The "I'm Bored" Conversation Thread

[Rigwyn]

And I don't know why people now have such a vested interest in trying to categorize humans of the past as not possessing the same capabilities even if they didn't possess the same knowledge.

I'm not sure who these people are. Do I think that people from 1 or 2 thousand years ago were neurologically inferior? No, I don't think people evolve that quickly, but then again that's not my field of expertise. As stated before, I really think the more recent advances have a lot more to do with the compounding of knowledge. My guess would by that advances in writing and an increase in literacy were probably responsible for much of this. That's just a guess.

They could have easily speculated on durability just like we do with out materials today.

Here's the thing. How many years does it take to make observations like that. If today's commercial concrete lasts about 50 years in marine use, then you would need a significant amount of time to see the effects of weathering. Sure you could say after 30 or 40 years, "Ah, its wearing.. lets try to improve it." But its going to be hard to predict the rate of change unless you have sufficient knowledge to calculate this.

[Illysia]

And I don't know why people now have such a vested interest in trying to categorize humans of the past as not possessing the same capabilities even if they didn't possess the same knowledge.

I'm not sure who these people are. Do I think that people from 1 or 2 thousand years ago were neurologically inferior? No, I don't think people evolve that quickly, but then again that's not my field of expertise. As stated before, I really think the more recent advances have a lot more to do with the compounding of knowledge. My guess would by that advances in writing and an increase in literacy were probably responsible for much of this. That's just a guess.

They could have easily speculated on durability just like we do with out materials today.

Here's the thing. How many years does it take to make observations like that. If today's commercial concrete lasts about 50 years in marine use, then you would need a significant amount of time to see the effects of weathering. Sure you could say after 30 or 40 years, "Ah, its wearing.. lets try to improve it." But its going to be hard to predict the rate of change unless you have sufficient knowledge to calculate this.

I often have conversations with people about ancient people where they seem to have a notion that people before like the 1800s were practically doing good to have fire even though they know about things like the Coliseum and the Pyramids. Something I noticed in classes where we were expected to come up with technological solutions was that people kinda treat technology like it just happens with time. You go X amount of years in the future and newer better technology is there waiting for you and if you look back people couldn't possibly have had things we'd recognize as fairly advanced. They don't seem to keep a firm concept that technology is more a matter of the work being put in and the right knowledge coming to light at the right time. If the right knowledge comes to light, even people in the past can come up with some things we think of as modern.

in the past, like now, the primary knowledge of things like engineering and what passed for material science was still in the hands of a few. Those few people working on things then would have had compound knowledge as well, they just didn't have things like factories as we know them, as far as we know. All of these processes we use to advance are largely the same. As I have said before, we can't say for sure what they did and did know or did and did not have since we have incomplete records. But I do figure that if people would give them credit as thinking human beings, archaeologists wouldn't keep being surprised when they find out people made more advances than they previously thought.

And the Roman's had centuries to observe their concrete in action. They used it for a very long time. As far as our advances, most of them have been since the 1800s while the Romans had more centuries. If we are just going by observational time, they already have a jump on us in terms of being able to speculate. But formulas were not unknown to them, many formulas we have to learn in school came out of the classical period and when all is said and done, some kind of formula or another has always been the lifeblood of the engineer, even back then. Even in the past people could conceive of needing orderly and organized ways of keeping track of useful relationships which is all a formula is.

[Volki]

I trust pharmacueticals can cure, but the problem is the structure of companies. Whether individuals go into the work to help people or not we are talking big companies that have profit margins to watch. The individual is only a part just like in any other kind of company. The people at the top can make harmful decisions and I think that is the place were you have to be on the look out.

They make decisions based on profit. If there was a cure or a better treatment, they would certainly go for it. Remember that these companies compete against one another. If they were one big monopoly, then everyone would be suspicious. But that's not the case. The only reason these conspiracies exist are because 1) ignorant people love to fear and 2) money is involved. Unfortunately, nothing happens in this world unless there is enough funding for it. So the real conspiracy is in the nature of our species.

