'Lost Civilisations'

John Jones said:
Non-circular arguments and non-trivial evidence would be appropriate right about now.



Why?
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I think it would be more simply to accept that Earth is capable of creating more than one sentient species.

We managed to make it into space, why couldn't ancient others before us?

This is why I don't believe in aliens.
 
King of the Americas said:
I don't know...

Ascended, as in "took to the heavens", and I am sure technology was involved.

The thing that makes me think this happened, is that 'something' exists in our heavens now that isn't us. I think it is more likely that 'they' came from here, rather than some distant star.
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Do you have any evidence,not stuff you have made up.
 
King of the Americas said:
I think it would be more simply to accept that Earth is capable of creating more than one sentient species.
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ETA: If you're suggesting more than one sentient species surviving to the present, it would not be rational to accept such a ridiculous notion unless some legitimate evidence exists to support it. But no such evidence exists. Arguments from incredulity and ignorance certainly do not support the notion. They are not evidence.

We managed to make it into space, why couldn't ancient others before us?
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A complete lack of supporting evidence makes it reasonable to dismiss your conjecture as a mere fantasy. And no, again, your arguments from incredulity and ignorance are not evidence.

This is why I don't believe in aliens.
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By any reasonable interpretation of the term "aliens", and your recorded history of posts here in this forum, and other than your insistent quibbling about semantics, it would be a lie to claim you don't believe in aliens. But your continued dishonest effort to deflect responsibility for your often stated belief is noted.
 
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KotA said:
But how does a round saw, cut a 'corner'...?
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IT DOESN'T. It cuts a round hole, then the hole is chipped out/polished up to make a square hole. This is basic stuff.

We managed to make it into space, why couldn't ancient others before us?
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A lack of any infrastructure to get there. You make it sound like going to space is like walking to the store. It took hundreds of people, millions of dollars, more advanced tech than either of us comprehends (I know my limits, and seriously, you can't figure out how to make a square hole out of a round one), and all sorts of knowledge the ancients simply DID. NOT. HAVE. Electricity, for one. The Bagdad Battery was the best they had far as I know, and that was just a little tingle. Rocket fuel doesn't undergo fractional distilation by itself. And even our scientists struggled to get the atmospheric composition correct--what shot would they have had without knowing what gasses were in the atmosphere? Glass doesn't devitrify over 5ka--and glass is a critical component in many of the systems that got us into space in the first place. And this is just a sample of why.

The thing that makes me think this happened, is that 'something' exists in our heavens now that isn't us.
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I'd ask for proof, but I've learned not to bother....
 
Dinwar said:
IT DOESN'T. It cuts a round hole, then the hole is chipped out/polished up to make a square hole. This is basic stuff. ...
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Actually yes, thats another techinque I had completely forgotten about. Used nothing more than a copper drill and sand...good catch Dinwar
 
I would expect if past humans or whatever had created a civilization capable of space travel we would have massive and abundant relics all over the place of said civilization. After all just look at the massive monuments of our own. Since we don't find anything that indicates the massive infrastructure for an industrial civilization in the past. It is a safe bet that one never existed until our own.

Re: this comment

ETA: If you're suggesting more than one sentient species surviving to the present, it would not be rational to accept such a ridiculous notion unless some legitimate evidence exists to support it. But no such evidence exists. Arguments from incredulity and ignorance certainly do not support the notion. They are not evidence.
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I know your replying to KOA comment that there must be other sentient species, but I think his point would be clearer if his comment really meant another technological species.

Excactly what sentience is is hotly debated. I would argue that sentience involves not just the ability to develop technology. For example sentience must involve the ability to be self aware or to put it crudely to recognize yourself in the mirror. By this criteria Chimpanzies, Gorillas, orangutans and from what I've heard elephants are self aware so in that respect they are sentient. I'm probably missing a few species here. I'm continually annoyed by the comment that "intelligence" has only evolved once on earth. That is patent nonsense it has evolved more than once and in fact more than twice on earth. What has has evolved only once on earth according to all the available information is technological civilization. I frankly suspect that if life exists outside earth intelligence may be fairly common also, but technological cultures and civilizations may be stunningly rare. There might be highly intelligent octupus, dolphin like etc., creatures out there doing quite well and quite happily without any technology at all or very little.

As it is I think there is more than one sentient creature on earth. They may be less bright than us but I think a chimp is sentient.

I do agree that there is at present no other technological sentient spieces on earth. (with allowance for tool us by some animals).
 
