| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/4/2008 11:35:28 PM | Behind the illusion of all those confusing phenomena in civilisation, where are we heading and what is the force driving us to move on? Is there a mechanism to govern the direction and pace of human civilisation?
Looking through history, there are reasons for the rise and fall of any civilisation. The mechanism behind them governs the pace at which civilisation develops. When we contemplate this puzzle, it prompts a series of questions: what is the mechanism which determines the pace of civilisation? How can civilisation advance at the fastest possible pace? Why did western civilisation rise ahead of others and continue to lead the trend of global civilisation? Why did “modern” civilisation arise in Europe and not elsewhere?
In order to analyse this question, we need to examine the ancient Greek civilisation which has had immense influence on western civilisation and continues to do so today. The cultural heritage left behind by famous philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle still remains as a tool through which humans explore nature. We cannot help but ask why is it that the ancient Greeks were able to create such a brilliant civilisation? Why were the Greeks able to lay down the foundations of modern civilisation while other nations could not? Why was ancient Greece able to produce such a large number of thinkers? Were the Greeks exceptionally intelligent or was there a specific mechanism that cultivated the brilliant Greek civilisation? The answer is in the latter and this mechanism not only governs western civilisation but determines the pace of other civilisations as well. For example, the Chinese civilisation made great achievements during ancient times and also gave birth to the ancient Chinese philosopher, Confucius. Yet, after a time, Chinese civilisation fell from its former glory while its European counterparts continued to gain in prominence. Why was there such a discrepancy between the two civilisations? Most of these mysteries still remain unsolved. For example, the debate of reasons that modern sciences did not originate from China still goes on yet no convincing conclusion has been drawn. However, all these mysteries can be solved by using a new approach. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/5/2008 12:27:00 AM | I heart this topic, or where your going with it and with the others but I cringed everytime I read the word "CIVILISATION".
I played a very awesome game back in the day and its a disgrace to it.
~CIVILIZATION~ | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/5/2008 12:47:00 AM | Many points raised to philosophize - but what is the "new approach you are hinting at"?
a few thoughts to consider
driving force is the process of evolution and if there is a purpose it is possibly only that to continue life in which ever shape or form most successfully adapted to the environment at the time. The human presence is but one life form.
The human development and the emergence of a social structure of sorts have proven successful in various environments of human habitation, that is to say humans have been very able to adapt.
Consistent is that all civilizations that emerged rose and fell. Why one civilization (culture) surpassed another in its development may be related to evolutionary coincidence (a number of superior brains) and the environmental conditions dictating the needs to survive.
In my opinion your focus on central European superiority and the Greek development are not totally correct. Ancient Greece was influenced by many great empires and cultures ranging from Egypt to Persia. At the same time and preceding there was a thriving cultural development in China and there were cultures of significant developments in central and southern America. Unfortunately in all our present societies we have little left from the ancient American cultures while much remains from China and the middle eastern and Mediterranean cultures.
Regardless of their success and length of existence there is one commonality for the fall of each of the great civilizations, that is a degree of decadence, loss of internal structure and discipline and with it a slowing of progress for growth. Ultimately they faded or were conquered.
Though the "western" culture is still on the leading edge of domination it would appear there are many parts of it severely eroded. Perhaps the only saving factor may be migration of other cultures into the "white" culture, but my guess would be withing a few generations there will be a different culture dominating the human life.
Perhaps progressive genetic research and new discoveries may provide for a different future world, the possibilities are endless... | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/5/2008 11:47:14 AM | Civilization is simply a mechanism of evolution.
The product is an interdependent social group, just as a single organism requires a multitude of interdependent cell, requiring a multitude of interdependent molecules...... We could redefine the group as tribe, kingdom, nation. A much more effective and accomplished entity than any single organism. But still subject to the same old evolutionary mechanisms. Changing environment, resource depletion, invasion, infection.
Then you get to thinking that the peak of evolution isn't mankind, rather the entire world which is essential to support us (Gaia).
