Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Colonol Dekker on June 08, 2006, 10:10:22 am
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When i was a barman during time away from my old profession, We had a question of the day board, and the first correct answer got a free pint.
I put this one up knowing it was one of those questions where everone would argue and i was right. The wheel came up, electric etc..
My own opinion is the concept of language social interaction.
Language can be non verbal as you know, and if back in caveman time, the males had just popped the wad up a bird and left her to it what are the chances we'd be here. Because of language the discoveries that were useful could be passed on, like the sharp edge (spear tips, carving tools) which could then be used to develop others over time, IE wheel (Eventually).
This is my answer (remember there is no correct one)
Whats your take on the question guys? ;)
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There's an arguement, incidentally, that men can only 'pop the wad' because of the development of language as a sexual selection tool.
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before or after sliced bread? :p
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Valid, but sex obviously happened before language otherwise we wouldn't have reached that point. (please avoid the chicken/egg debate :D)
Whats your take on the question? Give me a genuine honest to :zod: answer what could humanity not live without, i know jubblies is an answer ( a valid one) but please no jubblies..........yet.
Before sliced bread :D
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Thing is language is an evolutionary trait rather than a discovery/invention. I don't think you can really say it should win any more than breathing air or the change single-cell to multicellular life should win.
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i'd have to say mitochondria
we wouldnt get very far without those little guys
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Fire is probably the most important.
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Sticks and stones.
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Agriculture.
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The toaster.
What?
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Art. From the days of cave painting, humans have tried to define the world around them using Art, I think it's probably the cornerstone that communication is built on.
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The toaster.
you know that the toasters are going to come back and try to kill us all
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The toaster.
you know that the toasters are going to come back and try to kill us all
Hey, if apocalyptic doom is the price of nice bit of crumpet, I say bring it on.
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Bacon is the greatest invention of all. God bless those pigs.
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The toaster.
you know that the toasters are going to come back and try to kill us all
Hey, if apocalyptic doom is the price of nice bit of crumpet, I say bring it on.
Marriage isn't that bad...... ;)
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Marriage isn't that bad...... ;)
Can Sharon drink a glass of water while you say that? :p
I'd say the most benificial concept for mankind are the ideas of Freedom and Tolerance.
Hmmm. Just realised it but that's not connected to the joke above :)
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Tools, of course. They were the beggining of technology, which allowed us to change our circumstances and adapt much faster than natural eveolution would allow. Technology is basically an artificial, man-made form of evolution. Tools enable us to make better tools, which enable us to make better tools, and before you know it we've got electricity, the Internet and F-16s.
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The toaster.
you know that the toasters are going to come back and try to kill us all
Hey, if apocalyptic doom is the price of nice bit of crumpet, I say bring it on.
YOUR TOAST IS BURNT, AND NO AMOUNT OF SCRAPING WILL REMOVE THE BLACK PARTS
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Are we looking for something that is only used by human species? Because, for example, tools are used by a variety of animals to varying extent. So... a leverage is most likely not an actual man-made invention, though it could be, but more likely the use of tools (of which most are based on leverage OR a inclined surface, though the most simple is of course a rock with which to beat things open) was passed on to human species from their ancestors.
Communication would also be quite an impressive feat, but alas, that also isn't limited to humans and was most likely herited from pre-human primates - with Homo Sapiens Sapiens it just evolved onto current level, through natural selection of course. Better means of communication, better means of survival. I wouldn't, however, give the mankind the whole credit of "inventing" speech as we know it...
Well, of course we come then to the idea of making notes, which is actually a sample of binding complex concepts onto abstract images. Which is of course the same thing as what happens with representing art. The cave paintings are probably the first examples (preserved to these days) of making notes of How To Make the Hunt Go Well and such things. These probably described the important events in the tribe's history as well, serving as the first "chronicles" - though they probably also had some spiritual meaning and more likely than not only served as back-up for oral folklore transferred from grandfathers to fathers and so on. Most likely after the concept of presenting abstract things in images was widely used by drawing maps on birch bark or similar substances, and VERY likely large-scale hunts were planned using a "terrain box", a small area of ground made to resemble the surroundings and so on.
