35 posts shown.
Kenneth Cruz67 said:In my view, they are all descendants of Homo erectus, who also hails from Africa, though he and his offspring actually spread across the globe much earlier than Homo sapiens did. 🤔
I suppose if you're discussing the general origins of primates, there is still a bit of ambiguity regarding whether they originated in Africa or Asia, as there seem to be conflicting pieces of evidence out there.
I'm specifically referring to the origin of hominid primates, acting as the evolutionary precursors to those specific Homo species you mentioned.
Harold Doyle3 said:Maybe it's because the ancestors of Native Americans lived in Africa.
Look, we don't actually possess enough nuclear firepower to cause more devastation than, say, a ten-kilometer asteroid or a massive supervolcano... and life has survived those before. Some species went extinct, others made it.
Who knows? Maybe something even more successful than Homo sapiens evolves next—something like a "Homo nucleus," or whatever.
Sure, we don't have an arsenal large enough to destroy the Earth itself (the planet is much stronger and older than we are), but we absolutely have enough to wipe out all life or at least knock it back to a primitive state.
The issue isn't that a nuclear cataclysm would cause instant extinction; rather, it’s the inevitable aftermath of a nuclear war. In a post-nuclear world, because the entire ecosystem would be shattered, complex life would practically cease to exist for a period of time (whether that's short or long, who knows?).
Kenneth Cruz67 said:Wait, where are you even getting that from?
While it’s true that Aborigines are Homo sapiens who migrated from Asia into Australia, I don't think they actually evolved independently within Asia; rather, they originally made their way into Asia from Africa.
I shouldn't say Aboriginals specifically, but rather their ancestors... I used the term a bit loosely in my previous comparison. It's not even fully settled yet that every single human being descends from one solitary African pair. There's actually evidence suggesting that certain groups of hominids might have evolved independently in various regions, which explains why we see so many different (and now extinct) subspecies of primates in the fossil record.
Sam Martinez9 said:Sure thing, here you go:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution
That being said, I'm not entirely sure how much clarity you'll get from a single entry; I have a feeling you might be starting from scratch here. That isn't a bad thing, though. You can find plenty of great books on the subject at any local library, and honestly, even I find myself flipping through high school biology textbooks when I need to brush up on the basics. I’d suggest some light reading if you want to dive deeper. It's a fascinating subject—you won't find it boring.
If you're interested in how the discovery of fire and cooking fundamentally shaped us as a species, I highly recommend "Catching Fire" by Steven Pinker:https://www.amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Human-Evolution/dp/037427112X
I didn't get a chance to give you a proper answer earlier, so please go back and look at my previous post... that should clarify what I actually meant regarding the development of Native Americans.
Sam Martinez9 said:The idea that a Native American ancestor just happened to decide to climb down in the US is fundamentally incorrect. If you actually look up human evolution on Wikipedia, you'll see how the timeline really worked out.
To put it simply: all humans share a common ancestor, and that ancestor lived in Africa. That's where the transition from the trees happened. Many years later, that ancestor's descendants migrated across the globe, spreading to every continent, including North America.
Okay, so maybe using Native Americans in the context of "descending from trees" isn't the best way to frame this... let me try to put it this way instead. Based on various DNA analyses, there were populations in many other parts of the world—take Asia, for example—who developed independently from the original African ancestor, and this evolutionary path happened during almost the exact same timeframe. Later on, those lineages, which had evolved autonomously in Asia, eventually migrated to Australia, and it was from those groups that the aforementioned Native Americans descended.
Harold Doyle3 said:Look, we’ve had massive climate shifts before. There's plenty of geological data and fossil evidence out there to prove it. Just do a quick Google search; you'll find some fascinating stuff. There are even great documentaries on the subject that lay out the theories and assumptions supporting those claims.
We also have to admit that these interpretations are simple, beautiful, elegant, and logical... it would be a real shame if they weren't true.
Someone always survives—at least, that's been the pattern so far. And the one who makes it through is either incredibly lucky or has an ace up their sleeve.
