I HAD AN INTERESTING THOUGHT THE OTHER DAY. AND AFTER TALKING WITH MAGNOLIA ABOUT IT THE IDEA GREW LIKE A HYDRA. HERE'S THE REALLY SHORT VERSION OF A FEW DAYS WORTH OF CONVERSATION, YOU'LL SEE HOW THIS CAN GO FURTHER & FURTHER.

WE, AS A HUMAN RACE, ONLY EVOLVE AS QUICKLY AS THE MOST INTELLIGENT PEOPLE ALIVE AT ANY GIVEN TIME. THAT GOES FOR ANYTHING; PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, ASTRONOMY, MATHEMATICS, ARTS, EVEN THE PARANORMAL.

HUMANS ARE GRANTED A VERY SHORT TIME ON EARTH, IN WHICH TIME YOU HAVE TO REACH YOUR MAXIMUM POTENTIAL TO BE ABLE TO "FIGURE THINGS OUT". IF YOU COULDN'T BUY A COMPUTER, WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE ONE? PROBABLY NOT IN YOUR LIFETIME, OR EVEN IF YOU WERE GIVEN 100 LIFETIMES. I KNOW I COULDN'T. IT'S LIKE A CONSTANT SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MOST INTELLIGENT OF THE HUMAN RACE LIVING AT ANY TIME; THE GUY IN SCIENCE MAY INSPIRE THE GAL IN THE ARTS, THE PHILOSOPHER MAY WRITE SOMETHING THAT GIVES THE ASTRONOMER AN IDEA, AND SOME ARE SOLO, BUT YOU SEE HOW WHEN ONE REVOLUTIONARY IDEA COMES UP IT TOUCHES MULTIPLE AREAS OF LIFE. AND THOSE ARE THE MOST INTELLIGENT AT ANY GIVEN TIME PICKING UP WHERE THE LAST MOST INTELLIGENT LEFT OFF. THEY BUILD ON THE LAST PERSON'S IDEA ON & ON UNTIL IT REACHES PEAK, OR STARTING THEIR OWN PATH THAT THEY TRY TO REACH IN THEIR LIFETIME & IF THEY CAN'T THEY LEAVE A SUCCESSOR, OR A SUCCESSOR IS BORN. EVERYONE ELSE IS ALONG FOR THE RIDE.

WALK AROUND YOUR HOUSE & FIND THE THINGS IN YOUR HOUSE THAT YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO INVENT HAD THOSE THINGS NOT EXISTED. DON'T DISCOUNT THE SILLY THINGS EITHER; PAPER CLIPS WERE REVOLUTIONARY. SOMEONE SOMEWHERE INVENTED THE OVEN MITT, OR WHAT ABOUT THE TOASTER, QUILT BLANKET, TELEPHONE, DESK WITH DRAWERS, LIGHT BULB, CANDLE, COAT RACK, IT GOES ON & ON. WE AS A HUMAN RACE MOVE AT THE PACE OF THE INVENTORS OF OUR TIME; WHETHER IT'S INVENTIONS OF IDEAS, SERVICES, PRODUCTS.

I TOLD MAGNOLIA IF I HAD THE SUPPLIES I COULD PUT A TOASTER TOGETHER, BUT IN ORDER FOR THE TOASTER TO WORK I WOULD HAVE HAD TO DISCOVER ELECTRICITY, AND THEN YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT ANCIENT EGYPTIANS & MIDDLE-EAST WHOSE IDEAS WERE BUILT UPON BY FRANKLIN, TESLA & EDISON.