And regarding the intelligence debate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

Illysia, it seems like you are thinking of people in the past as a whole civilization. They were not. They were warring, disputing, and sometimes hardly surviving. Civilizations like the Roman Empire were only pieces in a large puzzle. Just as they took and improved on the discoveries of the civilizations before them, we now take their knowledge and improve upon it. The same might happen to us.

No one is saying that ancient humans were incapable of learning, but they were definitely not as knowledgeable as modern humans. Intelligence follows. If the average ancient human were to take an IQ test, he or she would probably score in the range of "mentally retarded".

Rigwyn, if you don't think evolution can occur in the span of 1 or 2 thousand years, I suggest you take a look at this.

[Illysia]

Whether they are competing or not I still think that more vital resources like medicine need to be clear of profit since chasing profit often causes trouble. That is why people get worried.

The Flynn affect article says clearly from 1930 onward. It has not even been studied a full century and it's long been debated whether IQ tests are even useful for actually testing intelligence.

Recent research suggests that the Flynn effect may have ended in at least a few developed nations, possibly allowing national differences in IQ scores to diminish if the Flynn effect continues in nations with lower average national IQs.

This straight from the article would also suggest that it is neither continuous nor an inherent increase.

IQ tests do measure acquired knowledge true, but the knowledge that people are required to learn changes. For instance, an 8th grader in the 1800s probably had a better grasp of English than your average college student now as English proficiency was a bigger deal then. But that is not a clear indicator of who is more intelligent. Or for instance, in the 1700s I think, knowing geometry was a big deal and it is something the learned people and mathematicians held in high regard. Now, you start learning that stuff as a child and most people don't bother to pay it much attention. The focus shifted making it an unreliable measure of intelligence. And you are in college know, you should have had plenty of time to observe that having knowledge does not mean for sure baing intelligent. There is a lot of knowledge on a college campus... and a lot of idiots as well.

Further, it's not that ancient civilizations were one and the same, but their warring and whatnot is somewhat irrelevant to the discussion at hand. They were still humans capable of comparable rates of advancement even if they did in fact start with less knowledge. I still stick out that the right knowledge coming through at the right time would allow ancient people to develop things much more advanced that people give them credit for.

Take for instance the Saqqara Bird. There are theories that with a missing piece it could fly which would point the Ancient Egyptians have some concept of the principles of aviation, even though we have no clear records of them having anything like airplanes. Say it is definitively proven that they did understand aviation, imagine how shocked people would be. But if you give ancient people credit as being equally capable and advancement merely being a function of the right information at the right time, this would not be so jarring to one's view of the ancient Egyptians. We simply are not sure what they did and did not know for sure. We have incomplete records and no access to people from the time.

And as a side note, no evolution like you're thinking doesn't happen on the order of a thousand years. Dog breeds are specifically not examples of evolution. The difference in breeds are just phenotypic, that is appearance and behavioral. It makes them no different from each other or from wolves for that matter than differences in skin or eye color makes humans different. These are variations that were represented in the genes all along but certain traits were selectively breed to be more obvious. They are all still the same species and if you stop the selective breeding process, the differences will get lost as there is nothing to keep forcing them to stay distinct. Not to mention, I believe that the selective breeding process often creates dead ends due to over inbreeding and what not to force sets of traits to appear more prominently at the same time.

[Rigwyn]

Regarding the bit about evolution, I'm going to shy away from that topic for now as I don't really know much about it. Perhaps when I've had some time to read up I'll return.

Something I noticed in classes where we were expected to come up with technological solutions was that people kinda treat technology like it just happens with time.

I don't think Volki and I ( or anyone else here ) are viewing intelligence/advancement as a mere linear function of time. That would be rather silly.  We all know that growth happens unevenly and things are gained and lost with time. Also, such avdances are the combined work of a population - not one person.

I am getting a strong impression, Illysia, that you have a firm belief that people from long ago were smarter and more advanced than people today? At least, that appears to be where your points are leaning. 

I want to make a few points here.

