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Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

(news.asu.edu)
273 points geox | 3 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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7thaccount ◴[18 Jun 24 02:29 UTC] No.40713518[source]▶
I find it hard to believe that they can't at all imagine what a tree looks like or imagine a face of a friend. I can understand some difficulty in a perfect image, but nothing?
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vidarh ◴[18 Jun 24 08:57 UTC] No.40715478{4}[source]▶
I see nothing at all.

I spent 45 years or so thinking people were talking metaphorically when talking about picturing things, because surely they couldn't actually see things while awake?

I see things when I dream, so I know what it is like, and some years ago I had a single experience during meditation I've never managed to replicate, but otherwise nothing while awake.

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7thaccount ◴[18 Jun 24 14:07 UTC] No.40718043{5}[source]▶
So if I told you to close your eyes and think about your best friend's face....you cannot see ANYTHING?
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1. vidarh ◴[18 Jun 24 16:45 UTC] No.40719778{6}[source]▶
No. Nothing.

EDIT: This is a great article about Ed Catmull and aphantasia: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47830256

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2. 7thaccount ◴[19 Jun 24 11:15 UTC] No.40727138[source]▶
Interesting and thanks for answering.

If you're on HN, I assume this hasn't impacted you academically?

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3. vidarh ◴[19 Jun 24 11:30 UTC] No.40727238[source]▶
No reason why it would. My abstract reasoning is far above average, and for that matter my ability to draw used to be far above average, though I'm a few decades out of practice. I "visualize" what things look like and where things are in relationship to each other in the sense that I know where things are with a level of precision well above average - I just can't see it in front of me, though I know where they are and what they look like.

I use the term "visualize" because that is what I thought people meant when they said to visualize or imagine things. I remember the shape of the visual rendition of source code, for example, and that is usually the basis for how I navigate large code bases. And I know what parts of papers I last read 30 years ago look like, but I can't see them.

I think the biggest way it has impacted me is that e.g. when it comes to fiction, I find visual descriptions of things usually bore me unless the language used in itself is particularly compelling because the words themselves are beautiful to me. So I often skip and skim visual descriptions.