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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

#191

Post by Anotheroneagain »

MediumOwl wrote: post #175
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…

There were many like Egypt, Egypt was exceptional that it some sort of survived (but actually not really), while the rest got wiped completely. Then a dark age followed.

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

#192

Post by kgeist »

davidmnoll wrote: post #178
kgeist wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>other primates don’t show signs of using signs

other primates don't show signs of using vocal language either, yet humans have it

>there aren’t many or any purely sign languages still around

we're the only species of modern humans who survived, maybe Neanderthals/Denisovans etc. used sign language, who knows

maybe the fact that we started using vocal language made us much more superior evolutionarily speaking, making other similar species without developed vocal tracts extinct (by our warfare/assimilation)

deaf/mute people around the world have always historically come up with ways to talk using signs (different unrelated systems), i.e. we still have the means to do it, but it's unnecessary when you can produce sounds (freeing your hands to do work)

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

#193

Post by goatlover »

Y_Y wrote: post #187
skywhopper wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> “Early humans” are still humans. I respectfully disagree, as started in my earlier post. It would be nice if human language worked like that, but it does not always. A "stone frigate" isn't a boat, an "iron lung" isn't a respiratory organ.

Those things aren't closely related biologically, so not a good analogy. "Human" isn't a precise biological category, it's just based on how the word is used, unlike homo sapiens. And some people, including scientists, use it to mean closely related species of hominids. Or hominids generally.

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

#194

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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 doesn't even have to be verbal, but through showing; many animals teach each other using that, and that goes back much further than 300K years ago. But there must've been a change in early humans that made it more effective, make it go beyond basic skills.

The other thing to consider is that they reached a point where they could gather food / survive more easily. If less time needs to be spent getting food - because they've reached a level of intelligence where they can, for example, store food for longer, or prepare / cook it for more efficient calorie gathering, or grow food, or share food / acquire more than an individual needs, etc - then there's more time left for cultural exchange, experimentation and play. That is, spend more time experimenting with a stone tool to make it better beyond the base necessity.

disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. I don't actually believe early humans spent that much time surviving, looking at apes they seem to spend a lot of time just sitting around.

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

#195

Post by goatlover »

MeImCounting wrote: post #49
aurareturn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How would thinking be determined by exterior stimulus, when we all vary to some extent to the same stimulus? Behaviorism was found wanting because it didn't account properly for goes on between the ears. And the rest of the body, which makes us individuals. The idea of free will comes from the fact that people do make different choices. We make different choices than our past selves did. From a compatibilist perspective, one could say free will comes from being part of determining what goes on. Things don't just happen to us. We participate in what does happen. We're not simply puppets on the string of the external world. We're just as much a part of causing things as everything else is.

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

#196

Post by lelanthran »

ordu wrote: post #189
lelanthran wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you can pass on information orally and written through the generations, knowledge will always improve. Nope. You can pass on myths the same way. All that happens is that you get more refined myths, that always have "evidence" for them at any point in time because they are refined by each generation to fit any new observations. It's worse with oral knowledge[1]: oral "knowledge" that is passed down is frequentl…

> Each generation changes the message enough so that even a short period of 30 generations is enough to completely obliterate any of the original message. Wouldn't multiple transmission between generations and the comparison of diverging stories of the older generation in a newer generation work like an error correction?

> Wouldn't multiple transmission between generations and the comparison of diverging stories of the older generation in a newer generation work like an error correction?

I doubt it - which one is the "correct" message is going to be up to chance, not up to a network effect.

Even if you take the optimistic approach and only retain that knowledge that is common to all branches, there is a vanishingly small chance that the correct knowledge would be retained, because the errors in transmission are not going to be completely random - the sort of error one oral storyteller introduces is going to be similar to the errors introduced by other storytellers.[1]

It's why the history of tribes who did not write things down is treated as myths: the myth-makers are likely to weave whatever current affairs into existing mythology to "explain" new observations, in the process discarding what was there in the first place.

When the record is written down, at least we can read what was thought at the time of writing.

[1] Completely made-up example: Original story -> Crocodile dragged off tribes best warrior. Probable error after gen-10 -> Crocodile is double the original size. Probable error after gen-20 -> Longer than a man. Probable error after gen-30 -> Taller than a man. Probable error after gen-40 -> Walks around, bipedal.

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

#197

Post by p51-remorse »

sethammons wrote: post #173
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…

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 colo…

I’m curious, what kind of work do you do? Do your dreams have that kind of detail?

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

#198

Post by Cthulhu_ »

tzm wrote: post #35

Just imagine where we'll be 600k from now.

The past 100 years of development are unfathomable already - even though some sci-fi from 100 years ago was accurate, so there was some imagination of what things could be like already. I like to believe I can vaguely predict what the next 100 years will bring, but that's based in a cynicism that the big scientific discoveries have been done already.

But 1000 or more years, unfathomable. It's the one reason where I wish time travel or suspended animation was real, just so I can see what the future might bring. Assuming it meanders on as it has for the past few thousand years, and there's no Great Filter event.

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

#199

Post by Cthulhu_ »

wiz21c wrote: post #100

Why don't they just look for the monolith ? :-)

What if they did find it and that's why we don't send crewed missions to the moon anymore?

Think about it. The first manmade object on the moon was in 1959. The first pineapple on pizza was in 1962. Coincidence, or lunar monolith? You decide!

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

#200

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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 knowledge was there, but it was in part thanks to the printing press (and political / sociological reform, e.g. schools and improving quality of life) that it became more accessible to more people.
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