1. Today's buildings, vehicles and materials are solid, irrefutable proof of our state of advancement. These things will likely be here for thousands of years after we get wiped out by the next cataclysmic event or whatever. In the future, people will be able to look back, dig these things up and say, "Hey, these people were advanced enough to make x y and z."  In the same way, when we look back in time, we simply do not see any great concentrations of stuff that would suggest that people were all that advanced. Ok, we have concrete, huge stone buildings and an astral clock or two. Those are nice, but they are absolutely NOTHING like what we have today.

2. Just because our society as a whole is greatly advanced does not mean that everybody is equally advanced. That's true both today and in the past. The Romans make awesome concrete... That says something about the squints who made it but not about every single person living back then. If you look at some of the dummies that you run into day by day who use the internet to share pictures of kittens and assume that people from ancient times were smarter because they had pyramids, Stonehenge and a Philosopher or two, then you are wrong. I'm sure those early civilizations had their share of folks who were as intelligent as the stone that shaped their lives.

[Rigwyn]

Also, regarding the Flynn effect, its been a very long time since I visited that topic, but as I recall, it was an observation that people were scoring higher on IQ tests over time - defying the popular notion that this should NOT happen because people DON'T get smarter or whatever...

There are different reasons why this could happen. It could be due to changes in the test - which presumably would have been accounted for ( after correcting the test so that males score as high as females *cough* ), changes in education, the population sampled, perhaps even changes in diet or environment over time. Is it possible that those who are not as intelligent are failing to reproduce and as a result, we have a population with better brains? ( define that as you will ). I don't know.

[Illysia]

No, what I believe is that they have equal intelligence and ability. They may or may not have been as advanced but they were not incapable of making such advancements given the same knowledge. Also, what we have as a  knowledge base is not firm measure of intelligence. That is the point I made with the IQ test. Many intelligent people would not have done well on IQ tests, but it did not make them any less intelligent.

Also about solid irrefutable proof... no it's not. Things now can be lost just like the artifacts of ancient times were lost. Look at this.

Joplin, MI and

A cities in Japan after the tsunami and the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima

Is that intact or is it a bunch of twisted stick and rubble? Now imagine an event like that happens and then people can't rebuild there for some reason. That rubble will deteriorate even more. Sites that underwent catastrophes like this without option to rebuild are often what we are pulling knowledge of ancient cultures from. At one time, what is ancient ruins for us, might have been an up and running, bustling city. A city whose people likely thought everything they knew was equally irrefutable and enduring too. This is why I say you don't know what was lost and you can't assume all the pertinent artifacts have already been unearthed. Even what we think of as permanent now can be made unrecognizable and wiped away. Because you are familiar with what we have now, you over estimate it's enduring qualities, but all it takes is enough time and issues passing over the land to bury, efface, or just outright destroy evidence of everything you knew.

And if both people then and now have people that are intelligent and those that are dumb as stone then it proves the very point I am actually making. We are equal, they were still people with mental faculties just like our own. But I'm not focusing on the individuals, I keep talking about the civilizations as whole and their achievements. The point of I have been trying to make is avoid assuming that ancient peoples were incapable of learning and using what they learn to make impressive achievements. Don't assume they couldn't possibly do X because you assume they couldn't have possibly known about Y. I keep stressing, stop assuming you know everything they knew based on what has been uncovered currently. Yes we see the Pyramids and stonehenge, but they didn't stop uncovering artifacts after that. People are constantly shocked to learn that people were more advanced than we thought because they keep making the mistake of assuming we have the whole picture even after each new shocking discovery.

And even aside from what isn't unearthed, how many people do you think have paid this any attention even though it was unearthed?

[Rigwyn]

Do you think that folks who made the pyramids also had the technology to put communications satellites into space or to make computers like what we have today ( I'm not talking about gear driven clocks or lunar calendars ).

Cute golden spaceship, btw.

No, they were nowhere near this. To do so, they would have had to make advances in a number of other technologies. We would see some evidence of this mixed in with the rest of their crapola.

