I believe (but am not certain) that we have had different forms of highly advanced societies in the past that rose and fell but we haven't found any evidence to prove how advanced they were. The ruins of huge cities in the Americas, Gobleki Tepe, The Younger Dryas impact theory.
We know very little about history, and very little about how the world works, but our egos lead us to believe otherwise.
I agree as a non educated. First Gobleki type was supposed to be 60000 yo
According to national geographic somewhere 15 or so years ago. Who knows what the real storey is by those who control the storey. The pyramids seems the tell all. 6000 years ago but got no clue as to how it done. Plus if you believe the ones that calculate how it was done it's supposed impossible to build it with in timeline given According to those who say it was the Pharoahs.
We’re on the same page John, I got interrupted typing a reply by a hungry dog 😀 It’s hard sometimes to separate some of the more ‘exotic’ suggestions of what may have been present prior to the last ice age from the science backed theory.
I’d seen a documentary some time ago about language similarities between South American, Pacific Islanders and Middle Eastern indigenous peoples.. essentially suggesting that many groups had a common mother tongue when in theory it should have been impossible since there was no (known) people with the technology required to build and crucially, navigate, across open ocean.
And pacific islanders navigated insane distances in tiny boats. Which makes the Bering Straight land bridge theory difficult for me to believe. Disclaimer: I am not well studied on any of this, just skeptical, especially when egos are involved.
Main stream archeology dismisses aspects of the map as coincidence. But sections of it are apparently “too” accurate for the technology that existed at the time (1513) and sections show the actual land mass under the Antarctic ice.
I think it's arrogance of us to assume we are the first successful beings on this planet if it has existed for melenias....it's same as saying besides having multiple planets only earth has a living civilization on it and all others just act as light to brighten up our night sky.
If we came to the conclusion we were the first advanced civilization on this planet, it might just be because the is no evidence whatsoever that there were other « advanced » civilizations before ourselves. Sure you can talk for hours about all the wild theories out there, theories which that lack scientific consensus…
"Demonstrations of this mechanism can be found in prehistory, when, according to Graeber and Wengrow, “talented hunters [were] systemically mocked and belittled,”" How can anyone possibly know this happened in "prehistory"? That's why it's called pre history because there are no records of anything, not of major events no less who was mocked and belittled if anyone.
The thoughts on social media as a retrograde force seem very good. Where an angry citizen years ago might write a letter to the editor reaching perhaps a hundred kindred readers, it now can reach literally millions of also angry citizens in hours. This seems to create communities antagonistic to the larger community standards of conduct and subsequent degrading of behavior.
Too complicated and speculative. The real answer is economics.
Until twelve thousand years ago, homo sapiens was just another species trying to scratch a miserable existence out of an inhospitable terrain. Then came the Holocene Warming, a sudden, substantial and sustained rise in global temperatures. Agriculture became possible. More humans survived long enough to reach the age of reproduction and the population exploded.
Civilisation first appeared in Mesopotamia about six thousand years ago. Why Mesopotamia? The climate and terrain supported human life. The wide plains of alluvial soil and plentiful water from the tributaries of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers facilitated agriculture. Soon afterwards, other civilisations arose independently in the Indus Valley, Egypt and the Yellow River Valley. But what do we mean by civilisation?
The definitions I find say that civilisation is an advanced state of political, social and economic organisation, accompanied by artisanal, intellectual, artistic and engineering activity. They all seem to miss something. Civilisation requires a community, with an advanced material culture. It’s a large community. It produces an excess of food to support a population of those not engaged in agriculture. It trades. The community has some control over nature and lives in permanent dwellings. Permanent buildings are possible because the community has a strong military capability. Only from a state of personal security and food security can a civilisation begin to emerge.
Naturally a priestly caste soon takes over, taking advantage of ignorance and superstition, levying heavy taxes and living opulently, and the output of the economy instead of going to benefit all citizens, is spent on follies like ziggurats.
I agree - except that history also reflects that the well to do had IDLE TIME and EXCESS MONEY & promoted the development of people like Michelangelo and families like the Medicis and others often took in aspiring young artists & thinkers & tutored & supported them. Intereest in the Arts & sciences were developed by those who had wealth in order to dedicated time on experiments & writing books... which the masses didn't have or find appealing.
Thank you, but I am a pensioner living on a limited income and don't have any interest in anything that involves money. I appreciate your initiative and encourage you to keep on knocking on doors.
