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Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself

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Re: Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself

#11

Post by sarkhan »

ekelsen wrote: post #7
jdw64 wrote: post #3

Life began in the Ocean, but why did civilization begin on land? Is it because of fire? But I wonder if a different kind of civilization could have emerged

Interesting to think what could be if cephalopods raised their young instead of leaving them to completely fend for themselves. It would start intergenerational knowledge transfer, i.e. culture. Maybe selection pressure then trends towards group cooperation instead of going it solo. I still think there would be huge barriers to "civilization" as I think you mean? (Do any of the apes have "civilization"?).

Orcas do this already.

I mean there might be a already a civilization that is in the building that will peak 100k years later, and we just don't know about it.

Re: Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself

#12

Post by zahlman »

jdw64 wrote: post #3

Life began in the Ocean, but why did civilization begin on land? Is it because of fire? But I wonder if a different kind of civilization could have emerged

Physically manipulating objects is a lot harder underwater, even if you somehow evolve fine motor control despite not having any real use for it. So that severely limits what an intelligent aquatic species could actually do with that intelligence. Aside from fire you're missing the wheel, a writing system and many other things.

Re: Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself

#14

Post by onlypassingthru »

Calavar wrote: post #9
jdw64 wrote: post #3

Life began in the Ocean, but why did civilization begin on land? Is it because of fire? But I wonder if a different kind of civilization could have emerged

Brains are resource hungry, especially oxygen hungry. Earth's air is orders of magnitude richer in oxygen molecules than its water. This likely made it easier for intelligence to develop on land. It's worth noting that the smartest aquatic animals are air breathing mammals that spent much of their evolutionary history on land before returning to water.

When did octopuses start breathing air?

Re: Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself

#16

Post by card_zero »

zahlman wrote: post #12
jdw64 wrote: post #3

Life began in the Ocean, but why did civilization begin on land? Is it because of fire? But I wonder if a different kind of civilization could have emerged

Physically manipulating objects is a lot harder underwater, even if you somehow evolve fine motor control despite not having any real use for it. So that severely limits what an intelligent aquatic species could actually do with that intelligence. Aside from fire you're missing the wheel, a writing system and many other things.

Being immersed in solvent can't help with things like graphic arts and pottery.

Re: Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself

#17

Post by nobodyandproud »

jdw64 wrote: post #3

Life began in the Ocean, but why did civilization begin on land? Is it because of fire? But I wonder if a different kind of civilization could have emerged

Humans are one of a handful species equipped to change their immediate environment to suit their needs, across virtually every environment, and introduce stability.

Beyond that…

Being able to have down time seems like a prerequisite to creating. civilization.

Also, having both the intelligence and desire to seem and recognize ways to improve—even if not strictly necessary—via tools to free up even more time also seems to be a requirement.

And having a system to reliably and in-scale transmit this knowledge is the final ingredient.

So some baseline stability, down-time, intelligence, reliable knowledge transmission, tool-use for the above, and active willingness to improve all of the above all seem like necessary ingredients.

Re: Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself

#18

Post by nobodyandproud »

smilespray wrote: post #6
vitally3643 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one theory, yes. Cooking food (with fire) makes more calories available, meaning less hunting required to support more individuals, and/or freeing up more time and calories for thinking. This allowed us to evolve bigger and more complex brains. While it's not a given that fire is a hard prerequisite for an industrial civilization, it certainly accelerated our technological development. Fact of the matter is, w…

And a sample size of one.

We have counter examples of human pods that never really achieved “civilization”.

What’s missing that make them more akin to orcas or wolves?

Re: Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself

#19

Post by TheBigSalad »

jdw64 wrote: post #3

Life began in the Ocean, but why did civilization begin on land? Is it because of fire? But I wonder if a different kind of civilization could have emerged

You're talking about a thing that happened for 1 species for such a small period of Earth's history to be just a blip. There's not enough data to draw a conclusion here.

Re: Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself

#20

Post by Calavar »

onlypassingthru wrote: post #14
Calavar wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brains are resource hungry, especially oxygen hungry. Earth's air is orders of magnitude richer in oxygen molecules than its water. This likely made it easier for intelligence to develop on land. It's worth noting that the smartest aquatic animals are air breathing mammals that spent much of their evolutionary history on land before returning to water.

When did octopuses start breathing air?

Octopuses are smart, but I've yet to see anything that suggests they are smarter than dolphins or whales.
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