Personalities

[Brengirl]

Just a thought though. Lets liken the brain to a computer. A source of knowledge. It's the ability to use it that gives us the answers and it is that knowledge that is opening new doors.

[HeyWayne]

Just a thought though. Lets liken the brain to a computer. A source of knowledge. It's the ability to use it that gives us the answers and it is that knowledge that is opening new doors.

Equally - early "computers" had very little memory, and very little demand on them, they were only asked to perform what we now consider simple tasks. Computers today are very different to just ten years ago, and likely much different to those in ten years from now.

[Brengirl]

Equally - early "computers" had very little memory, and very little demand on them, they were only asked to perform what we now consider simple tasks. Computers today are very different to just ten years ago, and likely much different to those in ten years from now.

[Nicos]

If early man suddenly appeared with us following a major global catastrophe ( super volcanic eruption /large meteor collision) I think we'd be jolly grateful for his knowledge of survival. There are few enough Native humans around these days with ancient knowledge.
Mankind needed to keep his family alive and spent all his life learning skills from his elders, to then pass them on to the next generation.
Back then small groups were selfsufficient. There's no way we can claim this now. Mankind has 'progressed' to a role within a society rather than a small community - each person with specialised knowledge.
I couldn't make my own electricity. I don't know how to preserve food without sugar or vinegar or freezers.I don't know how to make cloth nor which plants to use for medicine. Maybe in some ways we are moving a bit too far away from our 'roots'??......their knowledge would certainly have blown my mind Wayne!

Peeps died in their 30's back then- if they were lucky enough to reach that ripe old age- as others have said- we expect 50 more years on top of that- just think how much more we'd be capable of knowing/developing/understanding
I've seen beautiful 3D cave art from 40,000 yrs ago- I'm certainly not capable of that even with 40,000 years of brain development!

Wayne- have you read Arthur C Clarke's Childhood's End???
It's fictional and about development of mankind.
Childhood's End - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well worth a read !That'll get you thinking!!

[HeyWayne]

I couldn't make my own electricity. I don't know how to preserve food without sugar or vinegar or freezers.I don't know how to make cloth nor which plants to use for medicine. Maybe in some ways we are moving a bit too far away from our 'roots'??......their knowledge would certainly have blown my mind Wayne!

But that's my point - you know that all these things are possible, and all the other stuff you know.

[bobleponge]

But that's my point - you know that all these things are possible, and all the other stuff you know.

Benjamin Franklin once said, in 1780 something, "and where is the prince who can spread his defences so thinly as to contain 10,000 people coming from the skies to cause mischief" or words to that effect.

He knew then, over 120 years before the arrival of Orville and Wilbur that air travel of some form was coming.

Jules Verne had designed submarines and helicopters on paper well before they were physically viable.

I have no doubt that Russel Crow Magnon had equal knowledge of things that were to be.

To revert back to the personality thingy, I would contend to my dying day that what they knew back then, would have made them equally as interesting or otherwise as someone who knew what we know today.
Bean will grow up knowing something about someone doing something with a flint arrow head, but he wont really know what. As we evolved from the apes (sorry Mormons, we really did) the latest ancestors of early Ho Sap would have known what stick to use for what tool, we dont. Thus I still say that our actual knowledge base remains at a similar level, its merely the subject matter that changes.

[HeyWayne]

As we evolved from the apes (sorry Mormons, we really did) the latest ancestors of early Ho Sap would have known what stick to use for what tool, we dont. Thus I still say that our actual knowledge base remains at a similar level, its merely the subject matter that changes.

But at some point that stick would have had to have been discovered to do the job it did. What about before that?

We know that sticks were used as tools - for avariety of tasks, but prior to that someone would have had to discover it.

By just knowing that the stick was used, surely you know more than the dude who was yet to discover the stick.

[bobleponge]

By just knowing that the stick was used, surely you know more than the dude who was yet to discover the stick.

Clearly I would, however the voyage of discovery to get to the point where I am using said stick has been lost to me, so whilst I would know one thing more than my predecessor, he would also know more than me surely?

[Nicos]

Yes- we know they are possible- and have pushed aside the details of HOW.
As we will do in the future of the stuff we now 'know' to make way for stuff we will know.
I'm trying to say that the depth of the knowledge will be 'lost' to all but a few- because we don't need to know 'basic stuff' so long as someone else knows about it....making way for knowledge of as yet undiscovered facts. We therefore, personally ,become less and less independent within the survival of our species.
Maybe society burns itself out?...
Look how the Arabs were the world leaders in Medicine thousands of years ago, and yet it was the western world which lead the way with transplants etc.
If I recall, apart from the Industrial Revolution,the majority of advances in technology has been because of war. Money poured into new technology to beat the other side encouraged the Space Race and by-products have been incorporated into every day products.
I understand what you are saying Wayne..and I just wonder if, by taking all we 'know' now for granted will make us less able to survive in the future if there is a major catastrophe ( look at the Incas and their drought ... or germ warfare)
....but ....I wonder how much information the brain can actually hold without pushing aside 'old skills /knowledge'!!

[di]

Sorry,a bit random I know...but you do seem to have moved slightly from personality to intelligence(?)Something that's always blown my mind is how people managed to draw such accurate maps of the world many hundreds of years ago...before,obviously,they had any access to panoramic imagery of the world.Pretty impressive me thinks.(or alien intervention,,,,but there's a whole new thread)
Our intelligence has obviously changed,but I think to have been able to evolve as much as we have intelligence is something that's been with us since the year dot.

Another random...I can remember an article a few years back saying how your name can influence your personality.

[Rhona]

....but ....I wonder how much information the brain can actually hold without pushing aside 'old skills /knowledge'!!

"...every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?"

(Homer - coincidence? I doubt it - Simpson to Marge, circa 1997)


A lesson for us all, I think.

[HeyWayne]

....but ....I wonder how much information the brain can actually hold without pushing aside 'old skills /knowledge'!!

Oh, the conveyor belt syndrome. Not a lot, look at The Generation Game.

[HeyWayne]

(Homer - coincidence? I doubt it - Simpson to Marge, circa 1997)

That's who I immediately thought of!

[FionaH]

From the infinite to the Simpsons in 3 pages. I love this place!

[Hilary B]

I can't subscribe to the idea that the human brain hasn't evolved in 100,000 years.

I agree that Master H. Sapien had to learn all these things, but he didn't learn them all in a day, so at some point there would have been little going on in his head.

Mr Sapien Dude on day one didn't suddenly know all the survival skills required to live out his first day. It's why people like Ray Mears harps on about skills being learned over generations, and being passed down and so on.

I would suggest that Mr S Dude's diary (had he been able to read and write) on day one of his existence wasn't full of a day with Ray Mears/Bear Grylls type adventure.

Actually, that would suggest that a dude just landed on planet Earth and started living. Which is proposterous.

I guess we should be mindful of the countless things that we know, yet take for granted. Conversing here par example.

I really should stop doing these presentations (updating/amending/improving a Powerpoint presentation as we speak), they give me far too much time to think.

I would suggest that by the time he was 'human' he HAD learned all these things; they were part of the process of becoming Homo Sapiens, from being Homo Habilis (or whoever he was before that).