But there has never been a period of truly uniform global climate change that hit every single continent identically—at least none that we have records of—and humans seem to have been present across all parts of the planet (obviously not in equal numbers) since the beginning.
The flaw in your logic becomes pretty obvious when I ask this:
How did one Native American ancestor "just know" to migrate at almost the exact same time as his colleague in Africa? You can't claim it happened because the climate conditions in Australia and Africa were identical, because the geological and climate records for those two continents don't support that at all.
Harold Doyle3 said:Look, we’ve had massive climate shifts before. There's plenty of geological data and fossil evidence out there to prove it. Just do a quick Google search; you'll find some fascinating stuff. There are even great documentaries on the subject that lay out the theories and assumptions supporting those claims.
We also have to admit that these interpretations are simple, beautiful, elegant, and logical... it would be a real shame if they weren't true.
Someone always survives—at least, that's been the pattern so far. And the one who makes it through is either incredibly lucky or has an ace up their sleeve.
In the event of a nuclear holocaust—which is really the only realistic scenario if we ever face another major global conflict—nobody survives. Or rather, any survival on an evolutionary level would likely be reduced to a primitive state, perhaps even down to the very beginnings of life itself... from which a being called *Homo sapiens* might not necessarily re-evolve through a similar process.
Harold Doyle3 said:We were coasting along for a while, just playing around, and then suddenly everything went south. We hit a wall. Why?
Why on earth would anyone climb down from a tree if they were perfectly happy up there? It makes zero sense. Truly.
Maybe climate change has been playing favorites, targeting the shrubs and the weeds while leaving the trees alone. It’s all a bit skewed, isn't it? Honestly, let's just head down there and see who's still standing when the dust settles. Then we can talk.
We’re living in a high-speed environment, and honestly, that just makes evolutionary shifts happen even faster. It’s all moving at breakneck speed. War, constant conflict, any kind of chaos or misfortune—it’s all part of that volatile landscape. Everything is shifting constantly.
Is there any geological or climatic record in Earth's history that actually supports this idea? I mean, climate is almost always some kind of localized phenomenon, whereas this famous "descent from the trees" seemed to happen simultaneously across pretty much every location at once.
Harold Doyle3 said:We were coasting along for a while, just playing around, and then suddenly everything went south. We hit a wall. Why?
Why on earth would anyone climb down from a tree if they were perfectly happy up there? It makes zero sense. Truly.
Maybe climate change has been playing favorites, targeting the shrubs and the weeds while leaving the trees alone. It’s all a bit skewed, isn't it? Honestly, let's just head down there and see who's still standing when the dust settles. Then we can talk.
We’re living in a high-speed environment, and honestly, that just makes evolutionary shifts happen even faster. It’s all moving at breakneck speed. War, constant conflict, any kind of chaos or misfortune—it’s all part of that volatile landscape. Everything is shifting constantly.
Dynamic circumstances are a constant through all of time and every era... you can't realistically measure the exact volume of that dynamism. Too much volatility can wipe out an individual entirely, which happens all the time in nature.
A war that pushes that level of intensity to its absolute limit would most likely just result in the extinction of the species.
Kenneth Cruz67 said:I mean, just think about it—if you were to place a newborn baby in water, they actually swim. How on earth did they learn to do that? They were just born, so there's no way they've learned, developed, or cultivated that skill yet. It makes me wonder if they inherited the ability to swim through their genes, or maybe it's just the basic physical preconditions that allow them to float and move at all?
Look, obviously the baby is trying to "swim," which is really just an attempt to stay afloat because when water gets in their throat, it's uncomfortable and they want to stop it. It’s more of a sensory reaction than some deep-seated survival instinct... I mean, clearly not every single baby makes it out of those situations, so they don't all "know" how to swim.
Actually, this exact baby example proves my point... some babies end up surviving specifically because they *don't* have an innate fear of water as a baseline instinct, and that's why they manage to pull through.
Kenneth Cruz67 said:Totally. But does that mean instincts and drives are actually passed down through our genes? I guess my own bad luck might be 😁
Of course not... none of those things are passed down through your genes. Instincts and drives are developed and cultivated throughout your life, which means you can learn to control them just as easily.
