6 ms·

> By all accounts of you pluck baby from 10,000 BCE and raise it today it wouldn’t be any different than an average person today. There are people who would di

> By all accounts of you pluck baby from 10,000 BCE and raise it today it wouldn’t be any different than an average person today. There are people who would disagree with this.

BlueTemplar 5y ago
Why ? I've heard that things might have changed 80k years ago when thanks to cultural progress autism went from negative to positive (for the community), but otherwise AFAIK there haven't been any significant changes since the apparition of homo sapiens 350k-400k years ago ?
- antibuddy 5y ago
  Autism is by (original) definition a disorder. If everyone has that disorder, then it is no longer a disorder. I think many people confuse specializaiton, focus and/or intellect with autism.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    I feel that is just one of the definitions of autism ? Anyway, I didn't want to suggest that everyone had to have it : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25484160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25484160
- pacman2 5y ago
  There is an argument that the mind of people changed a few thousand years ago, part as a cultural phenomenon, part as a genetic selection process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in... (the genetic selection process is mentioned in the book, the wiki abstract puts more focus on a cultural development)
  - Hikikomori 5y ago
    One of my favourite cyberpunk novels was inspired by this, Snow Crash.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    That's a fascinating theory, but also quite a wild claim which seems to be hard to falsify ? (And the link with the matter at hand is even more tenuous, since it's only partially genetic.) It's a bit like if you were saying that you couldn't teach a prehistoric child to read (but even more exaggerated) ?
    - antibuddy 5y ago
      Everything so far ago is at least hard to prove/falsify, however this is true either way. I think every possible scenario (prehistorics being of more, less or equal potential) is at least plausible. At least it's easy to come up with arguments for each of these cases (and a hidden one being of different brain specialization).
      - dogma1138 5y ago
        Not really since we do have DNA sequencing of prehistoric humans. Whilst we don’t understand the correlation between genetics and intelligence on a sufficient level there aren’t that many genetic differences in fact you can’t necessarily distinguish the age of the sample that easily either unless you are looking at very specific groups. And as far as modern hunter gatherers go we know that they aren’t less intelligent than urban humans.
        pacman2 5y ago
        People have also claimed, hunters may have been smarter on average. BTW, DNA sequencing does not tell you much. You would need an extremely big sample for comparisons, and even this would exclude methylation patterns and other things.
        5y ago

> By all accounts of you pluck baby from 10,000 BCE and raise it today it wouldn’t be any different than an average person today. There are people who would disagree with this.

BlueTemplar 5y ago

Why ? I've heard that things might have changed 80k years ago when thanks to cultural progress autism went from negative to positive (for the community), but otherwise AFAIK there haven't been any significant changes since the apparition of homo sapiens 350k-400k years ago ?

antibuddy 5y ago
Autism is by (original) definition a disorder. If everyone has that disorder, then it is no longer a disorder. I think many people confuse specializaiton, focus and/or intellect with autism.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  I feel that is just one of the definitions of autism ? Anyway, I didn't want to suggest that everyone had to have it : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25484160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25484160
pacman2 5y ago
There is an argument that the mind of people changed a few thousand years ago, part as a cultural phenomenon, part as a genetic selection process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in... (the genetic selection process is mentioned in the book, the wiki abstract puts more focus on a cultural development)
- Hikikomori 5y ago
  One of my favourite cyberpunk novels was inspired by this, Snow Crash.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  That's a fascinating theory, but also quite a wild claim which seems to be hard to falsify ? (And the link with the matter at hand is even more tenuous, since it's only partially genetic.) It's a bit like if you were saying that you couldn't teach a prehistoric child to read (but even more exaggerated) ?
  - antibuddy 5y ago
    Everything so far ago is at least hard to prove/falsify, however this is true either way. I think every possible scenario (prehistorics being of more, less or equal potential) is at least plausible. At least it's easy to come up with arguments for each of these cases (and a hidden one being of different brain specialization).
    - dogma1138 5y ago
      Not really since we do have DNA sequencing of prehistoric humans. Whilst we don’t understand the correlation between genetics and intelligence on a sufficient level there aren’t that many genetic differences in fact you can’t necessarily distinguish the age of the sample that easily either unless you are looking at very specific groups. And as far as modern hunter gatherers go we know that they aren’t less intelligent than urban humans.
      - pacman2 5y ago
        People have also claimed, hunters may have been smarter on average. BTW, DNA sequencing does not tell you much. You would need an extremely big sample for comparisons, and even this would exclude methylation patterns and other things.
        5y ago