The Glade 4.0

The fact that things like the wheel, bow and arrow, or even the paper clip took so long to invent really makes me question human intelligence. I bet that most "intelligence" is simply copying other people's behavior with extremely little improvisation. It makes me wonder if the key to learning and success is actively looking for ideal behavior to copy. Anyone have thoughts on this?

/snore

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The Dude abides.

Learning is exactly that - digesting what others have learned and what your experiences have taught you as well. Taking that the next step and inventing something - this happens continually. Everytime you do something new, or figure something out for yourself, this happens. It doesn't matter that someone else may have already done it, it's still an "invention" or whatever for you.

Inventions or ideas that are actually new to mankind are less frequent, but this doesn't have as much to do with intelligence as you might think. Just because I didn't invent something today does not mean I would not have if the need had presented itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_o ... _of_giants

I find it a bit misleading, since many of the "giants" we stand upon today were no more giants than we ourselves are, but beyond that nitpick I think it holds up nicely.

Also note down the progress of human civilization since the advent of writing.

Outside of some possibly dietary effects, perhaps, I wouldn't say humans are any smarter now than we were 4,000 years ago. That people today can design microprocessors or explain the birth and death of stars doesn't really make us any more clever or insightful... we just have a much larger knowledge base to go on.

And more free time. That's big, too, on a civilization sort of scale. :p But if we're talking about individuals, then that doesn't have much bearing anyway.

I'd say we are, in that we live longer. More time to accumulate knowledge. That has to make a difference, although most of our learning happens at a young age.

Except, Arathain, historically, career-defining scientific breakthroughs are made between ages 20 and 35, on average.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

That's true, but when people weren't living as long they also HAD to happen earlier in life or they didn't happen. That would affect the historical average significantly.

Even if breakthroughs made later in life are much less common, they're still a net increase over them not happening at all. Also a person that lives longer can continue to teach and do other work for longer and educate more young people.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."