If humanity became extinct at some point in the future

[seriously disabled]

If humanity became extinct at some point in the future, how long will it take for all of our science (all of our physics and chemistry and biology) to be rediscovered again by a different species?

[Itoero]

I'm having a flashback

 

What do you mean with 'rediscovered'?

[dimreepr]

If humanity became extinct at some point in the future, how long will it take for all of our science (all of our physics and chemistry and biology) to be rediscovered again by a different species?

 

I think the dolphins get it already.

[seriously disabled]

I'm having a flashback

 

What do you mean with 'rediscovered'?

By 'rediscovered' I mean reproduced.

 

For example, if all of all our written media on "quantum mechanics" was destroyed during the course of time, how long will it for a different species to 'reproduce' it?

[dimreepr]

By 'rediscovered' I mean reproduced.

 

For example, if all of all our written media on "quantum mechanics" was destroyed during the course of time, how long will it for a different species to 'reproduce' it?

 

That depends on how long the frogs take to grow up.

[Phi for All]

By 'rediscovered' I mean reproduced.

 

For example, if all of all our written media on "quantum mechanics" was destroyed during the course of time, how long will it for a different species to 'reproduce' it?

 

I was interested when I thought you were suggesting another species taking over our tech when we're gone, and how long it would take to develop the intelligence needed. That seems like something that could be supported by experiment.

 

There are far too many variables for what you're suggesting, and any discussion about it would be guesswork at best.

[seriously disabled]

I think the dolphins get it already.

I doubt it. Dolphins are smart but not that smart. I doubt a dolphin can understand quantum mechanics and general relativity.

 

Personally I think it would take at least 3 billion years before another species would be able to rediscover and reproduce everything which is about the same amount of time that it has take humans.

[dimreepr]

I doubt it. Dolphins are smart but not that smart. I doubt a dolphin can understand quantum mechanics and general relativity.

 

Personally I think it would take at least 3 billion years before another species would be able to rediscover and reproduce everything which is about the same amount of time that it has take humans.

 

Time's a bugger, don't you think? An enigma pretending to be a puzzle; time is wobbly with a dash of wibble, so please stop asking or you'll wibble your wobble...

Edited April 20, 2017 by dimreepr

[Phi for All]

Personally I think it would take at least 3 billion years before another species would be able to rediscover and reproduce everything which is about the same amount of time that it has take humans.

 

This is what I meant about the meaninglessness of guesswork.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But... what if we were suddenly wiped out? Primates have most of the requirements for using many human tools. I'm curious if anyone has ever done any long term experiments to see what primates do with tools like rope, or hammers, or saws. The use of such tools within a population would have measurable effects on it, and encourage experimentation which may lead to increasing intelligence.

[zapatos]

Personally I think it would take at least 3 billion years before another species would be able to rediscover and reproduce everything which is about the same amount of time that it has take humans.

It has not taken humans 3 billion years to figure things out. I'd say more like 200,000 years at the most.

[seriously disabled]

It has not taken humans 3 billion years to figure things out. I'd say more like 200,000 years at the most.

Yes but if all humans become extinct (including all monkeys) then evolution will have to start from scratch and it will take about 3-4 billion years.

Edited April 20, 2017 by seriously disabled

[zapatos]

Why does it have to start from scratch? Why can't it start with, say, dolphins?

[EdEarl]

Aquatic life poses extra difficulties for technology development, for example steam engines were preceded by eons of fire use. Dolphins can't make fire, they don't cook food, they use no tools naturally, yet they are very intelligent and have some facility for communication among themselves. However, toothed whales use bubbles and mud as temporary corals for fish, and use bow waves to access food.

Edited April 20, 2017 by EdEarl

[zapatos]

So you agree with seriously disabled that starting from scratch will be faster than starting with dolphins? If not, then I am not sure what point you are making.

[Bender]

It can start with dogs or lizards or birds or octopusses. It's anyones guess which animal at which point would gain enough evolutionary advantage from increased intelligence.

 

We have only one example, and it took about 400 million years from first land animal to quantum mechanics. I would guess that it could take shorter, because there is already a large variety of complex animals today. But given the randomness of evolution, the race towards intelligence could start anywhere between one million and one billion years from now.

 

Once it starts, a couple of hundred thousand years seems like a decent estimate to complete it.

[Velocity_Boy]

If humanity became extinct at some point in the future, how long will it take for all of our science (all of our physics and chemistry and biology) to be rediscovered again by a different species?

Impossible to say with any degree of accuracy. Such a guess would be speculation in the wildest sense.

 

And, of course, the idea that homo sapien sapiens never would return is just as valid a speculation.

 

Most anthropologists agree that we are here by accident. Or, St the least, via a series of very fortuitous and capricious occurrences, that could have gone easily another way. In which case we wouldn't be here in the first place. Much less rise to the top, thrive, become extinct, and then somehow flourish again.