Is it possible that some prehistoric civilization could have had technology equal to ours but it all got flattened out and buried under the earth?

That's a huge stretch with no evidence whatsoever to support it. That's as far flung as saying that we should entertain the thought that the great flying spaghetti monster created the universe with his great noodley appendage. Here, both ideas are unsupported and thus belong in the same "unsupported ideas" drawer.

When we see huge globs of intelligent Spaghetti and meatballs floating though space and making things at will, then we can start to theorize about what other things he may have created in his spare time. ( And of course, we can start to argue the all important question - whether our mysterious overlord is male or female )

As for those nifty pics, I'm not saying that everything we made will last forever. Yes, over an ENORMOUS amount of time, our metal statues and sky scrapers will be worn to nothing by wind and rain. Yes, a planet may crash into the earth and turn it into a molten mess destroying everything... but to say that is to miss the point. Right now, there is so much evidence on earth of where mankind as advanced, its foolish to think that future generations would not be able to look back our remains and see the clear difference between our junk and say the Roman's junk.

Don't you watch CSI? You can't just destroy every trace of evidence.. there's always a goddamn pubic hair or some other seemingly innocuous iota of evidence that brings the big picture to the forefront    ( Don't read into this last line too deeply. Yes, there's some humor mixed in. )

[Illysia]

No, they were nowhere near this. To do so, they would have had to make advances in a number of other technologies. We would see some evidence of this mixed in with the rest of their crapola.

Riggy, that was the exact point I just made in the previous post. No one has unearthed everything, unearthing something does not guarantee recognition of what it is and the significance it had, and no people won't just recognize the difference automatically. Archaeologiests disagree, fuss, argue, and change their minds about what they have found all the time. The little gold thing I posted has a million different theories floating around. Some say it's a plane, some say it's a bug, some say it's a bird. Some say it means precolumbian people also has some concept of aviation, some say it's just a nice decoration. For all we know it's proof of aliens or something like your spaghetti monster ; but as I said earlier, just looking at something doesn't give you all the pertinent details and the records of what exactly it is are long lost. As a side note, to the people who made the thing it should have been painfully obvious what it was at the time, so your recognizing what you are looking at around you now does not magically transpose onto people in the future.

You say it is far fetched that we could be missing something that big, but less than 100 years ago it was mind blowing that he Egyptians built the pyramids without outside help. However, far fetched is relative to the amount of knowledge about a civilization that is currently uncovered and like I said, we do not have a FULL record of ANY ancient culture. 100 years ago, the structure DNA was unsupported, curing polio was unsupported, modern aviation was unsupported, mag lev trains were unsupported, the internet was unsupported, pluto was still a planet , world wide communication was unsupported, space travel was unsupported, etc... So if someone were to only find artifacts from a hundred years or so and further back, it looks impossible that we eventually accomplished the things we eventually accomplished. It's a result of limited records both in the future and now. So did people walk on the moon in prehistoric times? I wouldn't bother to speculate that far. If was proven would I go to pieces shocked? No, I'd shrug say "That's awesome! how did they do it?"

I think people nowadays feel it diminishes current achievements if they weren't truly the first, a matter of ego, and that's why they resist so hard the notion of Ancient people being potentially more advanced than we suspected. But the truth is it doesn't matter. If we both accomplished then we simply both accomplished. Being first at it is just a petty distinction, the real import is in the achievement.

But we really don't have enough information to assume we know everything about the technological situation in ancient times, even if we are fairly confident. Assuming you know the whole situation is not the same as actually having solid backing for assumption. For now all we can actually say definitively is that we don't know of anything that points to it. We can't actually rule things out. It's ruling things out that causes confusion when it gets proven that you couldn't rule something out.

As for those nifty pics, I'm not saying that everything we made will last forever. Yes, over an ENORMOUS amount of time, our metal statues and sky scrapers will be worn to nothing by wind and rain.

