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

quantamagazine.org

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

#41

Post by nobodyandproud »

greiskul wrote: post #38
nobodyandproud wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have counter examples of human pods that never really achieved “civilization”. What’s missing that make them more akin to orcas or wolves?

It is possible it is just time. Modern humans are considered to have existed for 300k~ years. Civilizations are about 6k years old. So who knows. Maybe if you gave them an extra 10k years, they would have achived "civilization". It is not much for the scale of human existance. But it is longer than any of our civilizations has existed for.

For humans, I wonder if population size and density is also a factor.

That is, if there’s a critical mass and population size.

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

#42

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

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

1) Land has more diverse and rapidly changing environments, creating generalists, creating advanced intelligence

2) Civilization requires hands, but in water fins and flippers are more useful

3) Sure, it could have worked out differently, but here we are

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

#44

Post by asdff »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #41
greiskul wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible it is just time. Modern humans are considered to have existed for 300k~ years. Civilizations are about 6k years old. So who knows. Maybe if you gave them an extra 10k years, they would have achived "civilization". It is not much for the scale of human existance. But it is longer than any of our civilizations has existed for.

For humans, I wonder if population size and density is also a factor. That is, if there’s a critical mass and population size.

And makes sense with agriculture and civilization coming together. Agriculture improved the carrying capacity of an acre of land dramatically from what it was from foraging and hunting.

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

#46

Post by bdamm »

aozame wrote: post #32
aurareturn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fire, agriculture, electricity, AI. Rank these inventions in terms of importance to humanity.

AI is not important at all. Just make things more convenient, but is completely unnecessary.

Check back in 5 years. This is going to age poorly.

The reason is that, despite what many think, AI actually is able to create novel ideas and solutions. That's why AlphaGo was so important; it couldn't beat the world's best Go player just be being a fancy autocomplete and a big processor. It had to create new discoveries and then use them effectively. That was the turning point. It's been a decade of improvements since then, and AI is already making discoveries we couldn't have made without it. The impacts are already here and in your world, you just haven't recognized them as such yet. But in a few years it will be undeniable to even the most uneducated observer, since changes that could not be possible will be present in every person's life as the effects ripple out across basically every industry.

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

#47

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #18
smilespray wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Written language ?

Got it too easy ?

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

#48

Post by cmrdporcupine »

lightedman wrote: post #40
martzy13 wrote: post #24

So the theory explained here is that Hydrogen mixed with the Oxygen in the melted rock (magma) of earth, under extremely high pressure to create our earth specific flavor of H2O (appropriate amount of trace minerals and deuterium). Am I reading that correctly? Link to the paper mentioned in the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09630-7

Correct, and we can demonstrate this via various gem-bearing and REE-bearing pegmatites which almost universally contain magmatic-sourced water trapped within them.

Could this have happened under the pressure of the interplanetary collision with the protoplanet "Theia" that led to the creation of the moon?

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

#49

Post by ekelsen »

fhdkweig wrote: post #31
ekelsen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?).

The real problem with cephalopods is their lifespan. For their age, they are almost as smart as humans, the problem is that they don't live past the age of 5 years.

I would argue that not having any overlap between generations is a bigger problem. It guarantees no accumulation of knowledge.

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

#50

Post by fhdkweig »

ekelsen wrote: post #49
fhdkweig wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem with cephalopods is their lifespan. For their age, they are almost as smart as humans, the problem is that they don't live past the age of 5 years.

I would argue that not having any overlap between generations is a bigger problem. It guarantees no accumulation of knowledge.

Agreed. If they were social enough to form large communities of unrelated families, it would also fix the generation overlap. But they don't do that either. They seem to be in a weird evolutionary dead end for intelligence.
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