Harold Doyle3 said:It's off.
The whole thing comes down to dynamic circumstances.
If you're living in abundance and everything is peaceful, there's zero incentive to change.
Someone once wrote—and I'm paraphrasing here—that evolution races down mountain streams but crawls through river valleys.
We didn't just wake up one day and decide to innovate; circumstances forced our hands.
In sports terms: you don't mess with a winning roster.
Our ancestors had to get off those trees because they had to. They had to stand upright, they had to harness fire, they had to invent calendars, they had to build atomic bombs... Hegel and his followers would call that historical necessity.
Following that logic, it would imply that early humans lived in plenty for ages, which is why their evolution would have stalled—a claim that flies in the face of actual history. On the flip side, it would suggest that modern times (our era of abundance) shouldn't coincide with our greatest period of advancement, which is exactly when it happened... it’s just completely inconsistent reasoning when you look at how history actually unfolds.
That line of thinking is basically just a variation of the idea that conflict and war are necessary drivers of evolutionary progress, and I couldn't disagree more.
Megan Gray32 said:Greetings—I originally opened this thread over in the "History" section, but I didn't have much luck there. Aside from a few dry facts, I wasn't particularly satisfied with the responses I received. The reality is that prehistory is essentially shrouded in mystery; because there is no written record to lean on, we are largely left with nothing but speculation. That is precisely what draws me in—the opportunity to exercise a bit of imagination within that context. Perhaps we might uncover some hidden, buried truth, much like stumbling upon a treasure chest. And it doesn't necessarily have to be gold; regardless, I would love to see it found.
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Something has been weighing on my mind lately. I caught myself falling down a Google rabbit hole reading about *Homo erectus*, and I found myself intrigued by the fact that they lived 200,000 years ago before eventually going extinct.
It’s a lot to process. I studied history back in high school, though I wasn't truly grasping the sheer scale of it all at the time. If we are looking at 200,000 years ago, and considering we are now in 2022—plus perhaps another 5,600 years since the dawn of civilization—we have a massive gap. What happened during those other 192,000 years? Are there any historical facts or specific studies regarding that era? What other subspecies, similar to *Homo erectus*, existed and subsequently vanished?
I am not strictly looking for hard facts; I would actually like to allow ourselves some room for speculation. I am fascinated by questions like: how many times were we on the precipice of progress, only to regress as a species? How many times throughout history was fire sparked, only to flicker out again? What were our greatest obstacles—assuming we had met our basic needs for warmth and food—who was our most formidable enemy? And what was it like to face those predators hand-to-hand in the early days? Which animals were we actually fighting?
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Could it be argued that *Homo sapiens* were somewhat rational 50,000 years ago, or at least driven by emotion? To say that we existed for 300,000 years—the final link in an evolutionary chain stretching back two billion years—only to finally stumble upon agriculture and animal domestication in the last 10,000 years... it feels a bit demoralizing for humanity, doesn't it?
If we have been around for roughly 100,000 to 150,000 years, there must have been culture, cave paintings, and a distinct sense of aesthetics. There must have been emotion, but surely there was also rational behavior—especially if they were hunting effectively. I realize language wouldn't have been fully developed—meaning a limited vocabulary made communication difficult, even when dealing with tribal hostilities—and, unfortunately, cannibalism was likely a reality.
But as you all suggest, we and they were biologically and physically similar. Could we say we were mentally similar as well? At least on a fundamental level—enough to conclude, "this is good," "this is wrong," or "this is necessary." Given all these circumstances, I find it hard to accept the thesis that we only turned to agriculture and domestication in the last 10,000 years.
Regarding the use of fire, some sources suggest it was being used 300,000 years ago, while others claim even longer. Initially, it might have been accidental—occurring during elemental storms—but later, it became a deliberate effort. This is where meat began to be cooked, which undoubtedly relieved some of our primal savagery and provided a sense of peace.
