to;dr of what @ManOfRet and @Teleros said:
Humans are really lucky, raptors are not.
No, thatâs not what I said at all.
What I did say was that humans and raptors are intrinsically, integrally different than raptors, and we ended up with the adaptation that lasted through the events that actually happened.
Nice reading list for you at the bottom.
1 Like
No, actually, since I believe you were talking about evolution, which, in essence, is random mutations, then the âintrinsically, integrally differentâ aspects that make humans better suited for world domination than raptors is pure luck and chance. While yes, humans as they stand are superior to raptors when they became extinct, there is always the possibility that it would have been those reptiles to evolve opposable thumbs and more versatile brains, as well as omnivorous diets.
So my previous point stands. If you disagree, PM me so this doesnât last longer than it needs to.
1 Like
[quote=âManOfRet, post:20, topic:6936, full:trueâ]3) We are very slow, very weak creatures relative to other creatures of similar size to us. Our larger brains were designed to help us make tools. (see #4)
4) We are easily out-competed by other species, but when we use tools to enhance our physical ability, we become the apex species.[/quote]
Iâm not sure these points are entirely fair to be honest. Humans are pretty amazing at feats of endurance - if cheetahs are sprinters catching prey, humans are marathon runners exhausting it, for example. I think weâd probably be physically stronger and more imposing if we hadnât developed our brains so much though - first, because we could afford to divert more energy into the rest of our bodies, and second because weâd need more muscles to kill prey etc - I suspect we made quite a few trade-offs in that regard.
Not reallyâŚ
First, re my point about quantum mechanics vs clockwork universes, itâs not strictly speaking random at all - a sufficiently powerful (and knowledgeable!) computer could show you the chain of events that results in any particular mutation, for example.
Second, the environment goes an awful long way to determining which mutations will be successful: itâs effectively acting to shrink the range of probabilities a lot. Sure, âin theoryâ it might be a 50:50 choice between mutation A and mutation B, but if the environment is one in which those with A have a 90% chance of surviving vs 3% for those with B, itâs not really down to chance any more.
Of course, but my point is that you need a much more radical point of departure (from the original timeline) than just rewinding & replaying history. I mean just for starters that asteroid needs redirecting 
.
1 Like
Well, yes, we are the best endurance runners on the planet (outside of maybe horses), and that is one of the major reasons we survived the âpre-intelligenceâ era of geologic time, but other than that, we are pretty small, weak, and slow overall. There arenât very many things that are very close to our size, but one relatively close example would be gorillas. They are, on average, a little under twice our weight, but they are far, far stronger, proportionally, than we are. Thatâs why we needed to develop tools, become a super-social species, become superintelligent, etc, etc.
@dwarf Teleros already made the retort that I would have, so just take that as my retort as well.
This question was often discussed during my time as a student of Anthropology, and also in my time learning about philosophy. There is a variable in the question that makes it almost guaranteed that some similar events would repeat themselves - simply because it is in out human nature for better or worse. It wouldnât be across the board but it would exist in some form because it even exists today with our version of history but issues like slavery, human exploitation, land occupation, war, and general human conflict would definitely be apparent. I also feel that genocide in some form or another would come about, it wasnât until world war 2 and the imagery there that the idea of genocide in our modern cultures has become almost universally opposed - although that said there are still groups today which promote it and cultures which attempt it.
History is so important in our social and cultural framework that even history that newer generations never experienced first hand revere certain moments in time and international law makes use of historical events to attempt to make a better future.
Ultimately there would be slight variations but the common human behaviors would ultimately be the same. The best and worst nature of our kind would seep into the world in much the same manner as it has always done.
1 Like
This is why I dislike philosophy: too little common sense.