See that's the point of the pictures. It didn't take years. Each of those pictures took only one incident to scrape all the evidence down and over the course of a lot of time a lot of those kinds of events can take place. That which you are thinking would take a long time to become unrecognizable could suffer a severe hit right now and be unrecognizable long before time has a chance to touch it. Our artifacts, with the exception of maybe those plastics that don't degrade, are just as susceptible to being destroyed, and even the plastic can be lost and twisted beyond recognition. The plastic should be warped beyond recognition long in the future; it's just the basic material that is hard to destroy by natural processes.

Also, the further in time you get removed from something, the more distinctions get hard to place. A couple thousand years from now, archaeologists could easily have a hard time placing exactly the stuff from our time, the distinctions between decades are clear now but in the future with say a limited record it could look like more aesthetic differences between concurrent groups. Stuff will be in odd places, disfigured, poorly preserved, etc. Now would they be able to tell the difference in Modern Rome and Ancient Rome, likely yes but that is as much a matter of dating processes rather than just eyeballing the difference.

You can't predict what discoveries are made and what artifacts are unearthed over time. Really, the stuff you see as impossible now can in the future become laughably plausible.



And I'll have you know that this discussion is interfering with my daily game playing.

[Rirenil Masdo]

All I know is that you all should be thanking me and my kind and I also wonder why it took you all so long to figure out that we are the superior species.  If you would just adopt your lives to be more like ours, just think of all the wonderful possibilities we could dream up.  And don't worry, we'll have the dogs build whatever we think up.  More time for us to nap, err think of more great ideas and discover further breakthroughs.

http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2013/10/cats-may-be-key-human-hiv-vaccine#.Uky2hySUjCY

[Illysia]

growing human T-cells with cat HIV virus bits...

[Rigwyn]

[Rigwyn]

This is the last time I go around on this merry go round.

No, they were nowhere near this. To do so, they would have had to make advances in a number of other technologies. We would see some evidence of this mixed in with the rest of their crapola.

Riggy, that was the exact point I just made in the previous post.

NO, you keep insisting that we would not recognize their crapola.

No one has unearthed everything, unearthing something does not guarantee recognition of what it is and the significance it had, and no people won't just recognize the difference automatically.

See? You did it again.

The little gold thing I posted has a million different theories floating around. Some say it's a plane, some say it's a bug, some say it's a bird. Some say it means precolumbian people also has some concept of aviation, some say it's just a nice decoration. For all we know it's proof of aliens or something like your spaghetti monster ;

Having thought up something does not mean that you invented a working copy.  Anyone could have made one of these things. In hindsight, it matches modern air planes and rockets. That's a coincidence.

but as I said earlier, just looking at something doesn't give you all the pertinent details and the records of what exactly it is are long lost.

That's not the point. By analyzing the material found, you can figure out what level of technology was needed to make it. We don't care if its a paper weight or a device for picking your nose.

You say it is far fetched that we could be missing something that big, but less than 100 years ago it was mind blowing that he Egyptians built the pyramids without outside help.

If you were on the aliens-helped-the-egyptions bandwagon ,then I'm sorry for you

100 years ago, the structure DNA was unsupported, curing polio was unsupported, modern aviation was unsupported, mag lev trains were unsupported, the internet was unsupported, pluto was still a planet , world wide communication was unsupported, space travel was unsupported, etc... So if someone were to only find artifacts from a hundred years or so and further back, it looks impossible that we eventually accomplished the things we eventually accomplished.

Whoa, sister.. step on the brakes.

If I see that an ancient civilization made nanotubes, then I don't go assuming that they made a space-lift. What I DO infer is that they had the technology to make these nanotubes. I hypothesize about how they may have gotten to that point - not where the went afterwards.

I think people nowadays feel it diminishes current achievements if they weren't truly the first, a matter of ego, and that's why they resist so hard the notion of Ancient people being potentially more advanced than we suspected.

I'm not so sure I agree with this.  Again, there's this idea of ancient people being brilliant and advanced popping up. Were they as capable as us? I don't know.. that's more of an evolution/biology question. I'm not saying yes or no. Did they achieve as much as us in terms of technological advancement? There is no evidence to support that notion.

