5 ms·

It's easy today to imagine we are smarter than people 2000+ years ago, but it's more like we are standing on the shoulders of a ton of generations before us. I

It's easy today to imagine we are smarter than people 2000+ years ago, but it's more like we are standing on the shoulders of a ton of generations before us. I always wonder if I went back in time 2000 years from today, if I would be able to translate my knowledge at all into the limitations of back then. The folks who built this only knew what they knew back then or could imagine, but were still able to build this complex machine.

java-man 7y ago
Antikythera mechanism is pretty impressive, possibly the first complex computer. I think the next time we see devices of such complexity around 1,500 years later. Imagine where mankind could be if we did not have this "gap" in progress. In a similar vein, paintings in Chauvet cave [0] made somewhere 32,000-35,000 years before present far exceed those made much later (such as those found in Lascaux cave, ~17,000 years BP): they used curvature of rock to generate a subtle 3D effect, in addition to being, you know, near perfect capture of the animals at the time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux
- fit2rule 7y ago
  .. and then there are the anatomically interesting cave paintings of Gabarnmung: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung There is a .. crackpot theory .. around the notion of ancient intelligence, which I entertain as it is interesting to me as a fan of Szukalski as well as various neolithic cultural introspections: Australian aborigines are the original 'wise men', who travelled across the globe and taught other tribes how to harvest the land and cultivate animals. Gabarnmung was one of their original 'universities', and Gobekli Tepi, is another. Anyway, its a wild and not yet substantiated theory, but .. what if indeed ancient society really was a lot more advanced than we gave it credit? Certainly, many cultures overlooked in the rush to the moon, have their own deeply advanced aspects.
  - java-man 7y ago
    Thank you for the link! Not sure I would subscribe to the advanced society, so far all the artifacts we have can be explained by above-the -average achievements of an individual (rather than a group or a society, like, for example, a microprocessor). And the fact that the mankind has a pronounced tendency to punish extraordinary achievement.
    - fit2rule 7y ago
      Australian aborigines had: * A form of cryptographic key exchange which maintained peace among the tribes for 10's of thousands of years * A formulated "do no harm" policy for its healing practitioners that was an analog of the Hyppocratic oath, long before Europeans had the concept. They also understood the healing nature of antiseptics, and had a knowledge of infection more advanced than European medicine at the time (1700's) of first contact. (We had miasma theory: the aborigines understood that there was a smaller world that would infect a person if they didn't bathe/take care of the wounds..) * They have the oldest surviving oral traditions in the world. We in the west cannot keep our memes alive for longer than a few months - the Australians managed to tell the same stories among themselves for 40,000+ years. * The Australian biosphere as it stood on first contact was a result of centuries of management by the aborigines. They were maintaining the land peacefully, and harmonically, for millennia. * The oldest mason (Stoneworking) projects in the world are found in Gabarnmung. There is evidence that this technology was exported from there to other parts of the neolithic world. I think they were actually a lot more advanced than we give them credit. Its easy for notions of European supremacy to blind one to this, however ..
      - CogDisco 7y ago
        Do you have a reference for that first point? I couldn't find it on Google, but would be interested to learn about it.
        java-man 7y ago
        I think it might be this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_stick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_stick https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-australia-oceania/aboriginal-message-sticks-and-ancient-system-communication-001670 https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-australia-oce...
ALittleLight 7y ago
It's strange to think about something like the Flynn Effect, which suggests people are getting more intelligent, and then do something like go back and read older authors. I'm reading Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire now - and I'm often stuck by imagining how an author 300 years ago managed to write it. It's staggering to think how you could do so much scholarship, writing, and historical analysis without the benefits of computers, the internet, and the modern world. Not to mention the prose, which I absolutely love, and is so dense, thoughtful, and stylish. I've also read a collection of letters from ancient Rome. Just random letters that have been translated, nobody historical or famous. The writing and thinking in the letters makes it hard to square with the Flynn Effect. The authors seem at least as intelligent, if not more so, than modern people I'm acquainted with.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  I also love to read old stuff like that, it always amazes me how things used to be, and how many stuff that we take for granted as being some 20th century invention or society stuff, was already a thing like 3000 years ago or such. Which on the other hand shows how dangerous it is to have gaps on our knowledge as mankind.
- imtringued 7y ago
  >The authors seem at least as intelligent, if not more so, than modern people I'm acquainted with. Why should that not be the case? Those who can write were rich and went to school. It's not hard to imagine that they also received some sort of higher education. The difference between today and 2000 years ago is that everyone is rich by roman standards. When you watch Clickspring's video series the biggest limitations appear to be access to raw materials and energy. There is a reason why most progress happened in the last 200-300 years. As soon as you have a lathe it is trivial to build every other machine, including the steam machine.
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago
  I think this is similar to the "people used to live to 30" where the average can rise dramatically without the higher bound changing that much if you bring up the lower scorers to fulfil their potential.

