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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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aurareturn ◴[18 Jun 24 02:12 UTC] No.40713436[source]▶
There are also humans who can’t conjure up an image in their head. Mozilla cofounder wrote a fairly famous piece about his own experience.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-...

If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will and are just a bunch of chemicals controlling our behavior. It also makes you think about consciousness and whether it’s even real.

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1. orwin ◴[18 Jun 24 08:42 UTC] No.40715412{3}[source]▶
If consciousness, or rather, "philosophy of mind" interest you, and you like thinking about it, your position about "consciousness isn't real" (i simplify here) is a more and more talked about position, and the tenants are called "illusionists". Basically, they think we have an illusion of consciousness/subjective experience. Once again, poorly simplified, i'm not smart/dedicated enough to totally understand the idea and it is hard to explain something you don't totally get.