In my view, it’s not about whether humans are more or less evolved than other animals, and I don’t think human style is inevitable. Cats are a great example of an incredibly successful adaptation that works in a wide range of environments. Primates simply landed on a different kind of adaptation than most animals. One path is to develop physical traits that allow organisms to thrive in their environment. Meanwhile, another approach is to evolve big brains that can create complex models of the environment and use those to manipulate the environment. The main advantage of the latter approach is that each individual organism can itself adapt to novel conditions.
This approach also facilitates a much faster rate of information transfer than physical evolution. Instead of information being passed down genetically, it can now be directly communicated from one organism to another. And invention of writing allows this information to be stored externally leading to information being rapidly accumulated and shared.
Human mind is basically a platform that gets bootstrapped through language. Most of the knowledge humans have doesn’t come from direct experience, but it’s rather taught using language.
Interestingly enough, a process similar to evolution is happening in memetic space. Different world models compete with each other, and provide a different picture of reality. We each subscribe to a particular world model of reality. Some of these are broadly compatible while others are completely at odds with each other. When the models diverge we often end up with conflict. So, in a sense we’re seeing natural selection playing out in the space of ideologies.
It makes perfect sense that humans spent most of their existence in hunter-gatherer tribes because Initial stages of an exponential look fairly linear.
If there were other organisms with human style intelligence previously, then those would most likely have seen the same kind of technological growth that we see because technology is driven by our ability to accumulate and transfer information. While it’s likely that nothing would remain from a previous advanced civilization, there would be indirect indicators such as surface accumulation of metals that they mined, and so on. People have actually considered this seriously before.
deleted by creator
In my view, it’s not about whether humans are more or less evolved than other animals, and I don’t think human style is inevitable. Cats are a great example of an incredibly successful adaptation that works in a wide range of environments. Primates simply landed on a different kind of adaptation than most animals. One path is to develop physical traits that allow organisms to thrive in their environment. Meanwhile, another approach is to evolve big brains that can create complex models of the environment and use those to manipulate the environment. The main advantage of the latter approach is that each individual organism can itself adapt to novel conditions.
This approach also facilitates a much faster rate of information transfer than physical evolution. Instead of information being passed down genetically, it can now be directly communicated from one organism to another. And invention of writing allows this information to be stored externally leading to information being rapidly accumulated and shared.
Human mind is basically a platform that gets bootstrapped through language. Most of the knowledge humans have doesn’t come from direct experience, but it’s rather taught using language.
Interestingly enough, a process similar to evolution is happening in memetic space. Different world models compete with each other, and provide a different picture of reality. We each subscribe to a particular world model of reality. Some of these are broadly compatible while others are completely at odds with each other. When the models diverge we often end up with conflict. So, in a sense we’re seeing natural selection playing out in the space of ideologies.
It makes perfect sense that humans spent most of their existence in hunter-gatherer tribes because Initial stages of an exponential look fairly linear.
If there were other organisms with human style intelligence previously, then those would most likely have seen the same kind of technological growth that we see because technology is driven by our ability to accumulate and transfer information. While it’s likely that nothing would remain from a previous advanced civilization, there would be indirect indicators such as surface accumulation of metals that they mined, and so on. People have actually considered this seriously before.