The New World cultures are fascinating. Far from inheriting little from them, we take much for granted - such as maize, the development of which still defeats modern science. The source of most of the world's food and maybe soon to be the source of the world's fuel. Charles C. Mann's book, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus is a remarkable read with lots of cited research literature that got me seeing New World cultures and even environmental issues in an entirely new light.....
Archaeological evidence suggests most were well fed it a time when most Europeans were undernourished.
The depiction as 'savages' arises from the disintigration of the American civilizations as 95 - 97% of the population was decimated by European diseases.
The very earliest explorers (who introduced the diseases) report dense populations, now supported by archaeology.
Much of the American 'wilderness', including the tropical rain forests were actually cultivated - in part by an environmentally beneficial variant of 'slash and burn'. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/5/2008 3:30:04 PM | I really don't think there is one human civilization. One species? Yes, but not one civilization. Each civilization more or less looks out for its own interests (or the interests of its leaders). When interests and resources are complimentary, this leads to cooperation. When those interests and resources run contrary to one another it leads to conflict and, in extreme circumstances, even genocide. That's not the behavior of one cohesive civilization, it seems to me.
Hopefully we'll get much closer to the ideal of one civilization in our lifetime (no, I don't mean one world government), but the big challenge will not be what it used to be at the dawn of civilizations. It once probably made a great deal of sense to, at times, fight one another over limited resources (ugly thought, I know). It no longer does. We can feed and shelter all of us if we try (yes, it is an IF, but we have the knowledge and skills to do so).
The big challenge now is getting past killing each other over ideas, usually ones printed in books or the interpretations by some charismatic leaders of said books. Imo, this is a much more difficult task. I don't think that, as societies, we have quite acquired the needed skills. There are people who know how to make it work, but that's not good enough. That knowledge and a willingness to accept it has to become pretty well ubiquitous across the populations. I don't think it will happen while there are so many authoritarian governments around. And no, I'm not suggesting we go topple a bunch of them, thinking that democracy will rise in their place. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/5/2008 3:35:52 PM | The mechanism of human civilization is survival. Like biological evolution, technological evolution came in bits and pieces as things slowly came together after the renaissance. Neither nature nor human technological development necessarily take the most logical path, but the easiest one.
The Grecian civilization rose in a land of plenty. All that was required was a bit of organization and the people were able to wallow in a wealth of food. When people are not spending all their time worrying about how to produce enough to eat, they find that there is time to think about things. The global civilization of today is the product of the natural wealth of the fertile lands of the Mediterranean.
When man has time to think, he also gets into trouble. The jury is still out as to whether human intelligence is a positive survival factor. All of the classical civilizations fell because of man's inability to get along with man and man's greed. The latter Roman emperors had incredible power at their fingertips to change the lives of all humanity, but instead they sunk into self-involved depravity. If one of those emperors had said "let's gather together the great minds of the empire and see what we can do to better the lot of the people" rather than being obsessed with being gods and conquorors, awesome things may have been accomplished. The advent of the idea of scientific method may have come about two thousand years earlier. This could have resulted in one of at least two different scenarios, although many more are possible. The earth may have long since become a nuclear wasteland, or, we might now live in a solar system that is completely colonized and utilized, with ships beginning to head out to the stars themselves.
Today we have come a long ways, but greed and self-interest still rule the planet. Coupled with this is the fact that enough nuclear weapons exist to erase humanity from the globe several times over. Yet in spite of this, the planet is still more at peace than it has ever been. The wars that make the headlines every day involve only a few tens of thousands rather than millions and are in isolated small spots around the globe. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/5/2008 10:10:34 PM | Human civilisation may take a quantum leap for the better if humans ever evolve into the kind of disembodied, gaudy, luminescent blobs of light with deep authoritative American voices that appear in some episodes Star Trek [original series]. I'm thinking of the parent/guardians of dandyish, Liberace lookalike bad boy, Trelayne from " The Squire of Gothos", or the rippling green faced Day Glo guardian of "Charlie X" in the eponymously titled episode.