LET'S ASSUME THOUGH, THAT TOASTERS WEREN'T INVENTED & I MADE MY VERSION OF A TOASTER & I WAS EXCITED SO I SHARED IT WITH MY VILLAGE OF PEOPLE AND MAGNOLIA MADE A BLANKET AND BEFORE THAT EVERYONE JUST WORE LAYERS OF WHATEVER CLOTHES THEY HAD TO KEEP WARM (HEY, SOMEONE SOMEWHERE INVENTED THE BLANKET), AND CHAOS CAME OUT WITH CANDLES WITH WICKS SO WE COULD ALL SEE AT NIGHT & WE DIDN'T ALL HAVE TO LIVE JUST BY SUNLIGHT (CANDLES WERE INVENTED TOO), AND CRONE CAME OVER WITH SOME SMALL WOOD BOXES WITH DRAWERS SO EVERYTHING DIDN'T JUST HAVE TO BE SET OUT ON TABLES OR THE FLOOR. WE ALL EXCHANGED THESE THINGS, NOW WE'VE ALL JUST EVOLVED IN OUR LIFESTYLES, INSTANTLY BY THE INTRODUCTION OF THESE INVENTIONS INTO OUR LIVES.

IT GOES ON & ONE THE MORE YOU THINK ABOUT IT. IT'S REALLY INSPIRATIONAL IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE SOME TESLA IDEA THAT CAN CONTRIBUTE, IT'S ANY INVENTION OF ANY KIND. IT MEANS YOUR BRAIN IS WORKING TO BETTER YOUR SITUATION & YOU AREN'T JUST THE "DAILY GRIND" KIND OF PERSON WHO LIVES LIFE LIKE A JELLYFISH BOBBING ALONG CONTENT IN THE WAVES. YES, TO BE CONTENT DOES HAVE ITS PERKS, BUT FOR THE MINDS WHO DON'T STOP THINKING, INVENTION IS YOUR EVOLUTION.

I DON'T MEAN JUST UNIVERSITY-EDUCATED EITHER, IT GOES FOR ANYONE WHO IS REVOLUTIONARY WHETHER THEY'RE 4 YEARS OLD OR 40. AND IT SEEMS LIKE LATELY THERE'S MORE & MORE & MORE.

HOWEVER, IF I TOOK MY NEIGHBORS AND RE-LOCATED THEM INTO THE 1400S THEY COULD LIVE & FUNCTION LIKE ANYONE ELSE AND WOULD LIVE & DIE IN THAT TIME PERIOD WITHOUT ANY CONSEQUENCE; NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE. IT'S NOT THAT MY NEIGHBORS ARE BAD, THEY AREN'T, THEY'RE VERY NICE PEOPLE, BUT THEY ARE "DAILY GRIND" PEOPLE. THEY WORK, EAT, AND WATCH TV ALL THE TIME. THAT'S THEIR LIFE & IT'S THEIR CHOICE, IF IT MAKES THEM HAPPY, THAT'S AWESOME. BUT, IT'S NOT EVOLVING THE HUMAN RACE WITH STRIDE. THEY COULD GO BACK TO THE 1400S WORK, EAT, AND DO SOME OTHER ACTIVITY LIKE HUNTING, KNITTING, TELL STORIES VIA FIRELIGHT. WHO KNOWS.

THE REALIZATION THAT WE ARE ONLY EVOLVING AT LARGE STRIDES BASED ON THE BRIGHTEST MINDS OF EVERY FIELD THAT EXISTS MADE ME REALIZE HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE US TO REALLY GET ANYWHERE. IMAGINE IF THOSE BRIGHTEST MINDS HAD 400 OR 500 YEARS TO LIVE. IMAGINE FOR A SECOND HOW FAR THE HUMAN RACE WOULD BE. THE HUMAN RACE IS HANDICAPPED BY THE LIMITED TIME WE HAVE ON EARTH. I THINK GOD DID THAT ON PURPOSE. WE CAN ONLY GO SO FAR WITH EACH GENERATION & IT'S UP TO THE NEXT TO CARRY THE TORCH; WHICH MEANS IT MAY NOT BE DONE THE WAY THE ORIGINAL PERSON WOULD HAVE DONE IT, WHICH MEANS IT LEAVES THE DOOR OPEN FOR MISTAKES THAT MAY NOT HAVE BEEN MADE BY THE ORIGINAL GUY OR GAL.

