Independent discoveries of the same thing

[arthwollipot]

Not sure we can know if those were invented independently anywhere really. Maybe they were all invented that time when almost all humans were killed off?

There would be no records of the time that survived today, so it would really be impossible to know for sure.

 

[EHocking]

70,000 years ago? Predates quite a bit of human civilization by several tens of thousands of millenia, doesn't it?

What significance does the "civilisation" of a human population have to do with a potential extinction event?
It is contended that homo erectus actuall was wiped out by the Toba eruption, 70,000 years ago. I don't think "civilisation" was going to save them?. Small isolated populations of any animal are at risk from being wiped out by any number of influences, yes, but I don't think the current "civilisation" of homo sapiens is going to save us. It is more likely that the large population of 8 billion spread out on all continents of the earth is more likely to ensure some survivors, not the fact that some of them are "civilised".

Johnny come latelys. We been doing it millenia longer than those copycats.

But, Darwin says we evolved from monkeys, so they must have been doing it before us??

 

[Thermal]

What significance does the "civilisation" of a human population have to do with a potential extinction event?
It is contended that homo erectus actuall was wiped out by the Toba eruption, 70,000 years ago. I don't think "civilisation" was going to save them?. Small isolated populations of any animal are at risk from being wiped out by any number of influences, yes, but I don't think the current "civilisation" of homo sapiens is going to save us. It is more likely that the large population of 8 billion spread out on all continents of the earth is more likely to ensure some survivors, not the fact that some of them are "civilised".

What species that existed before homo sapiens were up to would not much count as what "we" invented? I'm reading "society/persons" in the OP as meaning our species. If I am mistaken, maybe we should go back to discoveries by simpler animals, like hunting or eating the things that taste good and/or dont kill them?

But, Darwin says we evolved from monkeys, so they must have been doing it before us??

Were they inventing techno pop music before us? QED.

 

[ahhell]

There would be no records of the time that survived today, so it would really be impossible to know for sure.

Kind of my point there, all of those things seem to have pre-existed writing, so were the independent inventions by different humans or just something that have been part of the species since before we diverged from Chimps. Or did chimps invent murder and war independently? Or did Jane Goodall teach them to murder and make war.....?

 

[catsmate]

Darwin and Wallace is a classic example, they derived theories of natural selection quite independently and more or less simultaneously. Unlike Newton and Leibniz, though, they had a very good working relationship and developed it together.

Dave

Darwin III was inspired wrt natural selection by his grandfather, the brilliant Lunatick Dr. Erasmus Darwin. Others had considered similar ideas, back to a Vinci.

 

[catsmate]

If you give any credence to the concept of Technological Determinism, then the answer is Almost Everything. Aka as Steam Engine Time.
SET is generally credited to Charles_Fort^WP

What he actually wrote is;


Full(er) discussion here:

Steam-Engine-Time

This long revealing interview with William Gibson is a gold mine. In addition to being a gifted writer, Gibson is one of the best conversationalists I’ve encountered. I could listen to him all day. (This interview in The Paris Review … Continue reading →

kk.org

For proof just Google the history of anything from Abacus to Zero.

Steam engines existed centuries before their popularisation, e.g. Edward Somerset's "Water-commanding Engine" of 1641.

 

[catsmate]

This is a cool thread, am enjoying reading it, and the links people have presented.

The "steam-engine time" thing was an interesting idea! ...Is it actually a thing, though? Had the Romans actually gone ahead and invented a full-on steam engine, rather than toys merely, then I guess we'd have said that that period was when the steam-engine time was. ...What I'm asking is, has anyone heard of this thing, apart from this guy's take? Is it something that's seriously considered as ...well, true? By sociologists, I suppose?

(But even if it is just one guy's idiosyncratic take, a sci-fi writer's imagination doing its thing, even so it's a very interesting idea, and persuasively enough presented. Enjoyed reading that interview.)

__________

No one seems to have mentioned agriculture in this thread yet, unless I'm mistaken. I suppose that also would qualify as a discovery, invention, technology, whatever, that happened independently across cultures?

The popularisation of steam engines, as opposed to their invention, required certain cultural, economic and social elements in the background. Fuel supply, capital, and need, for examples.