That is essentially what interests me: those small details, the nuances that helped us advance or caused us to regress as a species. Like a moment where fire might have spontaneously ignited, only to die out. One time, we cook meat and find peace, warmth, and protection from predators. But when the flame dies, do we simply return to the darkness?
Culture must have existed; I am curious about what propelled it forward or held it back. Animals—the larger ones certainly posed a problem. Especially the big cats. And which ones were the good ones—the ones we first befriended?
What you’re saying hits home because I've always found this part of human evolution absolutely mind-blowing. If you look at the current timeline, it feels like it took us millions of years just to realize we should climb down from the trees and start living on the ground. Then, we spent another 190,000 years just figuring out how to write things down about ourselves... yet, in just ten thousand years since then, we've managed to master nuclear energy and launch ourselves into space. It honestly sounds completely unrealistic... there's definitely something broken in that timeline!
Courage is standing by the truth when there’s almost nothing left to hold onto. It’s choosing to stay in love even when the feeling seems long gone. It’s refusing to turn a blind eye while the world around us falls apart. Courage is the act of living fully every single day, only to let go of who you were, just so you can be reborn for the next one... and doing it all over again until our time here finally runs out.
I actually find myself on the complete opposite side of the fence compared to what my colleague just stated here:
It’s a lovely sentiment, sure, but if we follow that logic to its conclusion, we end up with a lie that’s nothing short of ugly—actually, it’s downright corrosive.
If we look at humans as the most complex beings we can possibly observe, I’d argue that a person (regardless of gender) becomes more beautiful when they strive for truth and actually live by it. On the flip side, when someone chooses to inhabit a lie, they become increasingly unattractive—though, honestly, that depends entirely on how deep those lies go and how long they've been living them.
Facts act as individual tiles in a massive mosaic known as the TRUTH.
If—and I mean if!—we could ever grasp every single fact at once, then we would finally hold the absolute TRUTH in our hands.
But honestly? I don’t think that’s even possible here in America, where nothing seems to be set in stone and everyone just clings to their own version of reality... maybe it works differently somewhere else, but certainly not in this country.
Maybe this is appropriate, or maybe it isn't... but I think in these times of crisis, we really need to take a step back and question our desires—what it is we actually want out of life.
Right now, everyone seems hyper-focused on health, but looking ahead to an uncertain future that none of us can truly predict... perhaps the focus will shift back to the basics. There are three primary needs: a roof over your head, food in your stomach, and something to keep you warm. It’s incredible how much people today just take these things for granted; nobody seems to know how to truly appreciate what they already have.
Maybe it’s not even about our desires so much as it is about gratitude—or rather, our lack of it for what we possess. They say humans are constantly chasing more than they have, trapped in this endless loop, stuck in the gap between their current reality and their ambitions. That's where the frustration kicks in (the "I don't have it" or "I can't get what I want" feeling) or the envy starts to creep in (seeing someone else hold what you crave). When we view this through the lens of impermanence—and let's face it, everything is fleeting!—we realize how empty these desires can be. We aren't just fighting desire; we are fighting something far more dangerous to the TRUTH, which is craving—that exaggerated, obsessive longing.
When our consciousness becomes totally consumed by something we want, it morphs into craving. And that craving is the true enemy of realizing the TRUTH, which is the only thing that holds the power to liberate us; as they say, "and the truth will set you free."
Honestly, when a person's consciousness is truly grounded at that level of realization, they become free. They accept everything life throws at them—the good and the bad—with total peace, because at the end of the day, it's all temporary. Whether it's the deepest suffering or the greatest joy, it passes. In that state, you are close to the TRUTH, and all that remains is pure devotion to that TRUTH (which is beautiful!). A person becomes completely free, stripped of both desire and fear. Even our greatest, most primordial fear—the fear of death, of non-existence—fades away, and once that is gone, every other fear follows suit.
What emerges is a sense of pure service to the TRUTH—not driven by a desire to gain something from it, but born out of genuine love and devotion!
That's my take on it, anyway... those who understand, understand, and those who don't will eventually catch up. After all, the TRUTH grants us all exactly as much time as we need, because the TRUTH is merciful and full of understanding.