java-man 7y ago

Antikythera mechanism is pretty impressive, possibly the first complex computer. I think the next time we see devices of such complexity around 1,500 years later. Imagine where mankind could be if we did not have this "gap" in progress. In a similar vein, paintings in Chauvet cave [0] made somewhere 32,000-35,000 years before present far exceed those made much later (such as those found in Lascaux cave, ~17,000 years BP): they used curvature of rock to generate a subtle 3D effect, in addition to being, you know, near perfect capture of the animals at the time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux

fit2rule 7y ago
.. and then there are the anatomically interesting cave paintings of Gabarnmung: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabarnmung There is a .. crackpot theory .. around the notion of ancient intelligence, which I entertain as it is interesting to me as a fan of Szukalski as well as various neolithic cultural introspections: Australian aborigines are the original 'wise men', who travelled across the globe and taught other tribes how to harvest the land and cultivate animals. Gabarnmung was one of their original 'universities', and Gobekli Tepi, is another. Anyway, its a wild and not yet substantiated theory, but .. what if indeed ancient society really was a lot more advanced than we gave it credit? Certainly, many cultures overlooked in the rush to the moon, have their own deeply advanced aspects.
- java-man 7y ago
  Thank you for the link! Not sure I would subscribe to the advanced society, so far all the artifacts we have can be explained by above-the -average achievements of an individual (rather than a group or a society, like, for example, a microprocessor). And the fact that the mankind has a pronounced tendency to punish extraordinary achievement.
  - fit2rule 7y ago
    Australian aborigines had: * A form of cryptographic key exchange which maintained peace among the tribes for 10's of thousands of years * A formulated "do no harm" policy for its healing practitioners that was an analog of the Hyppocratic oath, long before Europeans had the concept. They also understood the healing nature of antiseptics, and had a knowledge of infection more advanced than European medicine at the time (1700's) of first contact. (We had miasma theory: the aborigines understood that there was a smaller world that would infect a person if they didn't bathe/take care of the wounds..) * They have the oldest surviving oral traditions in the world. We in the west cannot keep our memes alive for longer than a few months - the Australians managed to tell the same stories among themselves for 40,000+ years. * The Australian biosphere as it stood on first contact was a result of centuries of management by the aborigines. They were maintaining the land peacefully, and harmonically, for millennia. * The oldest mason (Stoneworking) projects in the world are found in Gabarnmung. There is evidence that this technology was exported from there to other parts of the neolithic world. I think they were actually a lot more advanced than we give them credit. Its easy for notions of European supremacy to blind one to this, however ..
    - CogDisco 7y ago
      Do you have a reference for that first point? I couldn't find it on Google, but would be interested to learn about it.
      - java-man 7y ago
        I think it might be this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_stick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_stick https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-australia-oceania/aboriginal-message-sticks-and-ancient-system-communication-001670 https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-australia-oce...

ALittleLight 7y ago

It's strange to think about something like the Flynn Effect, which suggests people are getting more intelligent, and then do something like go back and read older authors. I'm reading Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire now - and I'm often stuck by imagining how an author 300 years ago managed to write it. It's staggering to think how you could do so much scholarship, writing, and historical analysis without the benefits of computers, the internet, and the modern world. Not to mention the prose, which I absolutely love, and is so dense, thoughtful, and stylish. I've also read a collection of letters from ancient Rome. Just random letters that have been translated, nobody historical or famous. The writing and thinking in the letters makes it hard to square with the Flynn Effect. The authors seem at least as intelligent, if not more so, than modern people I'm acquainted with.

pjmlp 7y ago
I also love to read old stuff like that, it always amazes me how things used to be, and how many stuff that we take for granted as being some 20th century invention or society stuff, was already a thing like 3000 years ago or such. Which on the other hand shows how dangerous it is to have gaps on our knowledge as mankind.
imtringued 7y ago
>The authors seem at least as intelligent, if not more so, than modern people I'm acquainted with. Why should that not be the case? Those who can write were rich and went to school. It's not hard to imagine that they also received some sort of higher education. The difference between today and 2000 years ago is that everyone is rich by roman standards. When you watch Clickspring's video series the biggest limitations appear to be access to raw materials and energy. There is a reason why most progress happened in the last 200-300 years. As soon as you have a lathe it is trivial to build every other machine, including the steam machine.
ZeroGravitas 7y ago
I think this is similar to the "people used to live to 30" where the average can rise dramatically without the higher bound changing that much if you bring up the lower scorers to fulfil their potential.