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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

#251

Post by HocusLocus »

This is a tale of one million years ago. Life evolves slowly and our equipment was essentially the same as today. They must have been the original thinkers and the original lovers, with motivations and daydreams we would easily recognize. We are Nature's first experiment of an advanced thinking species writing its own rules, so why has our recent recorded history been a tale of human upheaval, driven by the actions of empires and regional powers?

I propose that for the longest march of human prehistory, small villages along a trade route that shared genes and language, goods and services, was a very stable unit of human society. And I mean civilized on every scale and over time, where the simple desire of young to start a family and live eventful fulfilling lives in peace is the norm and they had done so. This tale is in the subtle and expressive language of today and happens in fast-time with a single individual, but consider that the events and astronomical observations could have unfolded on any timescale. Over a lifetime, or even several. The end result being that even ancient people could glimpse their place in the universe, and essential truth about their world.

We had socialized and innovated but had no need for stone monuments to cheat time, and they would not have anyway. If there are, they are buried in the deep sediments of East Africa. You and I are their only legacy.

~Stargazer: A Novel of One Million Years Ago

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

#252

Post by mistermann »

MeImCounting wrote: post #238
mistermann wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might "explanations" have a (perhaps private, or semi-private) epistemic value attribute? That could certainly change the game up.

Well most of the explanations I personally am interested in have a public and therefore high epistemic value. Since they are published and repeatable. Certain behavioral tests or self-report surveys on the other hand have lower value because of the private nature of what were intending to test. They still have some value though. Private experiences may be very important for individuals and like I said elsewhere, free…

> Well most of the explanations I personally am interested in have a public and therefore high epistemic value. Since they are published and repeatable.

Are you saying that these two claims have some sort of scientific ~proofs:

1.Thinking isn't even a path to "free will".

2a. Thinking is pretty clearly determined by exterior stimulus

2b. just like feeling is.

Note: a definition for "determined by" (in percentage of total causality) would be required in the specification, as would a non-ambiguous definition for "just like".

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

#253

Post by Amezarak »

acchow wrote: post #242
Amezarak wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could make that the definition, but we'd doing a lot of redefinition: coyotes and wolves would become the same species, as would lions and jaguars. Fertility issues tend to increase with genetic distance but aren't guaranteed; for example, mules are usually but not always sterile.

What about the 2nd generation of mule, then 3rd? If the probability of viability keeps dropping generation after generation, eventually it will delete itself?

It doesn't work like that. Backcrossing it with one of the parent species (assuming fertility in the first place) as you'd expect tends to increase the likelihood of fertile offspring in proportion to the number of generations. And that's exactly what you'd expect in any hybridization event. And anyway, mules are actually pretty special in that horses and donkeys are actually fairly distant relatives (diverged 4 million years ago) and have different numbers of chromosomes. All members of homo (supposed to have emerged all more recently than 3 million years ago) could probably interbreed and the ones that had the opportunity probably did.

It's really unfortunate that schools tend to simplify the definition of species in this way, because it's just not really not meaningfully true at all. We could "make" it true by actually defining species this way (at least for animals) but it'd radically transform our taxonomies.

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

#254

Post by mistermann »

MeImCounting wrote: post #248
mistermann wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, above you seem to be describing "how things are". What if what you're describing is not the things themselves, but rather only a model of the things? Like, where are the details of how you are "measuring" these things? And what measurement instrument returns values like "is clearly" and "is really just"? I can think of only one.

Still not entirely sure what exactly youre getting at here. Yes what I am describing is my opinion which I have formed from looking at evidence. My opinion isnt really a measurement in the sense that one can measure activity in parts of a brain with an MRI. It is really just the state of the system. I'm not really interested in abstract epistemological definitions of free will because they arent useful in the way tha…

> Yes what I am describing is my opinion

Have you an opinion on whether your opinion is necessarily true?

> If you think it does have bearing on such things I am totally interested in hearing how.

I happen to believe humans have > 0 free will, and that if we do it derives from cognition, at least primarily. If this is the case, I believe that it would be advantageous to be able to exert control over cognition on demand. I also believe that doing something often requires trying to do it, and that if one doesn't think something can be done, it decreases the chances that one will try to do it, in turn decreasing the chances that it gets done.