So, inevitably these images were soon caricaturized and they evolved into marks for words rather than being accurate images of things themselves - a system still widely used in many East-Asian languages. After this, it wasn't of course a long way onto finding a way to write things down accurately to transfer and store information effectively and securely.
Coupled with the discovery of agriculture these things made cultural evolution faster than any other species had ever* demonstrated on Earth, for good or for worse.
So I'd have to go with art and/or the skill of writing, which almost certainly derived from art. Art probably came first as an idea of describing things with something else than pointing at it or saying the word for it. And, from an artistic presentation it's a small way to a cartoon, from which it's a small way to including the thing onto single picture (word mark for subject) and the thing it's doing onto another picture (word mark for predicate) and voilá, we got the first system of written language, though it's surely very simple. But why do you thing cave paintings are stylized? I don't think for a moment that they couldn't have made the animals realistic if they had wanted. No, they made them caricaturized because they had a reason to do it that way, and most likely it was that it was easier and had the exact same information as a photorealistic 1:1 fresco on the wall of a cave. :D
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YOUR TOAST IS BURNT, AND NO AMOUNT OF SCRAPING WILL REMOVE THE BLACK PARTS
Bollocks.
Stick another one in, eh?
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I would have to say the light bulb. Seconded by the 'valve' (like the one used in old radios, etc), followed by the transistor and then the integrated circuit.
The impact that these 4 inventions have had on the modern world are insurmountable and are now greatly taken for granted by many. Most likely every innovation of the 20th century has relied in some way on at least one of those 4.
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Language is evolutionary, not a discovery. Controlled fire if one single thing has to be chosen, tools if it can be a general category.
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I think the microprocessor is up there.
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Heretics!!!
How could you forget the most glorious invention ever to blass this planet and your miserable existance!!!
All praise FREESPACE!!!!! ;7
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I don't even remember how to play that game.
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I don't even remember how to play that game.
BURN HIM!!!!!!! PURGE HIS HEATEN TOUNGE!!!
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Fire is probably the most important.
I'd say the discovery of water was slightly more important (but easier). ;)
Me, I'm holding out for slood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slood)...
/me salutes Fragrag for making me laugh; good timing. MY NAME IS MICHEAL J. CABOOSE AND I HATE BABIES
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We won't find it alas :(
In Eric, the creator admits that once he made an entire universe and forgot the slood once. I think I know which one that was ;)
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toilet paper, end of discussion.
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I have a question.
Is anything really an invention? If you look at it, it all just seems like everything we have was discovered, not invented.
Like the light bulb. It wasn't invented, it was discovered that by putting a filament in a vaccum and streaming electricity through it that it would produce light.
Or is my method of thinking a little fubared?
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nuclear warheads.
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I have a question.
Is anything really an invention? If you look at it, it all just seems like everything we have was discovered, not invented.
Like the light bulb. It wasn't invented, it was discovered that by putting a filament in a vaccum and streaming electricity through it that it would produce light.
Or is my method of thinking a little fubared?
Well, presumably it was observed that passing a current through a metal caused it to glow, passing a current through a thin piece of metal caused it to glow more, and the problem of it burning out could be solved by removing oxygen from the equation. Perhaps these three ideas were what led to the initial designs and the subsequent development, by Edison, to the device we know now. If you look at invention in that context, all it means is putting existing theory into practice.
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If you look at it, it all just seems like everything we have was discovered, not invented.
I don't think these can be separated. Can you invent anything without having an observable reality to build on?
It would mean producing "outputs" without any "inputs".
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Ok, the term invent seemed quite a concrete trem, but "Inspired use of knowledge" would tha be more apt?
>>Topic skew
>>>Philosophy-RE: Context of language