Your comment on the Great Filter is not even wrong, it's the opposite! You state: existence of a “Great Filter” — i.e. if aliens exist, they will not contact us until humanity becomes more advanced. This statement is just very misleading. The great filter implies very substantial barriers to extraterrestrial life ever being able to either develop, or sustain a complex advanced biology until they are able to attempt contact, even if they could overcome the very large distances/times implied. Please correct this to avoid misleading others. Michael Lavin
I know nothing about the science here, but I wonder if anyone has considered this through the lens of Carhart-Harris's entropic brain thesis, which suggests that higher entropy "critical" brain states are actually where we're happiest and most creative, while our everyday functioning is more rigid and constrained?
What if prehistoric humans had better access to these optimal brain states? They had rich ritual traditions, psychoactive plants, storytelling, music, dance - all things that promote the kind of flexible, creative thinking the entropic brain theory describes. Maybe the "gossip trap" and leveling mechanisms mentioned here were actually protecting that cognitive flexibility.
This kind of flips the whole paradox - instead of "why did it take so long to develop civilization?", maybe it's "why did we abandon brain states that made us happier for ones that are more productive but psychologically restrictive?"
Makes you wonder if civilization was actually a step away from optimal brain functioning rather than toward it. If critical brain states are where we thrive, why did we evolve systems designed to keep us in more constrained modes most of the time? Maybe Rousseau was on to something, despite his romanticizing perspective on the noble savage.
Maybe we've been thinking about "progress" backwards.
You are touching an interesting topic here but please allow me two comments.
Firstly: Why are in the depiction you choose, the early settlers exchanging valuable information all male while the gossiping persons are all female? A week ago the book "Der Mensch als Frau" ("Human as female") was awarded with the "Bestes Sachbuch"/"Best Factbook" in Germany. It showes exactly this: Men are totally overrepresented in depicting history and even prehistoric events or examples.
Secondly: It seems that the notion, that non-sedentary (and non-literal) people have no means to collect and share knowledge intergenerationally, is still strong. Please check out Lynne Kelly's books about her research on mnemonic methods and knowledge sharing pre-sedentary life style ("The Memory Code" might be a good start here).
The History of Man is the History of War. You will agree that men are wildly overrepresented there.
I study the history of economics. At the moment I'm looking at the fall of the Roman Empire. Rome fell to a vast migration of Germanic people from the east: the Huns, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Lombards and Franks. These people were more nomadic than sedentary. They had little political and economic organization, or technology. They didn't have a civilization. It's not likely that they passed on much knowledge from generation to generation. By the end of the 5th century when they settled in Central and Western Europe, all that had changed.
I recommend to have a look into David Graeber's and David Wengrow's interesting book "The dawn of everything" to get a more up to date view on human (pre)history.
Thanks for the recommend. L Randall Wray also mentions that book in his talks on MMT. Although I have caught him out in one error I don't know if that's Wray or Graeber&Wengrow.
So called civilization has brought Nature to her knees via human caused Global Warming, and toxic pollution causing the 6th Great Extinction. Nature was better off when humans lived in balance with it - dying after 40 years average and thinning of the human herd through deaths of the old and vunerable is part of the natural cycle that we arrogantly altered using our unique intelligence combined with our thumb finger hand digits and look how that has turned out. Doubling our life age but at what cost? Learning to manage cancers? And the Fermi paradox is BS as was he inventing the radio (Tesla). I have witnessed UFOs up close with others so there is other, more intelligent life out there and hopefully we will make it too. Time will tell if we clean up our toxic act or not. Humans - can't live with them - can't live without them!
I find it interesting that ancient Egypt didn't change for 2000 years, the art, the clothes, the pottery, the transportation, etc. Yet, they were agricultural and a large complex society
I believe (but am not certain) that we have had different forms of highly advanced societies in the past that rose and fell but we haven't found any evidence to prove how advanced they were. The ruins of huge cities in the Americas, Gobleki Tepe, The Younger Dryas impact theory.
We know very little about history, and very little about how the world works, but our egos lead us to believe otherwise.
I agree as a non educated. First Gobleki type was supposed to be 60000 yo
According to national geographic somewhere 15 or so years ago. Who knows what the real storey is by those who control the storey. The pyramids seems the tell all. 6000 years ago but got no clue as to how it done. Plus if you believe the ones that calculate how it was done it's supposed impossible to build it with in timeline given According to those who say it was the Pharoahs.
