Do you believe in the existence of highly advanced ancient Earth civilization before?

[rtxoff]

You're the one claiming to have records of exact changes. The billions of years figure is simply the last time anything could possibly have occurred that would be violent enough to change the axial tilt-just think about how much energy that would actually take. An impact large enough to change axial tilt 30-odd degrees would likely wipe out life, never mind any civilisation.

I did not claim anything, i just said what is my opinion and it is the same valid like yours because none of us can proof it. However with the last sentence you just explained why we do not see any proof of any civ. before that tilt. It's very unlikely that it would have wiped out all life. Life finds always a way to survive. And we are that what is left of it.

Maybe there is some truth in the bible story of noah and the ark. At least it's worth considering before blinkered believing in things we have no proof at all. Nobody can know for sure what happened at this ancient times claiming anything about this is just an assumption and if we don't find any evidence it will stay like this. For me the pyramids and all other monuments are cleary evidence of some sort of civilization we do not know of. Denying this would be like suppressing my self awareness. Also every theory some schoolars present are automaticly false until i form an opinion about the matter myself. It's not a sign of missing respect just one of self-confidence. I do not need anybody telling me what happened back there, i can think about that for myself if i analyze the facts. Thinking for theirselves is an property people unfortunately loosing nowadays.

[Kryten]

I did not claim anything, i just said what is my opinion and it is the same valid like yours because none of us can proof it.

I can quite easily disprove yours, actually, because you proposed the earth would just change axial tilt without outside influence; that violates conservation of angular momentum. The earth would either have to be hit by something (something big) or somehow eject mass to change the tilt in that matter and by that much.

[Dodgey]

Assertions without evidence or merit can be dismissed without evidence or merit. If you have this presupposition that there was some civilisation we do not know about than you will make the evidence fit the bill, not the other way around that it should be. We know full well how the pyramids could have been built, people underestimate the ability of a massive amount of people and a considerable amount of time. Give me enough time and I can reduce Mt Everest to a pile of rubble, give me some help and the process goes even faster. Presuppositions are dangerous and can skew your sense of reality.

Finally the whole we just don't know, no one could ever know line of thinking really ticks me off because it causes people to dismiss evidence simply because it could be wrong, or you can't really know.

/rant

[magnemoe]

It took quite some time for this thread to arrive at this question: Define advanced civilization.

I would need a new word to describe (more in a friendly mocking and definitely not in an aggressive way!) most of the posts in here, something along racism, sexism, speciesism ... culturism, civilizatism?

A lot of posters define an advanced civilization by it possessing/using: combustion engines, mobile phones, spacefaring technology, gold reserves, plastic and other artificial materials, electronics, and even the need for a command structure. Does this really constitute an advanced civilization? And would it really take millions of individuals to arrive at a higher stage of development?

What about knowledge (by observation and reasoning, omitting any form of superstition) of biology, agriculture, medicine, physics ... a society dedicated to cooperation and the well-being of everyone ... a culture not based on possession and hierarchy?

If they would have used wood/stone/bone tools like their neighbours, could we distinguish between tools used to work food or trinkets from those used for surgery?

If their intelligence did not express in art but in technology alone, how could we find any paintings or sculptures?

Would it not be possible for a mutated human off-shoot (human Vulcan-Elves), missing the aggressive tendencies of our species, to develop in a secluded area, thrive and grow - until their neighbours come to visit and devastate the whole clan? (No need for a volcano or something similar to lay waste to a small yet otherwise succesful population.)

You can put the yardstick for advanced civilization wherever you want like require faster than light spaceships.

As for base civilization writing has been the main requirements for the ancient ones, without writing you get logistic issues growing larger than a city state and stay stable over some time.

And yes the historians love writing as it give much more information about the time than just archeology.

Technical/ industrial civilization require the industrial revolution. This happened in the 19th century any earlier and we had seen traces.

Part of the problem is that any civilization before that has to be poor, the overwhelming majority has to be peasants, with no upper class you would not have any civilization just a group of peasants.

Yes they might have been better off without the upper class but that would not make any civilization, and yes the downside that any invader could just roll in an become the upper class.

[rtxoff]

I can quite easily disprove yours, actually, because you proposed the earth would just change axial tilt without outside influence; that violates conservation of angular momentum. The earth would either have to be hit by something (something big) or somehow eject mass to change the tilt in that matter and by that much.

Sorry you can't proof that. It is an necessity to know what exactly is happening in the core of our earth which we simply do not know. Hell we are trying to reach out for the stars end explore the universe but we fail to know what exactly is happening in our planet. Even the deepest earth oceans are barely explored yet you want to proof such a thing. You know how gyros work in spacecraft right? Which proof can you give that some natural gyroscope does not exist in earth's core which tilted earth's axis in some point of it's existence?

