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Member (Idle past 379 days) Posts: 876 From: Richmond, Virginia USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: We Evolved Pretty Quickly | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
My feeling, from things I have read and behaviours I have
seen (in documentaries -- unfortunately I don't get out the serengetti nearly as much as I'd like ) I would consider some degree of consciouness necesarry for social animals -- not necessarily hive/insect type societies -- but who knows? In another response I asked about how one can measure consciousness,any ideas?
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
Psychologists and behavioural researchers have certain criteria related to what we consider consciousness. One of the is the development of a 'theory of mind' and there are some experimental methods which are supposed to allow the identification of individuals with a 'theory of mind'. I don't know what the various experimental procedures involved however, or how generally applicable they are, mostly this work is done with primates.
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Parasomnium Member Posts: 2224 Joined: |
Peter,
It's my mistake that I used the term 'our type of consciousness'. I really should have said 'our degree of consciousness'. You see, I agree with you on the idea that consciousness is probably a matter of degree. (Probably anything evolved is a matter of degree.) 'How consciousness is measured' needs a bit more elaboration, I think. What exactly about consciousness is it that we would like to measure? The degree of self-consciousness? The extend to which an animal is able to project himself into a future scenario? Or into someone else's shoes? Questions, questions... You mentioned "social animals -- not necessarily hive/insect type societies --"What about the 'consciousness' of an insect society as a whole? You probably know that termites build nests with airconditioning. The individual termites are too simple to contain the concept, but all of them together they must be a pretty smart colony, to accomplish this astonishing feat. You may have heard of Douglas Hofstadter's fantasy about a conversation with an ant hill. Well, I'm thinking that it isn't such a wild eyed idea at all. Cheers.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: That's why I asked. Are those things above indicators of consciousness? What IS consciuosness?
quote: I have no problem with that as a concept -- I was simply alluding tothe proposition that complex behaviour can emerge from the interaction of multiple agents following simple rules. This is less likely to be a factor of, say, lionesses/wolveshunting in groups. It largely depends on what consciousness is considered to be.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1478 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Thanks, I'll search around.
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truthlover Member (Idle past 4059 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
I understand your intent was to correct crashfrog, but I question the figures. Could you provide a reference? My reference was an NG article. I found a very similar article here. My statement was off by a little. It's only certain that we were in South America 12,000 years ago. That article and this one from Home: NOAA Ocean Exploration both seem to lean towards believing we were in South America 30,000 years ago. 60,000 years is mentioned as believed by unnamed somebodies. I think I was only off with "it's certain we had them there 20,000 years ago." If someone else wants to discuss it in a new thread, that's great, as I'm interested, but I have now exhausted the extent of my knowledge on the subject. :-) I don't want to retract my point, though, because I understand 200,000 years is the typically understood time that Homo Sapiens have been in existence and 120,000 or so is a minimum (one of our scientists may want to correct me on that point, but I'm pretty sure I'm not off by too much). It's just a technical point, but it seems worth remembering to me that our "civilized" days are only about 5% of our species' history.
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Quetzal Member (Idle past 5872 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
Ah, thanks TL. I thought that's what you might be talking about. I won't sidetrack this thread with a detailed discussion - although if anyone is interested we can move it to a new topic. Suffice that the earliest confirmed dates of human presence in the Americas is less than 15,000 years ago (with some pre-Clovis sites still under investigation). The oldest (disputed) site in South America is Monte Verde, Chile, at 12,500 years ago. The "50,000" year old site at Pedra Furada in Brazil has been heavily disputed ever since Meneses Lage first dated her "firepit" at 30,000 years. Most recently, plasma extraction dating of the calcite veneer over one of the "36,000-43,000 year old" cave paintings shows a quite recent - and consistent - date of around 1200-3700 years. The "unamed scientists" your reference reported are proponents of the "ancient" Pedra Furada dates. There's a small group of them, led by Meneses Lage and Bahn who are trying to portray the controversy as a "North America vs the rest of the world" scientific neoimperialism. Funny that they ignore the French scientists like Renault-Miskovsky of the Laboratoire de Prhistoire du Muse National d'Histoire Naturelle who report a quite uncontroversial date of 7000-8500 years (she dated fossilized human excrement from the site - whatever works. )).
