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To complicate things further, it's hard to put an end date on things. Take Egypt for example. Even after it got conquered by Alexander it still remained an impo

To complicate things further, it's hard to put an end date on things. Take Egypt for example. Even after it got conquered by Alexander it still remained an important Civilization. Yes the ruling class spoke Greek, but important legacies that Egypt gave to the world come from this era (the great lighthouse of Alexandria comes to mind). Was this still Egypt? Technically historians count the Ptolemaic as the last dynasty. We give things names, we build frames around things to better organize the knowledge, and for a good reason! But oftentimes the reality, as lived through in the moment, is far more blurred and messy.

taylodl 5y ago
Reading your comment got me thinking about evolution and speciation - when are two different specimens different species? That's when you realize Nature knows nothing about species, those are labels applied by man and those labels require a discrete set. Nature doesn't work in discrete sets but works in gradual changes. Based off your comment it would seem to me that civilizations are much the same. Civilizations don't typically "collapse" in a dramatic, extinction-level fashion, they gradually morph and change and keep going. It's our desire for labels that gets in the way.
- creamytaco 5y ago
  Using this line of reasoning, nothing really collapses, it just gradually morphs into something else and keeps going. But looking at everything through an entropic POV, isn’t very helpful. Civilizations exist in the consensual system of abstractions we have created to define our reality, structure our thinking and guide our evolution. We can and should reason about that system, since we operate bound by its constraints, and not Out in the formless void.
  - ithkuil 5y ago
    > Using this line of reasoning, nothing really collapses, it just gradually morphs into something else and keeps going Imagine a stripe colored in white which after at some point transitions gradually into black. Let's also say that when it's white it's 100% white and when it's black it's 100% black. It's hard to say when it started transitioning and when it ended, but if you your probe points are far enough from the transition you can say a transition actually occurred.

taylodl 5y ago

Reading your comment got me thinking about evolution and speciation - when are two different specimens different species? That's when you realize Nature knows nothing about species, those are labels applied by man and those labels require a discrete set. Nature doesn't work in discrete sets but works in gradual changes. Based off your comment it would seem to me that civilizations are much the same. Civilizations don't typically "collapse" in a dramatic, extinction-level fashion, they gradually morph and change and keep going. It's our desire for labels that gets in the way.

creamytaco 5y ago
Using this line of reasoning, nothing really collapses, it just gradually morphs into something else and keeps going. But looking at everything through an entropic POV, isn’t very helpful. Civilizations exist in the consensual system of abstractions we have created to define our reality, structure our thinking and guide our evolution. We can and should reason about that system, since we operate bound by its constraints, and not Out in the formless void.
- ithkuil 5y ago
  > Using this line of reasoning, nothing really collapses, it just gradually morphs into something else and keeps going Imagine a stripe colored in white which after at some point transitions gradually into black. Let's also say that when it's white it's 100% white and when it's black it's 100% black. It's hard to say when it started transitioning and when it ended, but if you your probe points are far enough from the transition you can say a transition actually occurred.