But the truth is it doesn't matter. If we both accomplished then we simply both accomplished. Being first at it is just a petty distinction, the real import is in the achievement.

I'm not sure where this "being first" thing came from. I know I didn't introduce it.

But we really don't have enough information to assume we know everything about the technological situation in ancient times, even if we are fairly confident. Assuming you know the whole situation is not the same as actually having solid backing for assumption.

Of course not.... ?!  But that does not mean that we should fabricate some fanciful story for them either.

For now all we can actually say definitively is that we don't know of anything that points to it. We can't actually rule things out. It's ruling things out that causes confusion when it gets proven that you couldn't rule something out.

We can't rule anything out? Are you messing with me or are you being serious? No, you can't disprove imaginary things. Its not because they are real or because they *could be real*, its because there is nothing to disprove to begin with.

If someone told you not to flush your turds because they "could" be more valuable that gold, would you flush them or would you keep them arguing that you can't rule out the possibility that they might be worth more than gold?

Yes, there could be a planet in the distant universe where human turds are priceless, but the odds of that are staggeringly low. At some point, you need to cut it off and say this is close enough to zero for what I am doing.

As for those nifty pics, I'm not saying that everything we made will last forever. Yes, over an ENORMOUS amount of time, our metal statues and sky scrapers will be worn to nothing by wind and rain.

See that's the point of the pictures. It didn't take years. Each of those pictures took only one incident to scrape all the evidence down and over the course of a lot of time a lot of those kinds of events can take place.

Point completely missed. Refer back to why I said about analyzing the materials and determining what it would have taken to make them.

[Illysia]

Ok, let me simplify since you keep seeing everything but the point I am actually trying to make.

It's not a matter of creating a fanciful story. I'm pointing out that your version has just as many holes as what you have misinterpreted as the point I've been trying to make. This is not an evolution issue, too short a time period, this is not to say that ancients have for sure matched us in technology, this is not about other irrelevant theories. None of that is what this about.

You keep focusing on me saying something like "they were more advanced than us or for sure as advanced" and I never said that so to argue that point is just avoiding the point I am making. If you are going to bother, at least address the point I am making not an interpretation or strawman of it. Let me make it clear:

Thesis: You cannot say that ancient cultures did not have advancements that we may offhand categorize as modern since we don't have a complete enough record to know what they for sure did and did not know and what they did and did not make.

Let me clarify further, to categorize something as a modern advancement does not mean it actually is something that could have only happened in modern times if it is just an assumption without proof that it was for sure impossible before now. Saying "we haven't found it" is useless as I have been saying the whole time. You lack enough information, artifacts, proof for that statement to carry any real weight.You talk as if we have a copy of every single thing they ever made which is the very point I keep making about incomplete records... I can't say it enough apparently. You can't pull data and understanding from thin air. It doesn't work like that and never has. If you don't have proof that it doesn't exists it is merely an inconclusive result the same as not having proof that it does exist.

[Rigwyn]

Ok, I see your point.

I think I'm stuck on your definition of modern. What do YOU mean by modern?

You talk as if we have a copy of every single thing they ever made which is the very point I keep making about incomplete records...

I didn't mean to give that impression. I do realize that they would have things other than what has been discovered. To say that they had things that were reasonable for their level of technology is plausible, but to give any serious thought to say Romans or Aztecs having things that would require space-age technology is a major stretch and out of the ball park, as far as I am concerned. Possible perhaps, but highly unlikely.

You can't pull data and understanding from thin air. It doesn't work like that and never has.

My original point was not that you could just pick up a microchip and figure out what it was. My point was that in a post apocalyptic world, you would have a serious head start for reasons that are not worth explaining yet again. You would not just pick up where others left off, but you would have both tools and scavengeable resources to aid you on your way. You would also have many hints as to how to do things. One could look at an existing bridge and learn about how to make a good bridge as opposed to just taking wild guesses and seeing what works.  I won't explain this part again. its dead.