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Other animals also make simple food gathering tools or construct simple dwellings. However, humans seem to have had a qualitative impact on the planet due to t
by Roboprog 12y ago
Other animals also make simple food gathering tools or construct simple dwellings.
However, humans seem to have had a qualitative impact on the planet due to the quantity of things that they imagine and build. Perhaps the capacity for written language gives us the ability to recursively combine our tool building in layers? (not that reading and writing is required, but simply using that as a indicator that the species in general is capable of such permutation of ideas)
- undersuit 12y agoWithout reading and writing I think the whole 'Standing on the shoulders of giants' thing falls apart because you must be directly associated with the 'giant'. How do you transmit the ideas of an Einstein between generations of normals?
- scrumper 12y agoAgreed, but it's possible, up to a point: oral history, apprenticeship, observation all serve. It is much less efficient, much less reliable, and probably impractical for higher-order things (such as theories of relativity) but it does work as a bootstrap. Human culture did well enough for a long time before writing. I think a bigger reason that intelligent animals haven't progressed as far as us (qualify 'progress' however you like) is more to do with evolutionary pressure from humans changing the environment faster than they can adapt to it. That extends to populations of humans at different stages of societal evolution as well: cultures are snuffed out very quickly when more advanced groups make their presence felt.