 

Over 95% of all the species of fauna and Flora that ever existed on this planet went extinct. None of them returned, so far as we know. Why then should we? We are in every way possible just another species of mammal here. With abberently large brains. And horribly fragile bodies. Fragile and vulnerable to the point of absurdity, insofar as the rest of the animal kingdom is concerned. We went awry! Truly naked apes. We are like idiot savant naked apes. Incredibly needy.

 

Nah, for my money, if we go tits up, we are down for the count.

 

Did I just mix metaphors?

 

LOL

[Bender]

 

I was interested when I thought you were suggesting another species taking over our tech when we're gone, and how long it would take to develop the intelligence needed. That seems like something that could be supported by experiment.

 

There are far too many variables for what you're suggesting, and any discussion about it would be guesswork at best.

It wouldn't make much difference. Having our technology would give the new species a couple of thousand years advantage, which is mostly negligible compared to the time needed to get to a place where they can even hope to understand quantum mechanics. Even if one of us sticks around to carefully explain it to them, that wouldn't make too much of a difference.

 

Impossible to say with any degree of accuracy. Such a guess would be speculation in the wildest sense.

 

And, of course, the idea that homo sapien sapiens never would return is just as valid a speculation.

 

Most anthropologists agree that we are here by accident. Or, St the least, via a series of very fortuitous and capricious occurrences, that could have gone easily another way. In which case we wouldn't be here in the first place. Much less rise to the top, thrive, become extinct, and then somehow flourish again.

 

Over 95% of all the species of fauna and Flora that ever existed on this planet went extinct. None of them returned, so far as we know. Why then should we? We are in every way possible just another species of mammal here. With abberently large brains. And horribly fragile bodies. Fragile and vulnerable to the point of absurdity, insofar as the rest of the animal kingdom is concerned. We went awry! Truly naked apes. We are like idiot savant naked apes. Incredibly needy.

 

Nah, for my money, if we go tits up, we are down for the count.

 

Did I just mix metaphors?

 

LOL

You might have mixed up the point of this thread. It is about a different species evolving, not humans re-evolving somehow.

[Raider5678]

Aquatic life poses extra difficulties for technology development, for example steam engines were preceded by eons of fire use. Dolphins can't make fire, they don't cook food, they use no tools naturally, yet they are very intelligent and have some facility for communication among themselves. However, toothed whales use bubbles and mud as temporary corals for fish, and use bow waves to access food.

I think that dolphins are secretly the smartest animals on the planet, and one day they're going to say "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

 

 

String, about the primate idea.

If you created a large enclosed area, with technology allowing you to monitor everything inside of it, control everything, etc. And then you put say 50 of the smartest primates you could find in there. If you gave them access to tools, and constantly posed them with problems that would reward them with food, etc. Do you think that over say about 30 generations, they would have the ability to build homes, farm, and have a simple society going?

I think that they would. If you kept each generation in there, and constantly put them with problems requiring them to think, that eventually they would become smarter with each generation. And if at say the 50th generation, you could teach them a complex sign language, that they could teach their kids sign language. Starting a species of primates capable of talking, building, farming, and learning.

All of what I would say is a class 5 animal species.

[Bender]

String, about the primate idea.

If you created a large enclosed area, with technology allowing you to monitor everything inside of it, control everything, etc. And then you put say 50 of the smartest primates you could find in there. If you gave them access to tools, and constantly posed them with problems that would reward them with food, etc. Do you think that over say about 30 generations, they would have the ability to build homes, farm, and have a simple society going?

I think that they would. If you kept each generation in there, and constantly put them with problems requiring them to think, that eventually they would become smarter with each generation. And if at say the 50th generation, you could teach them a complex sign language, that they could teach their kids sign language. Starting a species of primates capable of talking, building, farming, and learning.

All of what I would say is a class 5 animal species.

Acquired skills are not inherited , so there is no need to constantly challenge them with problems. You only need to determine which individuals are smartest and have most potential for learning, which probably requires a decent amount of challenging. Then you have those individuals breed.

 

The downside of primates is that they take a long time to become fertile, so 30 generations would take at least 450 years. Perhaps other animals with shorter breeding cycles could have faster results, depending on how much they lag behind in intelligence. I can't find how long it takes raven to become fertile, but on top of that, they lay multiple eggs, compared to only one baby every five years for a bonobo.

[Raider5678]

Acquired skills are not inherited , so there is no need to constantly challenge them with problems. You only need to determine which individuals are smartest and have most potential for learning, which probably requires a decent amount of challenging. Then you have those individuals breed.

 

The downside of primates is that they take a long time to become fertile, so 30 generations would take at least 450 years. Perhaps other animals with shorter breeding cycles could have faster results, depending on how much they lag behind in intelligence. I can't find how long it takes raven to become fertile, but on top of that, they lay multiple eggs, compared to only one baby every five years for a bonobo.