If you rewind history and replay it, without letting anyone know, and with the laws of physics remaining unchanged⌠how COULD it develop at all differently? Now of course, what the philosophers are really asking is a question about human nature - âwould we make the same mistakes (for whatever definition of âmistakesâ theyâre using) if history repeated itself, but a little bit differently?â
Personally⌠yes. Unless you stop dealing with humans as humans, theyâre going to act like, well, humans.
-
Slavery is natural. Heck, even ants do it, and it was only in the 19th century that we humans finally realised that weâre not just hairless apes and decided that no, this is morally unjustifiable and should stop forthwith.
-
What do you mean, âhuman exploitationâ? Sounds like code for left-wing politics to me
. -
Ditto âland occupationâ.
-
War is also natural, if you think about it. And likely inevitable when you have two or more diametrically opposed positions that wonât compromise. So really to avoid war you need to make humans all into rational, compassionate beings who think alike. Which⌠is not what humans are, to be blunt.
I take issue with âalmost universally opposedâ. Sure, we rich Westerners dislike it (though often not enough to actually do something about it - ohai Sudan, Rwanda, Iraq ATM, half the Middle East vis-Ă -vis Christian populations out there⌠you get the picture), but a lot of non-Western cultures are happy to go along with it still. Weâd likely see a lot more of it - were it not for the fact that the dominant global powers at the moment are Western ones.
Fixed it for you . Iâm going to stick to the good old Treaty of Westphalia.
I feel exactly the same. Humans will be like humans⌠I think the circumstances may vary slightly but humans will still act as humans. There will be conflict, greed, rebellion, and all other forms of human interaction which has always been⌠and always will be. People like to think that the blemishes of our human past are gone once it is in a history book but most of those practices are still going on and just ignored because they are elsewhere⌠and no one pays attention.
- I wouldnât say it is natural, as there were many isolated cultures who didnât part take in it. I will say that it is definitely well within the range of normal human behavior though. If everything was rolled back it would creep back, we as a global species canât put an end to it as it is now⌠It would mostly reoccur as it did in the past and be a very global practice, and slowly stop being favorable over time⌠with some fringe groups still practicing it.
Human exploitation for me in my work typically means things like forced labour camps, human trafficking, child labour (and Iâm not talking farm work I mean things like mining). Many of these things still exist today, and would only be more wide spread and severe with a rollback of history.
I mean land occupation in the sense of one group pushing another completely out of their territory. It took our species a very long time to get the idea of this concept and the reality is there will always be a struggle for land and conflict regardless of who occupies it. I would be willing to argue that there is probably an instinctual component to it as well. This will never change⌠just the methods used will evolve over timeâŚ
I concur. Human on human conflict can never be eradicated regardless if the reason is justifiable or not war is a reality of our species. There is and always will be some sort of conflict. In many cases it can be considered a necessary evil of sorts.
Some of us idle westerners have actually been to such places, and have been trying to rally some sort of basic response. To be perfectly blunt, culturally people of the western world donât really care about what doesnât personally influence there every day life. As long as they get their television soap operas and their iphones they are content. This obviously isnât across the board, but there is an overwhelming idol majority who care nothing for world events and are more than happy to sit in their bubble.
I donât believe sovereign nations should be allowed to do what they want with human lives. I do not oppose of the UN, although I feel it needs to be much more inclusive to all nations and focus on issues which effect us more so as a species than petty conflicts. I do feel we would be worse off if we didnât have it, as bureaucratic and pointless as it has been in recent years.
2 Likes
Isnât that more to do with their isolation and small numbers etc?
Not necessarily. Look at the history of slave abolition in the 19th Century - basically there was Denmark, which had hardly any in the first place, then Britain. We Brits then bullied the rest of the major slave-owners (USA excepted) into abolishing slavery. But if an alternate universe you donât have Britain or a similarly liberal country that just happens to have the biggest stick around⌠well letâs just say I canât recall hearing that the French were all that keen to abolish slavery until we gave them a push. Heck, even in the case of the USA - who settled there and created the constitution? Brits. So a French USA would be very different too.