 

[theprestige]

Steam engines existed centuries before their popularisation, e.g. Edward Somerset's "Water-commanding Engine" of 1641.

There seems to be good reason to believe Somerset's engine was not a steam engine:

Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Somerset, Edward (1601-1667) - Wikisource, the free online library

en.wikisource.org

In addition, while there were examples of harnessing steam power prior to the complete steam engine, described by Newcomen, no such engines seem to be attested, prior to Newcomen's work:

History of the steam engine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you want to include the steam jack under the heading of steam engine, I won't complain. But it might cause confusion and amusement among serious students of the tech and its history.

 

[arthwollipot]

Kind of my point there, all of those things seem to have pre-existed writing, so were the independent inventions by different humans or just something that have been part of the species since before we diverged from Chimps. Or did chimps invent murder and war independently? Or did Jane Goodall teach them to murder and make war.....?

It could be argued, and I do, that murder and war are not "inventions".

 

[EHocking]

What species that existed before homo sapiens were up to would not much count as what "we" invented? I'm reading "society/persons" in the OP as meaning our species. If I am mistaken, maybe we should go back to discoveries by simpler animals, like hunting or eating the things that taste good and/or dont kill them?

Were they inventing techno pop music before us? QED.

My query was more to do with this,

70,000 years ago? Predates quite a bit of human civilization by several tens of thousands of millenia, doesn't it?

.

What is the significance of civilisation wrt the extinction event?

 

[Thermal]

My query was more to do with this,
.

What is the significance of civilisation wrt the extinction event?

Civilization wasn't the operative word. Human was.

 

[a_unique_person]

It could be argued, and I do, that murder and war are not "inventions".

Chimpanzees are pretty good at it.

 

[Thermal]

Chimpanzees are pretty good at it.

Arguing?

 

[arthwollipot]

Chimpanzees are pretty good at it.

They sure are, which is irrelevant to whether it can be considered an "invention" or not.

 

[EHocking]

Civilization wasn't the operative word. Human was.

OK. H.sap was around 70k ago, so i'm still lost as to your point.
70k ago the human population was quite small, so vulnerable to an extinction event.

I'm at a loss at to what you're arguing here?

 

[a_unique_person]

Arguing?

War.

 

[Thermal]

OK. H.sap was around 70k ago, so i'm still lost as to your point.
70k ago the human population was quite small, so vulnerable to an extinction event.

I'm at a loss at to what you're arguing here?

Ahell suggested that the inventions on my off-hand list were handed down from this group of survivors 70,000 years ago. Some of the things on that list (marriage, social structures, etc) were not believed to have come about for tens of millenia later (with the advance of civilization), so I'd argue that it was not bloody freaking likely.

 

[ahhell]

Ahell suggested that the inventions on my off-hand list were handed down from this group of survivors 70,000 years ago. Some of the things on that list (marriage, social structures, etc) were not believed to have come about for tens of millenia later (with the advance of civilization), so I'd argue that it was not bloody freaking likely.

The bottle neck thing was tongue in cheek but, my point was, you listed a bunch of things that have all existed for 10s of thousands of years, where they started, who started them, no way to know, might have just all been part of humanity since you could define humanity as something different from other apes. But murder and war, we share with chimps so, that was something that started before the bottleneck for sure.

 

[Thermal]

The bottle neck thing was tongue in cheek but

As was virtually everything I said (see chimpanzees inventing techno-pop), as well as the entirety of my posting history.

, my point was, you listed a bunch of things that have all existed for 10s of thousands of years, where they started, who started them, no way to know, might have just all been part of humanity since you could define humanity as something different from other apes. But murder and war, we share with chimps so, that was something that started before the bottleneck for sure.

My point was that there is an inevitability to many human Inventions, and although we may or may not be able to trace their origins precisely, I think it's fair to assume that groups with no common hand-me-down inventions would come up with the same simple ones for the same reasons. Cooking, for instance, I'm pretty sure didn't start with one insightful cave man without whom we would all still be eating sushi.

Eta: murder and war, as humans do them, I would argue are uniquely different and are based on entirely different principles than the other primates, despite superficial similarities.

 

[theprestige]

It could be argued, and I do, that murder and war are not "inventions".

I'd argue that murder, being a moral judgement, is absolutely an invention. War too, depending how you define it.