Constantly challenging them with problems will help prevent them from going into a state where they don't try to advance.

Primates, in their selves, typically simply survive. They collect food, reproduce, and live life.

What we want to do is have them constantly using logic to solve problems, so they can hopefully apply it to better their living quality.

The idea, is to teach them indirectly.

The mind can evolve faster then the rest of your body. If fast reactions are what is required to survive, it won't take but a few years before you develop faster reactions. Granted, not much faster, but still faster.

It would go like this.

 

First generation- Constantly exposed to logic problems. Grows 1-2% smarter.

Second generation- Grew under the first generation, learned from them. Constantly exposed to problems, grows 2-4% smarter.

Third generation- Grew under even smarter parents, learn from them. Constantly exposed to problems, grows 6-8% smarter.

And so on so on.

Each generation will be exposed at a young age to their parents. Their parents will raise them with even a tiny bit different, then their minds will grow differently. If you teach a child at a young age spanish, they grow up speaking spanish. Same concept. Raise them with the tiniest amount of logic taught to them, they will develop differently then their parents, who weren't raised with the same intelligence. Eventually resulting in heightened intelligence.

The biggest play here, is that 2% of the human population are geniuses. As these apes continue on, 2% of them will theoretically be smarter then the rest. They will be the main ones actually making the change inside the populations.

 

As for it taking 450 years, that's the problem with creating an intelligent species.

It's gonna take a long time.

I was thinking maybe 2 thousand years, before you have an official species that intelligence rivals humans. Well, intellect capacity. I don't suspect they'll have rockets. But once we take them from the experiment, we can explain what happened, who they are, where they came from, etc. And start teaching them a lot of things. It'd be interesting, but not matter what, it's going to take much longer then a normal lifespan.

Which is the problem.

Nobody really likes starting projects that not even their great grandchildren will see the results of.

[zapatos]

Constantly challenging them with problems will help prevent them from going into a state where they don't try to advance.

Primates, in their selves, typically simply survive. They collect food, reproduce, and live life.

What we want to do is have them constantly using logic to solve problems, so they can hopefully apply it to better their living quality.

The idea, is to teach them indirectly.

The mind can evolve faster then the rest of your body. If fast reactions are what is required to survive, it won't take but a few years before you develop faster reactions. Granted, not much faster, but still faster.

It would go like this.

 

First generation- Constantly exposed to logic problems. Grows 1-2% smarter.

Second generation- Grew under the first generation, learned from them. Constantly exposed to problems, grows 2-4% smarter.

Third generation- Grew under even smarter parents, learn from them. Constantly exposed to problems, grows 6-8% smarter.

And so on so on.

Each generation will be exposed at a young age to their parents. Their parents will raise them with even a tiny bit different, then their minds will grow differently. If you teach a child at a young age spanish, they grow up speaking spanish. Same concept. Raise them with the tiniest amount of logic taught to them, they will develop differently then their parents, who weren't raised with the same intelligence. Eventually resulting in heightened intelligence.

The biggest play here, is that 2% of the human population are geniuses. As these apes continue on, 2% of them will theoretically be smarter then the rest. They will be the main ones actually making the change inside the populations.

 

As for it taking 450 years, that's the problem with creating an intelligent species.

It's gonna take a long time.

I was thinking maybe 2 thousand years, before you have an official species that intelligence rivals humans. Well, intellect capacity. I don't suspect they'll have rockets. But once we take them from the experiment, we can explain what happened, who they are, where they came from, etc. And start teaching them a lot of things. It'd be interesting, but not matter what, it's going to take much longer then a normal lifespan.

Which is the problem.

Nobody really likes starting projects that not even their great grandchildren will see the results of.

 

Sounds suspiciously similar to Lamarckism.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism

Edited April 21, 2017 by zapatos

[Raider5678]

 

Sounds suspiciously similar to Lamarckism.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism

I've never heard of that before, but yes. Seems to be pretty much exactly what I was saying.

[zapatos]

I've never heard of that before, but yes. Seems to be pretty much exactly what I was saying.

 

In which case what you are saying would not work. It is similar to saying that if I break the bones of your parents then their child will be born with broken bones.

 

If a primate is 'challenged to be smarter', that will not result in a modification to its genes, and therefore will not be passed on.

[Raider5678]

 

In which case what you are saying would not work. It is similar to saying that if I break the bones of your parents then their child will be born with broken bones.

 

If a primate is 'challenged to be smarter', that will not result in a modification to its genes, and therefore will not be passed on.

How did humans evolve a smarter mind?

[dimreepr]

I've never heard of that before, but yes. Seems to be pretty much exactly what I was saying.

 

I can see why you'd think that way, inherited traits, after all, are there for all to see.

 

But you're confused as to how evolution actually works i.e. you pass on your genes not your thoughts.