CHEW ON THAT & BEFORE YOU KNOW IT YOU'LL REALIZE HOW OMINOUS THIS TRAIN OF THOUGHT IS.

I think about stuff like this all the time. I think part of what helps us to evolve is the NEED to evolve.

For instance, if there was a massive war/disease/whatever that wiped most of us out and we had to start from scratch, I don't think space travel, computers, tv, many areas of science etc would be top priority. We'd be concentrating on survival and only when those needs were met, would we seek something else out.

I am trying to remember what this pyramid is called .... I learned about it in school when studying graphic design .... Oh!!!! Maslow's hierarchy of needs ... google it

So I think what I am trying to say is we're only going to evolve at the rate we need to. I think there are a lot of advancements in the working that we're not aware of - be them medical, scientific, military-based etc but with nothing urgent to rush us along, it's not going to happen overnight.

People need something to drive them - like with the moon landing, it was a race of US vs Russia .... they weren't going to be working at a steady pace, they'd have been working as fast as they could to make that happen.
I was also told in school that most inventions seem to happen at a time of war, this may not be ideal, but it seems to stir people's imaginations as to ways to defeat the enemy and a great many advancements can come out of it.

I personally am looking forward to 2012 when we're supposed to have a new world age, and many of us are supposed to be spiritually awakened. I will be curious to see if this happens, I think spiritual evolvement is definitely something that needs to happen to a lot of people!

Makes sense. In fact in our society its as if we even have a caste system, the worker drones and the elite. Maybe one day it will become official

great post! and i think about these sorts of things often too.
I remember once, in a conversation with someone, I had said I discovered the meaning of life...
it is to live through it, and learn from it. that is what sparks the life in those of us who crave to learn, to find the "answers" so to speak.

wow this is weird. because the other day i was watching the movie hudson hawk (don't laugh it's a good movie in its own right :silly: ), and i was thinking what if davinci, and nostradamus didn't have to fear religious persecution in their time. what greater inventions, predictions could have came from that? would nostradamus's prediction have been clearer since he wouldn't of needed to write in quatrains? what about others who were killed (due to persecution), what would have been there contributions to society?

but then i see how we live today, and see how most of us spend most of our time inside, shunning the world by watching too much tv, playing video games, etc. would we actually be able to survive if an E.M.P. happened? a show on P.B.S. took high tech families and put them into a 1800 scenario of life on a prairie. most survived but others wanted to leave after a couple of days, and winter hadn't even hit them yet. most people don't understand in less than 30 years the technological advances that we have are far greater than what was accomplished in 100 years. i feel that we take it for granted.

Very interesting... my Grandmother used to say she felt sorry for all the "Guglielmo Marconis" as an example... born before their time... what happened to brilliant people like that who -- their area of brilliance could not have been utilized yet -- not in the time they lived in.

One of my friends is really good about keeping up wit the latest technologies as they are being released. He told me that the DVD was going to be replaced and the two main formats that looked like they were going to take over were HD DVD and Blu Ray. He chose to get an HD DVD player because the HD DVDs were of a higher quality than the Blu Ray. They were also more expensive. Blu Ray won. For that matter, I have been told that those laser discs that came out before VHS were better than VHS. Just examples. It doesn't matter. My point is that frequently the better technology doesn't win.

The book "The Celestine Prophecy" predicted that in 500 years manufacturing will be completely automated and people will devote their lives to consciously choosing to evolve themselves. I think it came out almost 20 years ago, but compared to 500 it doesn't matter. The author said he thought that what we needed to make it happen will be a power source like fusion, faster computers, and manufacturing plants that run themselves. He also said that we would voluntary limit population growth and deforestation so that population centers would all be built up around high energy locations like forests and mountain tops. Many people were really excited by the ideas in this book and they honestly tried to live the ideas in it. It didn't work consistently when it worked at all. More books were written on how to live the ideas. I haven't met anyone online or in real life who has succeeded in making the ideas work in the real world. The author has spent a couple years working on another book and I heard it will come out some time next year. I think it is going to take more than 480 years to convince the majority of people everywhere to live life the way the book "The Celestine Prophecy" suggests.