Failing this eventuality, maybe we will come to resemble the deep veined, bumheaded superbrains of "The Menagerie", a cunningly crafted double episode featuring an appearance by the doomed but ridiculously handsome, Jeffrey Hunter.
Either of these physiological advances would bring untold benefits to humanity. As gaudy disembodied blobs, man would be too busy regaling lesser beings with superior sounding platitudes in a big voice to bother himself with fisticuffs.
As a cranially advanced superbeing, it would be beneath him to engage in violence, and anyway he wouldn't want to bring on a massive headache by running around waving a baseball bat and risking an opponent's weapon landing on his bonce.
I could be mistaken, but contend that such evolutionary improvements to the human species may in time make bad behaviour a thing of the past. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/5/2008 11:28:49 PM | The rise and advance of civilization corresponded to the development of language, consciousness, the printing press, and the Internet.
The next impetus will probably be cybernetics. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/6/2008 8:13:29 AM | ^^^ guess then we are well on out way into oblivion
with languages eroding consciousness an endangered species and the mindless press and Internet awww well, guess they run on their own already...can just see it a new species emerging
a laptop head, oodles of paper for brain, printer and scanner as genitalia , a mouse dandling somewhere helplessly like an appendix........ | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/6/2008 3:08:08 PM | Well I attempted to tackle how civilization can advance faster.
It starts with our city construction and government. Right now, we have cities that are basically built up from models of cities that go back hundreds of years. We need to reinvent the wheel here and design more efficient cities.
We need more efficient transportation systems, more efficient machinery, more efficient job structure. Right now, we try to fit every job into an 8 hour mold 5 days a week. Its retarded. Give people their lives back.
Honor the sciences. Pump up the education system. Too much energy goes into increasing standards instead of promoting the highest learners. I'm slightly bitter because I wasn't selected for the special school that most of my friends went to.
Provide standards of energy, food, and housing as essential rations to live on from government in the name of humanitarianism. If someone opens their mouth and says, "I want to achieve...," then support them! | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/6/2008 3:24:28 PM | That was stupid to say that humans need physiological advances to be more superior. The most efficient way to advance as of right now is to use technology.
If you want to alter your physiology, I have a theory that video games stimulate the central nervous system and can promote faster awareness, agility, reaction time, synchronicity, as well as mental and physical endurance.
Gosh, I only get 5 posts a day....
Okay. I have to go into detail with my last post.
Building Efficiency:
Eating hall. Streamlined kitchens as in perfect conditions for loading, unloading, and retention of foods. Perfect conditions for cleanliness.
Perfect ventilation in all buildings.
Imagine multiple factories sharing the same office building. They could find it beneficial to share higher quality and more expensive equipments. A shared board room. Advanced networking for businesses and professional consultants to streamline every business workflow.
Shared automated warehousing for all, not just one with high security for all. Imagine an arm that comes down from the ceiling to grab a pallet, it reaches into the shelving unit, grabs the pallet, pulls it out, carries it over to the truck, bends like an elbow and drops it neatly into the back of the truck bed safely and swiftly without a single risk to human life. No hi-lo, hi-lo driver, more storeage per sq. foot, better inventory tracking, etc.
alright nuff said, use your own imagination. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/7/2008 7:15:12 PM | The physiological advances thing was silly rather than stupid, based as it is on viewing progress through the distorting prism of pulp Sci Fi.
Rather than evolving into anything that might brighten up an episode of Star Trek, the true picture is that humanity will probably merely ripen and rot, or go out in a blaze of inglory, but sadly not without taking a lot of other interesting species with us.
Which prompts the misanthropic note of wouldn't it be cool if some bright spark devised a bomb that could obliterate humans whilst leaving other species intact. We could drop it on China and fry some of the cretins who regard powdered tiger bone as an aphrodisiac.