Ah okay. Not sure about the child labour bit (got to industrialise somehow etc, though after that itâs another matter).
Sounds like nonsense to me. Look at Israel/Palestine: the Jews are kicked out and the Muslims move in, then the Jews move back in, but to many people it was the Palestiniansâ land first⌠wut? Either you accept the idea of conquest or you donât IMHO.
Also, this idea presupposes that this is always a bad thing IMHO. The Angles & Saxons invaded Britain, and we benefited TREMENDOUSLY from it. The USA wouldnât exist today were it not for European settlers. Did the natives get screwed? You betcha. Did humanity as a whole (to say nothing of the hundreds of millions of Americans) benefit? You betcha.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
-JS Mill
I rather like that quote myself.
Very true.
I donât believe nations should be able to do what they like to their people either, but that ainât going to be solved by a UN committee. Thatâs going to be solved by military forces from the Anglosphere-plus-France marching in and kicking copious amounts of arse.
The UN meanwhile is, to quote Sir Humphrey, the accepted forum for international hatred. A glorified talking shop where countries like the Sudan get put on the Human Rights council.
Sod that.
@Teleros you keep saying that there hasnât been other intelligent civilizations but theoretically there could have been multiple civilizations during the time of the existence of life on earth. (the signs of their life would be long gone by now) Though not very likely it is a possibility.
Also an important thing to remember is that evolution is not the most important part of developing intellect but communication. If you let dogs or other animals raise a child it will not behave like what we define as a normal human.
A massive issue in the middle east is due to Britain and France in whatever year colonising it and chalking up the territory literally using a map and ruler, cutting through cultures and peoples, grouping people together etc.
Not really wanting to get involved in this discussion, but itâs an interesting point none the less.
1 Like
Yes, but thatâs pure supposition, and thus not at all scientific.
No. If you raise a human amongst animals, they will have many developmental problems (because after all, this is an extraordinary situation, ie entirely outside the norm), but biologically they are still human. If you raise an animal amongst humans, they will never be human - their biology forbids it. No matter how well you communicate with your dog, it will never be able to grasp many concepts as well as a human can.
Oh absolutely. The Sykes-Picot Agreement after WW1 is the one youâre referring to, when the Ottoman Empire was carved up.
1 Like
Yes evolution gave the potential for intellect, but the reason for the development of the intellect is communication and development of social structures. What makes humans special are that we are very social which raises our communication with each other that again makes exchange of knowledge easier.
More like a theory that has not been disproved yet⌠Which it canât. Life has been nearly eradicated on earth multiple times and there is a possibility that some small tribal animal group could have been taken down with the rest of the dead animals.
Also if we are going to say that humans are special in their use of tools chimps and ravens do it too. chimps actually are quite intelligent on that matter
In a sense, this question answers itself, at least if interpreted semantically rather than pragmatically. I.e., the world is already different, because now we have a world where that question was not asked. However, pragmatically, the intended question might be the same, except with an addition like âin a reasonably humanly meaningful wayâ, in which case the answer is less obvious, and perhaps more subjective.
@Teleros already said pretty much what I wanted to say. Iâm a believer in determinism and so naturally think the world would be identical if it started at an identical starting point and was restarted. However, Iâm unfamiliar with quantum mechanics, the one (potentially? Hard to say without really knowing about it) reasonable challenge Iâve encountered to determinism. It does seem like, as was mentioned, the differences non-determinism caused by quantum mechanics effects are not passed on to higher, more macro-scale levels, in which case such non-determinism would be irrelevant.
Well. Youâre right in principle, but I for one would not be surprised if intelligence would occur in alternative evolutionary paths (i.e. if the tape of life were replayed, determinism notwithstanding; perhaps life on other planets). Yes, itâs expensive, but itâs also very valuable. Itâs also valuable incrementally, I think, as organisms are able to perform ever more complicated tasks. After all, the potential that we destroy our planet and ourselves in the process notwithstanding (probably shouldnât use that word twice in one paragraph but whatever), which is obviously not something evolution on time and spatial scales relevant here can take into account, humans are presently rather stably set as a big power on Earth.