And all the other things on this planet.
We’re on the same page John, I got interrupted typing a reply by a hungry dog 😀 It’s hard sometimes to separate some of the more ‘exotic’ suggestions of what may have been present prior to the last ice age from the science backed theory.
I’d seen a documentary some time ago about language similarities between South American, Pacific Islanders and Middle Eastern indigenous peoples.. essentially suggesting that many groups had a common mother tongue when in theory it should have been impossible since there was no (known) people with the technology required to build and crucially, navigate, across open ocean.
The piri reis map, for me, opens pandoras box
Havent heard of that map and will check it out.
And pacific islanders navigated insane distances in tiny boats. Which makes the Bering Straight land bridge theory difficult for me to believe. Disclaimer: I am not well studied on any of this, just skeptical, especially when egos are involved.
Main stream archeology dismisses aspects of the map as coincidence. But sections of it are apparently “too” accurate for the technology that existed at the time (1513) and sections show the actual land mass under the Antarctic ice.
Whaaaat?! They knew the land under the ice? Mind blown.
I think it's arrogance of us to assume we are the first successful beings on this planet if it has existed for melenias....it's same as saying besides having multiple planets only earth has a living civilization on it and all others just act as light to brighten up our night sky.
Its 100% ego.
If we came to the conclusion we were the first advanced civilization on this planet, it might just be because the is no evidence whatsoever that there were other « advanced » civilizations before ourselves. Sure you can talk for hours about all the wild theories out there, theories which that lack scientific consensus…
This article mirrors part of what I wrote about the evolution of gods, religion, and religious belief and the role genetics and social development played in that, in a post on Medium in October 2023. Should anyone want to read that article, it can be seen here - https://medium.com/@ian_5250/the-evolution-of-gods-religion-and-religious-belief-2e8657f7933b#_ftn11
Thanks Ian, signed up to medium to read that just now.
"Demonstrations of this mechanism can be found in prehistory, when, according to Graeber and Wengrow, “talented hunters [were] systemically mocked and belittled,”" How can anyone possibly know this happened in "prehistory"? That's why it's called pre history because there are no records of anything, not of major events no less who was mocked and belittled if anyone.
"Civilization" has destroyed the planet in 500 years...
The thoughts on social media as a retrograde force seem very good. Where an angry citizen years ago might write a letter to the editor reaching perhaps a hundred kindred readers, it now can reach literally millions of also angry citizens in hours. This seems to create communities antagonistic to the larger community standards of conduct and subsequent degrading of behavior.
Too complicated and speculative. The real answer is economics.
Until twelve thousand years ago, homo sapiens was just another species trying to scratch a miserable existence out of an inhospitable terrain. Then came the Holocene Warming, a sudden, substantial and sustained rise in global temperatures. Agriculture became possible. More humans survived long enough to reach the age of reproduction and the population exploded.
Civilisation first appeared in Mesopotamia about six thousand years ago. Why Mesopotamia? The climate and terrain supported human life. The wide plains of alluvial soil and plentiful water from the tributaries of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers facilitated agriculture. Soon afterwards, other civilisations arose independently in the Indus Valley, Egypt and the Yellow River Valley. But what do we mean by civilisation?
The definitions I find say that civilisation is an advanced state of political, social and economic organisation, accompanied by artisanal, intellectual, artistic and engineering activity. They all seem to miss something. Civilisation requires a community, with an advanced material culture. It’s a large community. It produces an excess of food to support a population of those not engaged in agriculture. It trades. The community has some control over nature and lives in permanent dwellings. Permanent buildings are possible because the community has a strong military capability. Only from a state of personal security and food security can a civilisation begin to emerge.
Naturally a priestly caste soon takes over, taking advantage of ignorance and superstition, levying heavy taxes and living opulently, and the output of the economy instead of going to benefit all citizens, is spent on follies like ziggurats.
I agree - except that history also reflects that the well to do had IDLE TIME and EXCESS MONEY & promoted the development of people like Michelangelo and families like the Medicis and others often took in aspiring young artists & thinkers & tutored & supported them. Intereest in the Arts & sciences were developed by those who had wealth in order to dedicated time on experiments & writing books... which the masses didn't have or find appealing.
Thank you, but I am a pensioner living on a limited income and don't have any interest in anything that involves money. I appreciate your initiative and encourage you to keep on knocking on doors.