We take it upon ourselves to cull the populations of species that threaten our interests, so why not put the bio diversity of the planet first and knock off a few billion humans. What's the word for this kind of well meaning savagery? "Eco Terrorism"?
I suppose a more humane and selective approach would be to develop a genetic test for gross stupidity with a particular emphasis on testing an embryo's likelihood to grow into a hunter of endangered species. Abortion in these cases would surely secure the approval of the most rabid pro-life God botherer. Or maybe not.
Sorry for the misanthropy, but I've been checking out u tube video footage of Tasmania's dog like marsupial, the Thylacine - once king predator in it's region, stripy backed, stiff tailed, gaping jawed, extinct.
It has actually become a kind of national mascot in Tasmania now that the thoughtless populace have exterminated them all. You can actually watch film of the last known example pacing it's compound in Hobart Zoo, Tasmania. It died of neglect.
Makes ya mad. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/8/2008 7:54:17 PM | Super-efficient electronics to save the day. Get more bzzz for you buck.
I drove a Grand Prix GT on a 40 mile trip @ 39.2mpg to my driveway with nothing crazy except a very delicate touch on the gas pedal.
OK. Civilization is a design and concept phase. We've got these concepts and we design working models to fulfill our concepts but we're going to continuously improve upon these concepts with new designs until we've ultimately reached an apex of designs and life will be fantastic for a long time, most likely until we're faced with a natural threat to our civilization that may be unstoppable and unforeseen like a black hole crashing through the solar system or something else catastrophic. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/9/2008 9:04:05 AM | Okay, here's your secret
50 factories is less valuable than the mind that built them. If said factories were destroyed, that same mind could build 100 more, and do have them be better than the last ones. Yet we, as a society, demand that the factory counts and the elite fool who built them is just a greedy scab on society, so what do we do? We tax the hell out of him, demand he limit his productive capabilities, employ people that won't/don't do a good job and that are useless to him, then take the taxed money and give it to people who don't want to work, are irresponsible, and have a history of thievery and baby making.
The man/mind who built the factories may or may not be exceptionally rich, and he may have started out in any class, but there is a similarity in that he is what we now call middle class which in the middle ages was called merchant and was largely responsible for the Renaissance, and during Greece was simply a trader and made up a greater majority/minority of society that we have today. So, the point is that civilization, like the factories example, is just a physical representation of a mostly abstract thing, which is ability in relation to a mind, a human mind in fact, where human by be contrasted with animal for further clarification.
The second way Greece was successful, can be found in the form of government. We all know it was city states but I should remind you that currently Ancient Sumeria, which is said to be the "cradle of Civilization", was also city states, and even further Italy of the Renaissance was ALSO city states. The Greeks in fact, were very aware of their government and I am quite sure there was a famous discussion or two relating to said government in which the Greeks contrasted it with other forms such particularly that of the Persian Empire to which they remarked how theirs was in fact ideal while that of the Persians, or empires in general, was BARBARIC (Greek-Barbaroi)
So in conclusion, and to answer your question more directly, civilization is mainly measured by 1.governance, where the city state is the standard, and the 2.middle/merchant/trade class where the basis or measuring of which may relate to percentage of society on the whole
Additional note:
-Language, and in turn culture derived from it, also influences a civilization heavily
-Philosophy, particularly in the form of religion, has historically had the most far reaching effects on civilization, or the minds of men in general.
-Merchant or middle class is also attributed to inventors and pioneers.
-Logistikon is the Greek for rational part of the Soul which is the mind or brain. Modern term logic is derived from it and it (logistikon) is traditionally associated with Philosophy as well as science and western civilization on the whole (Mind>logic>rational>Objective Truth> fact> hypothesis>etc...) | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/10/2008 11:47:15 PM | "driving force is the process of evolution and if there is a purpose "
Driving force is part of the process or the process is the result of driving force. Driving forc is independant of purpose.