I will stop posting anymore in this thread, like in many others i said what i had to. Everybody can believe what he likes at this point. I know what i believe

[Kryten]

Which proof can you give that some natural gyroscope does not exist in earth's core which tilted earth's axis in some point of it's existence?

The fact that that is impossible. Gyroscopes do not work that way, they don't magically add angular momentum to a system.

[magnemoe]

The fact that that is impossible. Gyroscopes do not work that way, they don't magically add angular momentum to a system.

He is probably thinking reaction wheels, and yes this is way off topic

[ZetaX]

If the gyro starts rotating on the inside, the momentum seen from the outside changes. The total is obviously constant, but you can't that easily see the difference between violation of conservation of angular momentum and just this construct.

Also, it is quite easy for earth to shift its axis. It does so every day. Claiming that the earth is a closed system is naive, and indeed, the rest of the solar system and especially the moon cause some changes, e.g. nutation and precision.

[WinkAllKerb'']

+1 Antropomorphism, ego vs group , me vs something else , scaleSSS related , restrictive *yawn*, yesterday i saw a rock pushed by a branch tree to the river because a big animal felt on hit (for whatever reason) on another floating wood thing then eureka, why not statistic can't prove it wrong and so on.

About ants, if ant act like our neurons in some way, (we human are unable too interact with our neurons so far, hello it s me and your mine, no hello that it s me that make you), may be the whole species is an individual, and as a single human i can't interact with such a large entity that's hell a big brain damn xD )

yeah yeah i know this will make some smog around some brains and ears, but nevermind we're talking about pheromone

Edit Another: what if the rock there was from a small meteorite that could kill datation, and what if impact zone is now under sea etc. etc. etc. insteed of prove it wrong ask the time police/cop to prove it right, yup yup not that easy. even now days but police/cop are known for there good use of pheromone aka ant aka neuron *shrug*.

EDIT2 Hey guys, lets make a circle as target like the impact remain with thoose rock may be the sky send us some more etc. etc. etc. *yawn*

Edit 3: for everyone safety please don't throw rock @ someoneelse head without aim *smile*

Edited June 2, 2014 by WinkAllKerb''
already elsewhere

[Idobox]

When you start going way back in geological time, it gets a bit more believable that we could miss a high-tech civilization, but even then -- if they got to our level -- our ubiquitous use of artificial materials would probably leave some sign in the fossil record. (Now maybe we've seen it already and just assumed it's natural... cool SF concept, but I doubt it.)

What about a layer of Iridium found pretty much everywhere on Earth coinciding with a massive extinction event? Like the one we find at the K-Pg boundary (end of dinosaurs).

I blame a nanobot proliferation, and the Chixculub crater is the proof they tried to use thermonuclear weapons to try to destroy them and failed (or maybe the EMP actually worked)

More seriously, we have to define what type of civilisation we're thinking about. A human civilisation at this level could stay hidden only if they lived in an unexplored area (let's say under the Black Sea) and for some reason did not trade or exploit their neighbours, otherwise, we would find tools, weapons and cultural artifacts for hundreds of km around their territory.

For non human civilisations, it would be much more difficult to tell. We have fossils of plants older than 500 My, a global civilisation with even neolothic technology would be easy to spot. But we can try to imagine a local civilization, with traces destroyed by volcanism or hidden a thick ice sheet, or one built solely around squishy biodegradable stuff that wouldn't be preserved at the bottom of a bog or buried in sand.

A 300My old civilisation with pre-industrial technology in what is now Antartica, the bottom of the Mediterranean or the top of Yellowstone could have avoided our detection.

[WinkAllKerb'']

tools are not always manufactured;) good point

so yup environnemental tools in there natural form without any change would be hard to identify so much years later from there remains.

Edited June 2, 2014 by WinkAllKerb''

[Seret]

Civilisation is hard to define exactly, advanced civilisation is impossible because the term advanced is entirely subjective. The only sensible definition to run with would be one that is roughly comparable to ours.

Personally what I'd call advanced is a culture that had cities with infrastructure (roads and sewers), agriculture, an administrative class, writing and technology. Technology I would define as the use of tools to make other tools.

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

I like the way this is heading...

There are plenty of things in this world that are not ordinarily considered 'tools'; very much as most tools are never considered weapons (but when pushed into use as weapons, could make even fully battle-armoured knights quake in fear!) such as using acids/bases to shape rock and metal...

In a shout-out to popular sci-fi, I'd also like to bring up biological tools/weapons; it seems to have become quite popular in recent (last 10 years or so) to show aliens and/or advanced races with biological/symbiotic tools and weapons; just look at farscape and stargate universes and there are plenty of examples just in those 2 very different series...