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John Jones said:
That's what I was getting at. Bronze age civilations had other means available to them besides copper and bronze tools.

KotA, I hope you were paying attention.
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But it was the bronze age! Everything was made of bronze. Bronze weapons, bronze tools, bronze people, eating their bronze crops and herding their bronze cattle across fields of bronze...
 
Here's a link to a tool that would rough out a square hole. This is known technology.

http://www.primitiveways.com/crystal_hand_drill.html

This one is quartz tipped, and can drill anything softer than quartz. In practice, any material could be used for the drill; if it's softer than the stone, you run it in a bed of wet sand, and the sand cuts the stone. As far as how square holes are cut, there are several ways, with the most obvious being exactly the same way that square holes are cut in dies for punching out steel. In many cases the steel needs to be worked in a hardened state, since hardening it after carving it to shape introduces distortions. The aim when carving hardened steel to shape is to remove as little material as possible while generating the shape you want. In the case of a square hole, you drill the corners, saw or scrape the steel out between the holes, then file the corners square. This process is called 'trepanning' after the method used to carve holes in bone. Another plausible method would be to use a triangular drill with a flat end, and rotate it in a square guide filled with sand. That would make a square hole that needed just a little bit of touchup on the corners with a stone file.

Just for starters.
 
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dafydd said:
Do you have any evidence,not stuff you have made up.
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I think we've been over this before.

'I' think consistent first person reports of U.F.O.'s, throughout history ARE indeed evidence that 'they exist'. Having a seen such things for myself, I have no option but to accept their existence.
 
GeeMack said:
ETA: If you're suggesting more than one sentient species surviving to the present, it would not be rational to accept such a ridiculous notion unless some legitimate evidence exists to support it. But no such evidence exists. ...

...
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Except that I am arguing here, that PP represents that 'evidence'...

You are just intentionally misrepresenting my argument, for your own gain.

Stop that. *This is why you are on my ignore list.
 
Dinwar said:
...snip...A lack of any infrastructure to get there. You make it sound like going to space is like walking to the store. ...snip...
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Oh, that's an easy one.

They could have "ascended" either by buying a stairway to heaven or by "mastering the fermenting arts" and then farting all the way up to the skys.

Here's a proposal-
Let us all join in a moment mythbusterswards hoping they will descend and carve stones, settling down the issue. (*)

Now, on a more serious note... Those Tiwanaku folks... Yes, they created outstanding examples of art. There are masterworks, masterpieces out there, its a great piece of inheritage left by those who came before us. No questions about it.

Part of the fascination of it, I believe, is because it is different in terms of architecture style from the things we are used to see. Petra also has masterpieces carved in stone, intricate carvings, straigth angles, etc. But we are used to its style and its also better documented. Thus KotA will not argue for ascended beings (or other nonsense) being responsible there. He -and other woos- will put it under another labell.

Now, take a closer look at Tiwanaku. Can anyone find any piece of evidence for something really beyond its time? Oh, yes, KotA will argue for the shape of the blocks. Anything else? No.

What sort of advanced civilization capable of raising itself to the sky was that?

No glass windows.
No steel or aluminium tools, furniture, etc.
No copper wires.
No plastic tools, furniture etc.
No evidence for modern medicine in the graves of their citizens.
Where are the toilets?
Where are the kitchens with tools such as gas or microwave ovens, refrigerators, etc.?
Why no remains of cars or similar things?
What were their clothes and shoes made of, again?
Those guys at Tiwanaku, by the way, despite creating masterpieces of art and architecture, seemed to have no idea on how to build a round arch...

Oh, yes, maybe they ascended with all these stuff and had a super-duper environment repair program, erasing all the traces of their mines, oil and gas wells, power plants, carbon and radioactive isotopes signatures. Oh, yes, advanced technology can be indistinguidable from magic! Oh yes, this should be the explanation! Because you know, the alternative means all this babble about lost golden age civilization of ascended beings would be nothing but a fantasy. It would mean KotA's worldviews and beliefs are wrong!

It would mean his interpretations of ancient myths are wrong...
It would mean his alleged skills are not a good refference...
It would mean the mysterious star shaped objects he claims to have seen are not linked to past civilizations...
It would mean he wasted and is wasting a lot of time and effort for nothing.

(*) We know it would not actually change KotA's mind (as well as other woos'). They would just claim the results did not looked exactly like those stones from Tiwanaku, or it would take to long to produce the number of stones required to build a wall or that they cheated.
 
