species can interbreed, like jaguars and lions. Most of homo that had the opportunity could probably interbreed.

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

#177

Post by fergonco »

greekanalyst wrote: post #155

" The result is, our cultures — from technological problems and solutions to how we organize our institutions — are too complex for individuals to invent on their own. ” Yes, solo geniuses might often make unbelievable inventions on their own. But science, progress and innovation are all social concepts at the end of the day. I find this pretty amazing.

You will find "the secret of our success" an interesting read.

One thing I remember is: There are some cultures out there hunting seals with some tools that are made using parts... of seals. Some European explorers almost perished where locals were just living their routine (supported by their cultural baggage).

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

#178

Post by davidmnoll »

kgeist wrote: post #82
davidmnoll wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This has been hypothesized, but the fact that there aren’t many or any purely sign languages still around and other primates don’t show signs of using signs makes that seem like a reach, IMO

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

#179

Post by sethammons »

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,…

For me, it is a picture to look at. Like a bust, I had a head and shoulders to look at. The stranger's eyes were deep brown; practically black. They were half asian half white, had black hair, palish white skin, dark eyes, a flat near-smirk. He was wearing a blue collared button up shirt with a mild jeans like texture. The sleeves were rolled up. The buttons were white.

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

#180

Post by davidmnoll »

stubish wrote: post #81
davidmnoll wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think we’d have trouble because we’d have to tie the gene to a specific linguistic cognitive function. My hypothesis is that humans configured themselves into self-replicating group structures I’d call institutions, and language evolved as a way to facilitate that. These institutions exhibit all the thermodynamic properties of life, and they have goal directed behavior independent of individual humans.
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