I would have to look into it, but there is such a concept as âFitness over timeâ. Rather counterintuitive, but I think itâs been demonstrated by some computer models. I learned about it in a course called Computational biology. Unfortunately, Iâve forgotten the details.
I have several points to add here:
-
By the butterfly effect, if anything were different in a recycled history, then the Spanish Armada would have fought in clear weather rather than a storm, and the British âfleetâ would have been wiped off the face of the Earth. Therefore, a Spanish America is far more likely than a French one.
-
While yes, other animals do use tools, humans are the only ones to make their own, and are also the only ones to make use of composite machines as well. No other animal has the capability to make a compound machine, or even a simple machine (other than the odd lever, wedge, or ramp), which makes humans unique in that regards.
-
@Phagocytosis There have been several recent reports that say that humans actually have âfree willâ based on quantum fluctuations in the brain. Therefore, it is possible that certain actions would not have occurred due to quantum mechanics. Yes, quantum physical phenomena are the only truly ârandomâ thing we have discovered so far, and the can appreciably affect the macro-world, based on some evidence. In general, though, it is quite likely that we would live in a somewhat different world, but how different, I canât say. Probably not overly different, as basic human concepts would still exist, and it is likely somewhere in the 99th percentile to say that civilization would have still formed.
-
In regards to other life becoming intelligent: it is almost certain that life exists outside of Earth. However, whether it is intelligent or not depends on its anatomy and biology. If they have no grasping mechanism to use tools, then they will never have a need to become superintelligent.
-
While yes, in general evolution trends towards better fitness overall, it is very unlikely that an unfavorable mutation will last long enough to become a favorable, ie the increased need for energy from a brain will last long enough in the population to become a fully functional, cognitive brain. The only reason humans developed it fully is because, as Iâve said, they were relatively weak and highly societal creatures. Also, the rise of agriculture was incredibly vital in creating the basics of civilization, such as math and specialization. Language surely existed long before agriculture, but none of the other hallmarks of post-neolithic human culture would exist today without it. The omnivorous and physical lack of capability combined to force us to make tools and specialize, essentially, which allowed us to flourish into the global civilization that we are today.
Just my additions to what I have remembered to reply to.
Iâm still working through this topic, replying as I go along, so @ManOfRet, itâll be a little bit longer before I get to your above post. Please bear with me 
It would be more precise to say it doesnât have a goal/target in terms of a phenotype per se. I am in fact already kind of struggling to phrase this accurately without being too verbose about it, which is the very issue that Iâm hinting at with this suggested alternate phrasing. âGoalâ or âTarget phenotypeâ or whatever is suggestive of an active selection toward a certain structure, whereas âdirectionâ could in my opinion much more easily be interpreted to mean selection toward whatever (genotypically nearby) structure is advantageous.
I would put it as follows: the exploration of the genotype/phenotype space is random, which is why there is no goal or target phenotype. However, there is non-random selection, which is why there is, in a sense, a direction (although actually, itâs often more like multiple directions, or directed diffusion or whatever).
1 Like
Oh, believe me, itâs perfectly fine. I just canât state how ecstatic I am that we finally have an intelligent discussion here on the forums! It feels so good to be able to be intelligent with other people.
By the way, that is perfectly correct. Evolution, by itself, is not intelligent, and will not do things that we see as good ideas. It wonât give humans the ability to fly, even though that would be really cool. It wonât give birds huge brains or grasping hands, even though that would be really advantageous for them. Evolution works in the short term, and it causes change in the long term. There is no foresight in Evolution, and it does only what is immediately good. On the other hand, we humans would be able to genetically engineer certain traits into ourselves and other organisms. The only problem with that is that it is not time-tested like natural Evolution is.