I feel so certain, that I will say "I know" that at the present time just as Homo Habilis wasn't entirely gone when the first Homo Sapiens appeared...that now there are a a great deal of Homo Sapiens out there just as "We" (and you know if you are a "We") are Homo Stellae Humanus. the new mankind...An evolutionary branch or period dies out when it cannot cope....you want to see a visible huge tribe of Homo Sapiens.....look at the US Government (seriously) and there are others of course...FIrst a few appear like Roger Bacon in the 12th century AD...or Plato (late 400s-early 300s BC)...and then up to the 1880s AD when a whole lot of the "newest" humankind appeared...and then up to now...the evolutionary force within us tells us that the date for majority power (not necessarily majority numbers) will be 2012 (either exactly or "about that time").......Note: the average length of many stages of human evolution measure about 180,000 years approx....its been about 180,000 years since Homo Sapiens first "appeared".

To understand some of the problems, a good novel is SLAN by the wonderful and highly talkative A. E. van Voght (also his World of Null A books)...

Caiyros

Human are brilliant creatures to me...even the dumb and lazy. We are ALL capable of great brilliance and invention. And that is not reserved for the chosen ones of the lot. Its a matter of belief. If you dont believe you can...then we are right. If you believe you can...well we are right as well. No one puts limits on our own capacity other than ourselves.

If I went to school for computers, I could put one together, if I went to school for rockets, I could put one together. I can do art. I can write poems. I can program. I can lead. I can follow. I dont consider myself genius. I'm just human with a can do attitude. I can do a lot of things normal people can't do, even psychically heal someone. Which I never thought I could do. I know I'm not that special. But I do have a lot of quiet time in my brain and stay away from people who tell me I can't. Yes. I learned some things off others. While others I learned on my own. That information is already accessible in our brains. Just believe.

True evolution is being able to bring order to chaos. In a sense that has been the whole point of our existance. Are we evolving? Yes at a rapid pace. Are some of us being left behind? Yes. By law of selection...the strong (mentally) will survive...the weak will follow and be lead off a cliff like lemmings. That is how evolution works. So yes...to me...we are evolving, on schedule too.

An interesting question to be sure, but I have one that you might need to answer before you could really discuss this one - What did you mean when you say "evolving"? Think this might not be important? Well, it is more than you might think. If you say "evolving" is an increase in intelligence, as seems to be the basis of AngelDust's post, then AD has some very valid points. However, Caiyros (if I understand his post correctly) also adds an additional component beyond just intelligence.

How would you measure your "evolution"? If it is intelligence only then what is "intelligence"? A score on a test? Which one? Even the best psychologists have had trouble with that. Early IQ tests tended to use American English and math - this showed undereducated minorities as "less intelligent" with the same happening to deaf children because early sign language was context driven not English Syntax driven.

AngelDust points out inventions as a way to measure evolution, especially those that make daily life easier. Even with that scale is it quality of invention? Quantity? How do you judge the complexity of the invention? Putting a silver spoon in water to kill bacteria is simple, but to understand bacteria and realize what happened is fairly complex so does it count if the person "inventing" this was a bacteriologist or just used observation and correlation?

So if there is a society somewhere that can live in peace for 1000 years and take care of the elderly, respect and educate the children would they be evolved if they didn't have fast cars, computers, tv, satellite and interstellar (physical) travel?

What about a society like the Klingon's from Star Trek? They had many more inventions than we supposedly do yet they didn't like medicine (the weak should die), they settled things often by physical combat, if you weren't a warrior and killed enemies you were weak and disgraced, etc. How "evolved" should that be considered?

Really it depends on what qualities you required in an "evolved" society.