Dinwar said:
IT DOESN'T. It cuts a round hole, then the hole is chipped out/polished up to make a square hole. This is basic stuff.

A lack of any infrastructure to get there. You make it sound like going to space is like walking to the store. It took hundreds of people, millions of dollars, more advanced tech than either of us comprehends (I know my limits, and seriously, you can't figure out how to make a square hole out of a round one), and all sorts of knowledge the ancients simply DID. NOT. HAVE. Electricity, for one. The Bagdad Battery was the best they had far as I know, and that was just a little tingle. Rocket fuel doesn't undergo fractional distilation by itself. And even our scientists struggled to get the atmospheric composition correct--what shot would they have had without knowing what gasses were in the atmosphere? Glass doesn't devitrify over 5ka--and glass is a critical component in many of the systems that got us into space in the first place. And this is just a sample of why.

I'd ask for proof, but I've learned not to bother....
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So where are this tools that 'chipped out/polished' these corners?

The relics you want still exist, in structures like PP. What 'exactly' they had as tools and technology has been erased and or consumed by time itself.

Glass as a necessary component of space travel... ... That's good. I like that. That is the single best argument I have heard presented here at this forum, in years. "Glass"...I never even considered that.

So, upon that, can we date glass? How old is THE oldest glass ever found? Where was it found? How was it created?
 
Pacal said:
I would expect if past humans or whatever had created a civilization capable of space travel we would have massive and abundant relics all over the place of said civilization. After all just look at the massive monuments of our own. Since we don't find anything that indicates the massive infrastructure for an industrial civilization in the past. It is a safe bet that one never existed until our own.

...
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"If we haven't found it, it doesn't exist."

RALMAO
 
Andrew Wiggin said:
Here's a link to a tool that would rough out a square hole. This is known technology.

http://www.primitiveways.com/crystal_hand_drill.html

This one is quartz tipped, and can drill anything softer than quartz. In practice, any material could be used for the drill; if it's softer than the stone, you run it in a bed of wet sand, and the sand cuts the stone. As far as how square holes are cut, there are several ways, with the most obvious being exactly the same way that square holes are cut in dies for punching out steel. In many cases the steel needs to be worked in a hardened state, since hardening it after carving it to shape introduces distortions. The aim when carving hardened steel to shape is to remove as little material as possible while generating the shape you want. In the case of a square hole, you drill the corners, saw or scrape the steel out between the holes, then file the corners square. This process is called 'trepanning' after the method used to carve holes in bone. Another plausible method would be to use a triangular drill with a flat end, and rotate it in a square guide filled with sand. That would make a square hole that needed just a little bit of touchup on the corners with a stone file.

Just for starters.
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Thanks AW. I am gonna post that link over on the Mythbusters. This is EXACTLY the sort of thing I want to see tested.
 
King of the Americas said:
"If we haven't found it, it doesn't exist."

RALMAO
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The difference with your "If we haven't found it, it doesn't exist." is that we HAVE evidence of the stone being carved that way, whereas as correctly pointed out with the ""If we haven't found it, it doesn't exist."" you are laughing at, you have no evidence of ever being an advanced civilization. You are pushing forward a CLAIM, and you provide no evidence for it. As always.
 
King of the Americas said:
Except that I am arguing here, that PP represents that 'evidence'...
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Except that you aren't. You're arguing that you do not know how Puma Punku was constructed and that you can't believe it was done with tools and techniques known to be available to the people of that time. That is an argument from incredulity. You're also claiming that your experience in stone working has some bearing on the validity of your argument, yet it has been shown many times that your experience and qualifications to understand the craft are so woefully lacking that, for purposes of this discussion, they are irrelevant. You're also continuing to make unsupported assertions while completely neglecting all the reasonable, plausible explanations offered, and you're refusing to objectively research the issue further. That is an argument from ignorance.

You are just intentionally misrepresenting my argument, for your own gain.
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I have nothing to gain. I don't have a dog in this race. I don't have some kind of delusion to cling to. I am being skeptical and objective. This is my position here: Nobody has offered any evidence yet to suggest some kind of advanced or alien technology was involved in the creation of Puma Punku. Arguments from incredulity and ignorance aren't evidence.

Stop that.
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I'll stop pointing out the complete lack of evidence when/if any evidence is offered. I'll stop pointing out the arguments from ignorance, arguments from incredulity, and the lack of qualification to present an expert opinion on the matter when the arguments from incredulity and ignorance cease, and when some qualifications to understand stone working are demonstrated.
 
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