Now look at what huge breakthroughs in biological sciences we have made in the last couple of years; we have body parts being custom 3D-printed, we have custom-grown marijuana that helps certain otherwise uncontrllable seizure suferers, and even NASA are starting to lok into experimenting growing plants off-world (Orbit today, who knows tomorrow?) and the massive advances in brain-contrlled technology linked with advances in robotics, meaning full-on brain controlled replacement limbs, as well as research into full-body suits designed to augment our weak bodies in extreme environments and situations...

Last thing to leave you to think on for now; "How often do you stop to watch ants go about their work? or any other creature that is known, so observing them serves no useful purpose? Maybe this is why we haven't been contacted by 'intelligent life' from elsewhere - maybe they consider us beneath them to such an unconscious level that they pretty much ignore us in their daily routines..."

[Ayo99]

I do believe in Kerbin, I do, I do

Sorry about the Peter Pan reference

[vger]

I'm with you on the general idea. Some of the most common yardsticks of early civilisation are agriculture, communal living, and specialisation of labour; by those standards ants are indeed civilised. However I do disagree with some of your points: ants don't have a leadership structure, there are no ants that are in command of the others. It's also highly dubious they have any concept of sacrifice and revenge (they don't seem to have any awareness of individuality that would make sacrifice relevant). Tool use is also going a bit far IMO.

One big element of ant behavior somehow got overlooked here. Not that I would say it implies civilization (at least by our standards, since we tend to refer to any such people who do this as the opposite of civilized ), but... slavery. Ants fricking enslave captives. And ants who are enslaved, will sabotage the nest of their captors.

And more relevant to the OT and signs of old civilization: http://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/09-archaeologists-find-earliest-evidence-of-humans-cooking-with-fire

Edited June 2, 2014 by vger

[rkman]

I'm with you on the general idea. Some of the most common yardsticks of early civilisation are agriculture, communal living, and specialisation of labour; by those standards ants are indeed civilised.

Why would ants be considered to have civilization if -as you say- they fulfill only some of the yardsticks of civilization?

[Albert VDS]

Also ants farm honeyfrom aphids.

[Mr Shifty]

If the gyro starts rotating on the inside, the momentum seen from the outside changes. The total is obviously constant, but you can't that easily see the difference between violation of conservation of angular momentum and just this construct.

Also, it is quite easy for earth to shift its axis. It does so every day. Claiming that the earth is a closed system is naive, and indeed, the rest of the solar system and especially the moon cause some changes, e.g. nutation and precision.

Neither precession nor nutation causes changes in the location of the equator. Both change the amount of axial tilt the Earth has relative to the ecliptic.

[Seret]

Why would ants be considered to have civilization if -as you say- they fulfill only some of the yardsticks of civilization?

Because the yardsticks are a bit arbitrary. If you pick the ones I mentioned, they are civilised. The point isn't really to try and make the case for ant civilisation, but to point how vague the definition of civilisation is. It's a description that we've made up, we use it to congratulate ourselves at how different and special we are.

[magnemoe]

Because the yardsticks are a bit arbitrary. If you pick the ones I mentioned, they are civilised. The point isn't really to try and make the case for ant civilisation, but to point how vague the definition of civilisation is. It's a description that we've made up, we use it to congratulate ourselves at how different and special we are.

This is actually pretty well defined, the old definition was writing, this only holds for the ancient ones as later everybody copied writing.

Large scale organisation is the second requirement, civilization also become irrelevant so early as roman times as everybody who mattered had writing and large scale organisation and everybody copied from each other on a grand scale.

[WinkAllKerb'']

pheromone are similar or at least sound like some tasty smell writing that touch the ground.

[Seret]

This is actually pretty well defined, the old definition was writing, this only holds for the ancient ones as later everybody copied writing.

Even that definition fails in some cases though, plenty of civilised societies lacked writing. Take the Zulus and other southern African cultures, or the Polynesians of Hawaii or New Zealand. These were highly organised, well stratified feudal societies with specialised labour and organised warfare.

The problem with all the definitions is we're working retroactively. We have an idea of the cultures we consider "civilised" (normally due to the similarity or direct lineage to ourselves) and we search for a common denominator to link them all. If you're looking for a really archaic or even non-human civilisation then a definition based on proximity or similarity to ourselves becomes less useful IMO.

[KerbMav]

The problem with all the definitions is we're working retroactively. We have an idea of the cultures we consider "civilised"

Which is why I brought up speciesism/culturism - and I even fell prown to it myself in a way.

The same happens in discussions dealing with what is morally right, good cooking, cheating ...

Problem is: We only have ourselves to compare other civilizations to really.

[rkman]

If you pick the ones I mentioned, they are civilised.

You make it arbitrary by applying it incorrectly, by concluding the definition is met when only some, not all the criteria are fulfilled.

It's a description that we've made up,

Of course, all definitions/descriptions are 'made up' by humans.

we use it to congratulate ourselves at how different and special we are.

I don't think that is the point of the definition.

[YNM]

Hmm... reminds me of this...