"your focus on central European superiority and the Greek development are not totally correct. "
I did not entirely focus on the Greek civilisation. I agree with what you said "Ancient Greece was influenced by many great empires and cultures ranging from Egypt to Persia." However, the Greek civilisation created many turning points in human history and lay down the foundation of today's modern civilisation. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/10/2008 11:49:23 PM | "I really don't think there is one human civilization. One species?"
Great point!!! That is what I have been argued, | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/10/2008 11:53:17 PM | "The mechanism of human civilization is survival"
The mechanism of human civilization is EVOLVED INTO FOR survival not survival.
The goal of civilisation is survival. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/10/2008 11:56:26 PM | "Jared Diamond has addressed this in a pretty compelling fashion in a book called "Guns, Germs and Steel" "
Has he used a mathmatical model to fundamentally address civilisation? | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/11/2008 12:04:47 AM | But we can now cut workers out of the equation in exchange for a machine to do the work of several men in less time with better accuracy. And in the future, we'll be doing it better.
So why not cut the oversized plants with the symbolic big logos and pool some front-end resources as well as shaving off a bit on the back-end expense too?
I think my shared and automated warehouse idea was exceptional and that if you centered it around a "communal factory outlet", then we'd see enormous bonuses to productivity as well as efficiency.
If I were to architecht the structures myself, the building layout would be centered around a common shipping and receiving depot adjacent to the enormous automated warehouse which could handle both raw materials and finished goods. Then, the factories would ideally be tailored to specific companies. Across the street would be smaller industrial parks for machinery, custom development, R & D, etc. There would be an office building shared by all companies linked with video communication feeds to their respective factories. Things would just flow smoother, better, and cheaper. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/11/2008 12:13:57 AM | The goal of civilisation is survival. Only if you believe that the components of civilization are the survivors. In other words, you rate the human organism as evolution's peak. It's an understandable and very common viewpoint.
However, I'm suggesting that a society is an organism which is far more effective than its individual components. Civilization is one of the mechanisms which allows a society to operate effectively. You may expect the more effective society to be better equipped for survival. Therefore, survival (of a society) selects for civilization. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/12/2008 4:04:19 PM | Can evolution be said to have a peak and if so, should cleverness or longevity be the measure of it? If the latter then perhaps we should consider ourselves as mere upstarts at around 2 million years old compared to species like the shark family at 400 million years old.
Some way to go yet in proving our superiority. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/12/2008 7:55:26 PM | | Well, we humans definatly are overpopulating the world. I remember reading that the optimal population would be somewhere around 2 billion. And here we are at over 6 billion with predictions of 9 billion within the next 50 years. So with that being said, I have to agree with you in thinking the world would be better off if, say there was a deadly virus outbreak that killed around 60 percent of the human population. Now I know this would be an absolutle terrible thing to happen, but if we keep going down the path we are on, it would pale in comparison to the devistation caused by our growing appitites for resources and farm land. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/12/2008 9:59:34 PM | | You don't know what overpopulation is. You throw out some arbitrary number like 2 billion people is optimum for our civilization. If you ask me, media and leader's heads are overpopulated with retarded ideas and thoughts. | |
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| The mechanism of human civilisation
Posted: 3/13/2008 2:33:40 PM |
Can evolution be said to have a peak Isn't that what several people have said here?
Just to clarify, I was using civilization in the sense of becoming civilized. Others seem to be using it as a collection of people. I tried to use a 'society' to describe a collection of people, at whatever stage of civilization they may be.
Thus, there can simultaneously exist several societies and several civilizations. I give no ratings - my belief is that the future will make that judgement, regardless of what we try to push. The outcome of that judgement is evolution.
The great empires which come to mind don't necessarily represent the majority of civilization. Sadly, Jared Diamond's books GG&S and Collapse really didn't look at those empires but focussed on smaller groups where he (IMO) caved in to political correctness and emphasized resource management and disease as major factors in the disintigration of societies. Nevertheless, he has a point and reality probably lies somewhere between that and conquest. | |
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