Hieroglyphs are actually not that simple, my ex gf was an Egyptologist, I went to quite a few lectures with her, that was a highly complex language, more akin to Japanese Kanji, with deep layered subtexts. Those desert dudes were crazy. If you have ever have a chance to visit a lecture about hieroglyphs, do it, it’ll blow your mind. Or how they calculated time, or even saw it, culturally and individually, wow. They were so unbelievably far ahead, I sometimes compare them to the octopus of human development, they should rule the world, but there was that one thing, that prevented it. (For the analogy: the octopus dies when their kids are hatching, would they have the ability to pass their knowledge along to them, today eight armed space suits would be en Vogue)
It’s incredibly easy to fall into the trap of seeing modern societies as more advanced. There’s no reason to think they weren’t just as intelligent and resourceful as we are today. They just lived a long time ago. If history can teach us one thing, it’s that nobody rules the world forever, as advanced a civilization can be.
I don’t agree with how you seem to be defining “advanced.” You seem to be tying that to intelligence and resourcefulness, as opposed to culturally. I think most use it to talk about the sum of knowledge and technology that a civilization has.
While ancient cultures were able to learn a lot about the world around them, today we know what they knew and a shit ton more. They figured out how planets and stars move. We’ve figured out what they’re made of, how they bend space and time, their distances. We’ve landed machines on some and put them in orbit around others.
They had some cool medical tricks. We have many complex but routine surgeries with high survival rates due to development of drugs, equipment, and sterile environments.
They could write down their learnings to share with others of their culture. We have a global network of scientists sharing massive data sets and inferences.
Their innate capabilities were probably no different than our own, but we have massively advanced the scale and scope of learning shared with each generation. We have a much greater degree of specialized knowledge advancing and branching out at a very high rate.
Maybe it’s an English second language thing, or just how I expressed myself, but yes, I was referring to the first. Our technological capabilities are obviously on a whole other level. Electricity + transistors basically transformed the world. Plus the massive population growth.
Yep, it’s just semantics, then. We are not more advanced in the sense of biologically more capable than people thousands of years ago. A few hundred thousand, maybe. Since the split from chimps, I like to think so!
You’re right, we’re a lot more advanced technologically and in many aspects even socially. We’re still just as intelligent and dumb as a species as we were 15000 years ago though. Which I think is the point the OP was trying to make using a wrong word.
We had to develop sapience at some point, but I’d guess it was closer to when we invented cooking than writing. Egypt isn’t even that old by the standards of the human race.
(For the analogy: the octopus dies when their kids are hatching, would they have the ability to pass their knowledge along to them, today eight armed space suits would be en Vogue)
Thank you for sending me down that rabbit hole, it was a really interesting read, and I learned something new today.
Octopuses are serious cannibals, so a biologically programmed death spiral may be a way to keep mothers from eating their young.
They also can grow pretty much indefinitely, so eliminating hungry adults keeps the octopus ecosystem from being dominated by a few massive, cranky, octopuses.
Hieroglyphs are actually not that simple, my ex gf was an Egyptologist, I went to quite a few lectures with her, that was a highly complex language, more akin to Japanese Kanji, with deep layered subtexts. Those desert dudes were crazy. If you have ever have a chance to visit a lecture about hieroglyphs, do it, it’ll blow your mind. Or how they calculated time, or even saw it, culturally and individually, wow. They were so unbelievably far ahead, I sometimes compare them to the octopus of human development, they should rule the world, but there was that one thing, that prevented it. (For the analogy: the octopus dies when their kids are hatching, would they have the ability to pass their knowledge along to them, today eight armed space suits would be en Vogue)
It’s incredibly easy to fall into the trap of seeing modern societies as more advanced. There’s no reason to think they weren’t just as intelligent and resourceful as we are today. They just lived a long time ago. If history can teach us one thing, it’s that nobody rules the world forever, as advanced a civilization can be.
Prior to collapsing, Rome achieved a sustained population in excess of a million people.
This did not occur again anywhere else until the mid 1800s.
Weird, seems like such a small number by today’s standards
The Mayans capital was larger at the time of conquest.
I don’t agree with how you seem to be defining “advanced.” You seem to be tying that to intelligence and resourcefulness, as opposed to culturally. I think most use it to talk about the sum of knowledge and technology that a civilization has.
While ancient cultures were able to learn a lot about the world around them, today we know what they knew and a shit ton more. They figured out how planets and stars move. We’ve figured out what they’re made of, how they bend space and time, their distances. We’ve landed machines on some and put them in orbit around others.
They had some cool medical tricks. We have many complex but routine surgeries with high survival rates due to development of drugs, equipment, and sterile environments.
They could write down their learnings to share with others of their culture. We have a global network of scientists sharing massive data sets and inferences.
Their innate capabilities were probably no different than our own, but we have massively advanced the scale and scope of learning shared with each generation. We have a much greater degree of specialized knowledge advancing and branching out at a very high rate.
Maybe it’s an English second language thing, or just how I expressed myself, but yes, I was referring to the first. Our technological capabilities are obviously on a whole other level. Electricity + transistors basically transformed the world. Plus the massive population growth.
Yep, it’s just semantics, then. We are not more advanced in the sense of biologically more capable than people thousands of years ago. A few hundred thousand, maybe. Since the split from chimps, I like to think so!
You’re right, we’re a lot more advanced technologically and in many aspects even socially. We’re still just as intelligent and dumb as a species as we were 15000 years ago though. Which I think is the point the OP was trying to make using a wrong word.
We had to develop sapience at some point, but I’d guess it was closer to when we invented cooking than writing. Egypt isn’t even that old by the standards of the human race.
Based on the planet’s climate trajectory, humanity may not rule it forever, but we’re aiming to be the last.
What held the Egyptians back?
Their spines
Probably the bronze age collapse, quite a scary event that extinguished trade routes and literacy.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse
I bet it was hangover!
Another synapse!! Do you also use a password manager?
Haha, yes. Random user name generation !
Does watching stargate count?
I’m going to have to say yes.
Thank you for sending me down that rabbit hole, it was a really interesting read, and I learned something new today.
From an article on the subject…
And what was “that one thing” for the Egyptians?