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Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

(news.asu.edu)
273 points geox | 1 comments | 17 Jun 24 21:28 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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gcanyon ◴[18 Jun 24 00:41 UTC] No.40712874[source]▶
You have to think that there were breakthroughs in communication technology — not just language in general but possibly also one individual who happened to be good at explaining things, either before or after language, who both taught more people, but also taught them how to teach — that led to step changes in technology.
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dboreham ◴[18 Jun 24 01:03 UTC] No.40713012[source]▶
Theory: there are no humans without language. Consider: what language do you think in?
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mkl ◴[18 Jun 24 01:09 UTC] No.40713064[source]▶
Quite a lot of humans don't think in language, or do only some of the time, see e.g. https://www.iflscience.com/people-with-no-internal-monologue..., https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monolog..., https://www.bustle.com/wellness/does-everyone-have-an-intern....
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palad1n ◴[18 Jun 24 01:28 UTC] No.40713166[source]▶
Indeed, there are two types of people in that regard, whose mind is blown (usually) that there is another type. One thinks in words, one has no words but a smooth stream of thought going.
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marssaxman ◴[18 Jun 24 01:33 UTC] No.40713191{4}[source]▶
That's wild - I am clearly the first sort, because I cannot imagine what "a smooth stream of thought" would even be if it were not expressed in words.
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bla3 ◴[18 Jun 24 02:07 UTC] No.40713407{5}[source]▶
For what it's worth, I used to be certain that I thought in words too. Then I moved to a different country and used a second language often enough that I sometimes think in it. I then realized that there are periods where I think in neither my native language nor in my second language, even when I'm thinking. YMMV of course.
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1. dotnet00 ◴[18 Jun 24 04:18 UTC] No.40714032{6}[source]▶
This describes my experience nicely too, although I didn't quite realize it until reading this. I was thinking I just thought in words and had a tendency to mix up the bits of various languages I know some words from, but occasionally I have some thought, then for one reason or another become conscious of the thought and get confused which language I was thinking in. Sometimes this even manifests as trying to mix languages (eg at one point I used to struggle to not sprinkle in french and farsi words into normal english, despite speaking english at a native level and only knowing the basics of the other two).

I've always thought of my mental model as an endless conversation with myself, but I think the more fitting description would be a "smooth" series of thoughts which only materialize into language when I explicitly focus on those thoughts as their own thing.

I do also think visually for things that have a visual component though.