Your comment on the Great Filter is not even wrong, it's the opposite! You state: existence of a “Great Filter” — i.e. if aliens exist, they will not contact us until humanity becomes more advanced. This statement is just very misleading. The great filter implies very substantial barriers to extraterrestrial life ever being able to either develop, or sustain a complex advanced biology until they are able to attempt contact, even if they could overcome the very large distances/times implied. Please correct this to avoid misleading others. Michael Lavin
The gossip trap: people talking about each other leads to 50,000 years of 'uneventful prehistory'? Do I have that right?
The premise that people are biologically basically the same as 60,000 years ago is not true. Intelligence has increased greatly over that time, and it evolves much faster than most realize: https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2024/03/what-do-ancient-genomes-show-about-recent-human-evolution/
I know nothing about the science here, but I wonder if anyone has considered this through the lens of Carhart-Harris's entropic brain thesis, which suggests that higher entropy "critical" brain states are actually where we're happiest and most creative, while our everyday functioning is more rigid and constrained?
What if prehistoric humans had better access to these optimal brain states? They had rich ritual traditions, psychoactive plants, storytelling, music, dance - all things that promote the kind of flexible, creative thinking the entropic brain theory describes. Maybe the "gossip trap" and leveling mechanisms mentioned here were actually protecting that cognitive flexibility.
This kind of flips the whole paradox - instead of "why did it take so long to develop civilization?", maybe it's "why did we abandon brain states that made us happier for ones that are more productive but psychologically restrictive?"
Makes you wonder if civilization was actually a step away from optimal brain functioning rather than toward it. If critical brain states are where we thrive, why did we evolve systems designed to keep us in more constrained modes most of the time? Maybe Rousseau was on to something, despite his romanticizing perspective on the noble savage.
Maybe we've been thinking about "progress" backwards.
You are touching an interesting topic here but please allow me two comments.
Firstly: Why are in the depiction you choose, the early settlers exchanging valuable information all male while the gossiping persons are all female? A week ago the book "Der Mensch als Frau" ("Human as female") was awarded with the "Bestes Sachbuch"/"Best Factbook" in Germany. It showes exactly this: Men are totally overrepresented in depicting history and even prehistoric events or examples.
Secondly: It seems that the notion, that non-sedentary (and non-literal) people have no means to collect and share knowledge intergenerationally, is still strong. Please check out Lynne Kelly's books about her research on mnemonic methods and knowledge sharing pre-sedentary life style ("The Memory Code" might be a good start here).
The History of Man is the History of War. You will agree that men are wildly overrepresented there.
I study the history of economics. At the moment I'm looking at the fall of the Roman Empire. Rome fell to a vast migration of Germanic people from the east: the Huns, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Lombards and Franks. These people were more nomadic than sedentary. They had little political and economic organization, or technology. They didn't have a civilization. It's not likely that they passed on much knowledge from generation to generation. By the end of the 5th century when they settled in Central and Western Europe, all that had changed.
I recommend to have a look into David Graeber's and David Wengrow's interesting book "The dawn of everything" to get a more up to date view on human (pre)history.
Thanks for the recommend. L Randall Wray also mentions that book in his talks on MMT. Although I have caught him out in one error I don't know if that's Wray or Graeber&Wengrow.
This is very interesting though I’m not sure our formal institutions “freed us” from the gossip trap. Maybe diluted the gossip trap? Or buffered it?
So called civilization has brought Nature to her knees via human caused Global Warming, and toxic pollution causing the 6th Great Extinction. Nature was better off when humans lived in balance with it - dying after 40 years average and thinning of the human herd through deaths of the old and vunerable is part of the natural cycle that we arrogantly altered using our unique intelligence combined with our thumb finger hand digits and look how that has turned out. Doubling our life age but at what cost? Learning to manage cancers? And the Fermi paradox is BS as was he inventing the radio (Tesla). I have witnessed UFOs up close with others so there is other, more intelligent life out there and hopefully we will make it too. Time will tell if we clean up our toxic act or not. Humans - can't live with them - can't live without them!
We did not decide on Civilisation consciously. There had to be a Threat
that affected us species-wide that caused us to huddle together for 'protection'...
That Fear still stalks us, forcing us together for 'security', while forcing us apart,
dis-trusting each other...
http://www.saharasia.org
I find it interesting that ancient Egypt didn't change for 2000 years, the art, the clothes, the pottery, the transportation, etc. Yet, they were agricultural and a large complex society