2 Likes
I hope youâll forgive me. Itâs a bit pedantic I suppose, but since itâs general discussion and itâs within the context of a larger post, I feel like it might be alright for me to point out that technically, you are here saying âone of most expensive, if not the most expensiveâ. You probably wanted to say âone of the, if not the, most expensiveâ. Alternatively, â(one of) the most expensiveâ.
I really should create that grammar knight forum game I was considering at some pointâŚ
Well, in principle, it could be argued that intelligence could develop along with, or in response to, other developments, such as, indeed, opposable thumbs etc. However, such developments would probably have to precede the development of intelligence (beyond a certain point) to some extent. In the case of primates, opposable thumbs make a lot of sense for tree climbing and the like⌠this might be trickier in the case of raptors.
Would be interesting if intelligence were to develop in response to other traits that synergize well with it. Perhaps even traits raptors could reasonably develop. Donât ask me to give any examples, though, certainly not off the top of my head. I just think itâs a nice thought to explore in a sci-fi novel or some such.
Yes, but the issue is how it (anti-)synergizes with their other characteristics (epistasis) that may make it harder or easier to develop intelligence from any given intermediate.
Well, yes, determinism; however, that I think in itself isnât really relevant to @Dwalusâs point; itâs ârandomâ for practical purposes, here. I know you made a second point here as well, though.
Never mind changing environments. I once gave a presentation on epistasis (in the same course I mentioned earlier, in fact), where the environment was brought in, so that not only genetic mutations could interact (GxG epistasis), or the environment could influence (the effect of) genetic mutations (GxE epistasis), the environments could also influence the first kind of epistasis (GxGxE), and so on. It can get quite complicated that way. Changing environments are also an intriguing possibility of getting out of âlocal optimaâ in the fitness landscape, etc. Fascinating stuff.
Right, which again makes evolution more important than communication etc. No evolved intellect = no chance for said communication to work.
Then it is by definition not a scientific theory. Science is based on attempts to falsify a hypothesis after all. Your idea, though certainly interesting, cannot be falsified, nor does it create any experiments you do (eg, General Relativity requires certain things to happen, and if they are not observed to happen, GR must be wrong).
Not disagreeing, just pointing out that itâs not a scientific argument, and therefore of little value in this matter. Now, itâs great for a lot of other reasons - what ifs, or sci-fi etc⌠just not this.
Humans arenât just special because of that though. Weâre clearly a lot smarter, because weâve developed tools that would look like downright magic to said chimps (if they had the concept of magic, of course).
I think that, in principle at least, they could be, but in practice itâd be extraordinarily unlikely.
Iâve actually used the idea as a sci-fi means to develop free will - imagine you have a part of the brain that is incredibly sensitive to photons hitting it, and which amplifies that signal into one that can then affect the creative part(s) of the brain. A stray cosmic ray hitting it, or indeed quantum mechanic fun, could set off a new idea - one that would not be expected with purely deterministic brains.
Oh indeed. I mean, the fact that itâs emerged on Earth means that it can develop, and it is utterly foolish to then assume that whilst itâs developed here, it wonât develop anywhere (or indeed, anywhen) else.
Maybe - again, donât forget the energy budget, giving birth etc.
We canât destroy the planet, nor all life on Earth. Maybe with a really nasty bioweapon you could wipe out humanity (maybe - some pretty isolated communities out there), but thatâs about the âbestâ we can do. Our nuclear arsenals, for example, are peanuts compared to a decent sized asteroid impact, and we could likely survive even one of them, especially if given enough time to prepare.
Iâd be interested to hear it .
That is interesting, because so far Iâve been under the impression that the workings of human brains are too large-scale. For example, messages are passed across synapses using a cloud of molecules - meaning lots and lots of atoms, in turn meaning that affecting even one of those whole molecules wonât do much, because you need more than one to pass (or generate) a signal.