Relating back to your post of 16-02, 02:42 Jukes. You present the interesting line of thought comparing progress in civilsation with the apparently static level of human intelligence. ( Could you provide ref.on this observation pls.) If we look at the technical achievements of civilisation over say the past 400 years it is staggering. Like there had been a starburst that triggered the rennaisance and jolted people out of a 1,000 year sleep where nothing greatly changed following the collapse of the Roman empire.
Prior to that (Roman)era of course was the most amazing rise of the civilisation of man starting in the most widely accepted way with the Egyptians. I guess the 5-6,000 years you refer to Jukes. (There are other isolated examples around the same time, in China for one), but Egypt eclipses them all.
Now as far back as 5-6,000 BC. there is evidence of the nomadic hunter gatherers coming in from the desert and taking permanent 'sustainable' residence on the flood plains of the Nile.
Q. How intelligent were they at this point?
Once they had the new found luxury of not having to break camp and move on endlessly their skills, knowledge and achievements burst forth at an unbelievable rate. They built permanent shelters, developed agri & aqua-culture. Perfected a written language and chiselled their history in stone all over the place. Together with ever growing works of art and architecture. They developed religions. From worshipping multiple Gods to the concept of One God. Temples of ever greater design and majesty were built and much still stands to be seen. Political structures,medical abilities to the point of brain surgey (tumor removal) and of course embalming and mummification and so on. Staggering. But, were they any more intelligent than they were on the day they stopped on the bank of the Nile and said, "look, if we handled this right we can stay here and have no need to trudge on endlessly as we have for thousands of years".
I suspect they were no more intelligent then than they had been a hundred years before. And that we are maybe no more intelligent today than they were all that time ago. ( I will retreat to my bomb shelter on saying this.)
What happened in my view is that having 'stumbled' on the idea of making permanent camp on the Nile banks and seeing the idea was working they became (the important words) Inspired and Motivated. Caught up in the excitement of what they had done. This fervour and having the new luxury of time to experiment unleashed this great period of human development. The Carthaginians and later again, the Romans came along and eventually overtook the proud and wonderful Egyptians. The Romans spread all over the face of 'The Known World', central & western Europe, UK of today, but their reign lasted only a tenth of the Egyptian period.
Which brings us to the point I mentioned in my first paragraph where humanity seemed to take a long pause for breath. The rennaisance led on to global exploration and then the industrial revolution and now the technical revolution,space travel the whole lot. An amazing 4/500 year burst. I have the feeling that as the Egyptian burst of development occured and ran on for several thousand years, the current era of 'progress' is still young and has the momentum to carry on for ages. The challenges and the new tools to tackle them are with us providing that 'Aspiration & Motivation' to push men on to finding ways to make dreams happen.
Against this background it doesn't seem such a big deal to develop ways to get power generation clean, green and plentiful. We are already well on the way with 'emission free' motor vehicles. Feeding the burgeoning world populations has always concerned me. When I was quite young (in the '50's ) I felt Zero poulation growth was a worthy goal, it was discussed then. So far that has largely proven 'too hard'. I've given up thinking about it much. That doesn't mean the problem has gone away though. I can't think of a nice way to reduce the worlds population now it has seemingly got in to the tight end of a suicidal growth spiral. I digress.
As you pointed out Jukes, it seems it is only when need becomes unbearably painful that neccessity becomes the mother of invention and things are forced on. Our hotrocks development is a rather new but important part of breaking our fossil fuels dependence. Viewed in the background of man's progress I have laboriously outlined the obstacles we face in bringing it in to a fully developed technology don't seem too hard.
I think we have all the means and science to achieve it in our tool boxes. Time will then see it refined. No worries.
As you put it,
"There is actually progress in civilisation"
You also state a concern that,
" 'human intelligence has not changed in the last 5-6000 years so that basic aspiration & motivation also remains unchanged. Here we have a problem."
I have tried to put the case that intelligence may not have changed. Knowledge and technology though has grown immeasurably.
As for motivation, I think that is a somewhat volatile and cyclical thing. It waxes and wanes. Man pauses for breath. Manyana I think though that we are just 4-500 years along a giant roll right now and there is a momentum that will carry us on for thousands of years yet. Just like those wonderful Egyptians.
geojac
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