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Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago

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273 points geox | 6 comments | 17 Jun 24 21:28 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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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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thfuran ◴[18 Jun 24 02:28 UTC] No.40713514[source]▶
>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

That seems like a bizarre leap. What's the connection?

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aurareturn ◴[18 Jun 24 03:29 UTC] No.40713807[source]▶
Because it implies that we only behave based on how we feel, not how we think. The thinking part is an illusion. Therefore, our “consciousness” has no effect on how we behave.

I’m not willing to die on this hill by the way so if someone else comes along and argues otherwise, I’m open to other ideas.

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MeImCounting ◴[18 Jun 24 03:41 UTC] No.40713857[source]▶
Thinking isnt even a path to "free will". Thinking is pretty clearly determined by exterior stimulus just like feeling is.
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mistermann ◴[18 Jun 24 04:13 UTC] No.40714013[source]▶
Where does "clearly" originate, and what does it refer to?

Is "just" a synonym for "exactly" in this context?

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MeImCounting ◴[18 Jun 24 06:56 UTC] No.40714821[source]▶
"Clearly" refers to the obviousness or self-evidence of the statement. In this context, "just" means "similarly" or "in the same way," or ig "exactly" if you like.

"Clearly" because exterior stimuli clearly influence both thinking and feeling, a concept supported by common experience and scientific understanding of human cognition and emotions.

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poochkoishi728 ◴[18 Jun 24 07:38 UTC] No.40715077[source]▶
Influence != Determine
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1. MeImCounting ◴[18 Jun 24 16:51 UTC] No.40719824[source]▶
Yes it is indeed possible that in that small and shrinking gap of behavior that isnt explained by some complex set of circumstances and stimuli there lies some magic immaterial soul that grants the ineffable quality of free will. Bbbut since we have yet to find any evidence for such a thing I wouldnt keep my hopes up. Also theres much more interesting questions to be asking.
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2. mistermann ◴[18 Jun 24 18:30 UTC] No.40720695[source]▶
Might "explanations" have a (perhaps private, or semi-private) epistemic value attribute? That could certainly change the game up.
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3. MeImCounting ◴[18 Jun 24 19:41 UTC] No.40721388[source]▶
Well most of the explanations I personally am interested in have a public and therefore high epistemic value. Since they are published and repeatable. Certain behavioral tests or self-report surveys on the other hand have lower value because of the private nature of what were intending to test. They still have some value though.

Private experiences may be very important for individuals and like I said elsewhere, free-will is certainly a useful idea in religious contexts. I do not believe this has any bearing on practical matters such as our ability to predict or understand the actions taken by any given system such as humans or computers.

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4. mistermann ◴[19 Jun 24 00:30 UTC] No.40723501{3}[source]▶
> Well most of the explanations I personally am interested in have a public and therefore high epistemic value. Since they are published and repeatable.

Are you saying that these two claims have some sort of scientific ~proofs:

1.Thinking isn't even a path to "free will".

2a. Thinking is pretty clearly determined by exterior stimulus

2b. just like feeling is.

Note: a definition for "determined by" (in percentage of total causality) would be required in the specification, as would a non-ambiguous definition for "just like".

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5. MeImCounting ◴[19 Jun 24 01:32 UTC] No.40723882{4}[source]▶
> Are you saying that these two claims have some sort of scientific ~proofs

No. I think this statement is a conclusion only indirectly supported by scientific fact. This is a logical leap from more and more behaviors and internal states being correlated with various external stimulus over time. I believe it only a matter of time until it becomes entirely possible (though silly and will likely not be done because it only serves to prove a foregone conclusion and would be a unfathomably huge undertaking) to provide a complete accounting of all the factors that influence a system bringing it to the state where it reacts in a given way to some stimulus.

The only other conclusion I can see is that human beings are not deterministic and there is some magical spark IE everlasting soul making randomized decisions for us.

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6. mistermann ◴[19 Jun 24 14:38 UTC] No.40728740{5}[source]▶
> I think this statement is a conclusion only indirectly supported by scientific fact.

Can you expand on this "supported by" scientific fact? Is it something more than is not inconsistent with, and more towards must be, necessarily?