As to the rest, I wouldn't expect you to retract. Your "200,000" year old "modern human" is pretty close to the 170-250 ky figures I've seen. Your correction of crash was on-target. Also, I agree with your assessment on "civilization" representing only a tiny fraction of our history - assuming you mean civlization to indicate "social organization larger than family group or clan".
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truthlover Member (Idle past 4059 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
Thanks for the info. I really don't think we're that off topic, anyway, because when we were building villages has to do with our evolution and the speed of it.
I looked up civilization on dictionary.com before I used it, lol. I don't remember the exact definition, but it was close enough to "living in cities," that is what I used. One of these days I'm going to sit down and read a good book on pre-village life among humans--i.e., before we were building permanent or semi-permanent dwellings, maybe the 200kya-100kya range, and see what anthropologists think we were like. Or I guess I could wait for BBC to put out "Walking with Prehistoric Men," LOL. Oh, I guess I better not laugh. Maybe they already put that out, and I didn't notice.
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DC85 Member (Idle past 379 days) Posts: 876 From: Richmond, Virginia USA Joined: |
consciousness ok I think Humans are the only ones that Know that they are them.(if that makes sense)
1.Humans know that they are Human 2.Humans are aware they are all different. 3.Humans care about being different and showing others they are better many say that around the time Jewelry and other things where made Humans became Human. I saw an interesting thing on this where they showed ancient tools and Jewelry. they showed a tool with a fossil of a shell on it the Person that made it cared that shell was there! to me that is level of consciousness in it own right 4. Humans care to Know. the world is more to them then just a place that you struggle to survive(even when they had to) |
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John Inactive Member |
quote: That is going to be tough. Before we were making semi-permanent dwellings we weren't leaving a lot behind that can be used to infer social structure and lifestyle. Your best bet, in my opinion, would be to study non-human primate social structure. ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com
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DC85 Member (Idle past 379 days) Posts: 876 From: Richmond, Virginia USA Joined: |
we where thought to be like African tribes non-permanent hunters and Gathers. I recommend an interesting show on the science channel I think it was called Ice world it explained prehistoric Humans very well. and not boring to watch real actors in it. it was about the Ice Age in Europe this also explains the argument creationist use about population since People where very rare at that time. its about 3 People that Travel all across Europe(on foot ) to find People the will except them. its VERY good
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John Inactive Member |
quote: Obviously we were hunter/gatherers. What else was there? Farming would show up on the map. Hell, all animals pretty much hunt or gather. So you've said, effectively, nothing. It is wrong to lump all of Africa into "African tribes." The social and economic variations between those hundreds of tribes is enormous.
quote: Did it? And what makes you think they didn't completely boff it up? ------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com
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truthlover Member (Idle past 4059 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
Obviously we were hunter/gatherers. What else was there? Farming would show up on the map. Hell, all animals pretty much hunt or gather. So you've said, effectively, nothing. Definitely true that hunter/gatherer was an easy assumption. You were irritated with DC85's reply?
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
Surely animals that hunt and animals that gather are behaviouraly distinct both from each other and from animals that both hunt and gather?
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Quetzal Member (Idle past 5872 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
Yep. They're called omnivores, or more disparagingly "opportunistic feeders" or even "nutritional generalists" (don't ya love jargon?). However, be cautious in making sharp distinctions: other than obligate carnivore/herbivores, most of the generalists are spread out along a continuum from supplementing mostly-fruit-and-vegetation with insects or small animals to supplementing mostly-meat with occasional fruits and vegies. Generic behaviors will be contingent upon where the particular species falls within the range.
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