I believe this to be > 0 "true", and that it has extremely broad applicability.

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

#255

Post by papaver-somnamb »

Not directly on topic, but: Didn't use to be so interested in (or, allow my attention to be diverted to?) early human history and anthropology, until on recommendation I watched a movie "Man from Earth" [0]. Talk about baking your noodle: The story of someone claiming to be over 10K years of age, intimated to a group of academic peers that draw on their respective domain knowledge to assess the claim. Draws a fascinating, engrossing, not implausible yarn. Ya gotta wonder .. What would it have been like? Exactly how did we climb out of the muck?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=man+from+earth Viewable at no charge on Youtube!

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

#256

Post by MeImCounting »

mistermann wrote: post #254
MeImCounting wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still not entirely sure what exactly youre getting at here. Yes what I am describing is my opinion which I have formed from looking at evidence. My opinion isnt really a measurement in the sense that one can measure activity in parts of a brain with an MRI. It is really just the state of the system. I'm not really interested in abstract epistemological definitions of free will because they arent useful in the way tha…

> Yes what I am describing is my opinion Have you an opinion on whether your opinion is necessarily true? > If you think it does have bearing on such things I am totally interested in hearing how. I happen to believe humans have > 0 free will, and that if we do it derives from cognition, at least primarily. If this is the case, I believe that it would be advantageous to be able to exert control over cognition on dema…

So yeah I dont disagree with you that attempting to exert control over oneself is a desirable thing or that it generally results in things that wouldnt have happened if one didnt work to have control over ones cognition, behavior etc. This isn't at all at odds with my deterministic view in my opinion.

I guess what I am asking is what is causing you to exert control over cognition? I would say its the sum of too many variables to count (including previous states of the system) acting on you to cause you, the system to be in such a state that that is just what it does. Given enough time and resources we could probably come up with a half decent accounting of the most important of those variables and be able to explain why the system is doing a given thing. In this example that means explaining why the system is modifying its own state in some way. What would you say is the cause?

> Have you an opinion on whether your opinion is necessarily true?

Yes my opinion is that my opinion is likely true as I believe it is supported by evidence. I would bet on it but I am not certain about it.

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

#257

Post by MeImCounting »

mistermann wrote: post #252
MeImCounting wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well most of the explanations I personally am interested in have a public and therefore high epistemic value. Since they are published and repeatable. Certain behavioral tests or self-report surveys on the other hand have lower value because of the private nature of what were intending to test. They still have some value though. Private experiences may be very important for individuals and like I said elsewhere, free…

> Well most of the explanations I personally am interested in have a public and therefore high epistemic value. Since they are published and repeatable. Are you saying that these two claims have some sort of scientific ~proofs: 1.Thinking isn't even a path to "free will". 2a. Thinking is pretty clearly determined by exterior stimulus 2b. just like feeling is. Note: a definition for "determined by" (in percentage of t…

> Are you saying that these two claims have some sort of scientific ~proofs

No. I think this statement is a conclusion only indirectly supported by scientific fact. This is a logical leap from more and more behaviors and internal states being correlated with various external stimulus over time. I believe it only a matter of time until it becomes entirely possible (though silly and will likely not be done because it only serves to prove a foregone conclusion and would be a unfathomably huge undertaking) to provide a complete accounting of all the factors that influence a system bringing it to the state where it reacts in a given way to some stimulus.

The only other conclusion I can see is that human beings are not deterministic and there is some magical spark IE everlasting soul making randomized decisions for us.

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

#258

Post by eru »

ljf wrote: post #172
eru wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

While funny, I don't think this has much bearing on the topic at hand: we share a lot of DNA with chimps as well (or rather, the last common ancestor between chimps and humans). But that doesn't mean we should call chimps human.

So the shared genes alone can't be used as a reason to call Neanderthals human.

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

#260

Post by EasyMark »

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #244
pimpampum wrote: post #145

My guess is language emergence allows to teach and "accumulate" knowledge in cultures.

Language transmission for sure. The Tower of Babel slowed technology considerably and by design.

The Tower of Babel?
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