...Then something happened that unleashed the power of our imagination.

We learned to talk.

Communication, and certainly it's development has been arguably the most useful tool at the disposal of man.

The communication revolution has undoubtedly increased the potential of the collective population of the planet and had the biggest effect on peoples lives since the industrial revolution.

With this as the force behind it, what do you think the next revolution be?

We learn to control our minds.

Heard of a sci-fi book Mind Parasites by Colin Wilson.

I do not say tht tht will be our next step in evolution but the most significant since development of speech.

In short. We will evolve in next step of evolution of our minds. Learn to use somekind of life or universe energy by our minds.
Telekinesis, immense capabilities of mind, ability to communicate through our minds in c+ speeds. Get rid of our moon[in the book, there are very good reasons to do that]

I strongly suggest you to get this book in library and read it through. A very interesting perspective and also the force which is keeping us back in our "evolution run"

Is this force the moon of which you speak?
I've heard tell that when you see someone rocking in the corner they're trying to get back in tune with their moon.
Is the moon a general reference to the natural, animal part of us?
The book sounds good, and we've got to be due for some advances in the study and application of the mind.
:)

Well I don't say tht force of the moon is to blame, or any kind of different force.:)
It's an interesting theory though.

I think tht I reffered incorectly. I was more thinking of the mind parasites. They "inhabit" our subconsciousness and mix with our minds to keep us away from track. The idea is tht during evolution we generate immense powers of energy and they feed from it, but if we evolve too far we would simply notice and destroy them.
I couldn't figure out if you have read tht book or not. I think more that not. My language is too poor to explain everything, but this book really should give you answer to the question you asked me.
It is short, about 200 pages. one evening to read.and I have read it for about 5 or 6 times.

The book sounds interesting, exactly my type.
I will read it, certainly.
Your English isn't poor at all, better than most!

Heard of a sci-fi book Mind Parasites by Colin Wilson.

I read the book in 1963/64 I think. At the time, I was experimenting with a lot of ESP related items. I read the Golden Bough also at that time. I lost a day (I did not remember what I did) after reading the book. I got scared and thought, it was for real. I was not in any drugs of any kind. Later on I think, what might have happened was, I stayed up all night reading the book, and then had to go the chemistry lab, the next day. I think, I went through the day in automatic mode.

Anyway, the book left me a strong impression. Thanks for reminding me that.

I think - improvements in mind in the near future, and merging of biology and computronics later. I am doing some experiments on myself to turbo charge my mind. Though, I am getting some good results, they are only 3X scale. I want to go for 1000X or higher. Without genetic manipulation, it does not look like, I will get there.

The next revolution will be to unlock the other 80% or so of our minds we don't currently use. IMO anyway.

Originally posted by Xelios
The next revolution will be to unlock the other 80% or so of our minds we don't currently use. IMO anyway.

I use mine 110%. Why dont you? :D

Originally posted by esp: ...Then something happened that unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk. Communication,...

Ants communicate/talk. Virii communicate/talk. I think what you really mean is that, seemingly, we alone can imagine -- abstract thinking, spatial conceptualization, third person perspective, symbolic thinking: language, mathematics, etc.

Grunts, gestures, expressions are communication. Are talking. Modern humans do more than just talk. They reason.

Well, some do. :)

Xelios,

We already use all of our brain. The 80% unused hypothesis is an old myth.

What we don't do well is organize our thoughts or our memories very well. I took a memory training course when I was 16 (1968), now that was very useful. By using a fairly simple numbering system and a good imagination it was possible to associate images with numbers and link those entities to items that needed to be remembered. With some practice and discipline it is possible to retain and recall large quantities of useful information. The biggest issue with most people is that although they might remember a lot they do not have an efficient method for recall. And that means the stored information is largely useless.

There is a direct correlation between memory and IQ. Improve your ability to remember and recall and your intelligence will rise in direct proportion.

Cris

There is a direct correlation between memory and IQ. Improve your ability to remember and recall and your intelligence will rise in direct proportion.

Cris,

I disagree with that statement because it is misleading. Your statement is correct only under standard IQ tests. But Intelligence means something else - it is the ability to make decisions for agility and sustenance. Many large corporations have terabytes of information in a datawarehouse. But they layoff tons of people (Motorola - 40,000 !) because their business intelligence is so poor even though they can recall every morsel of information.

I know people who can recall every deatil, every plot from thousands of movies, romance novels - yet make very poor decisions, as if they are stupid...

As far as we know, we are capable of levels of communication far in exess of those available to other 'talking' life forms.
My main point was that possibly the biggest turning point of our evolution was when true verbal communication developed.
I was using this to illustrate the significance of the new communications revolution.
:)

I think plant life is much smarter. They let us do all the work for them. Even the lowly grass lets us grow without providing us with fruits, vegetables or flowers.

Not much differentiates us from animals still. We build things, well so do insects. We use tools, so do monkeys. We have visited space, hmmmm...almost certainly some microbes have done so too. Well I'm tapped:confused:

Except, we build big bombs that can wipe out life as we know it on this planet....How many animals can do that? We are a little more complex than some, more than others....

We also laugh.
Does anyone know of any animal that actually laughs when it finds something amusing?

I persume by laughing you mean joy, amazment etc.

You can not say[if you do] tht animals don't feel these emotions only because thay don't open their mouths and make funny noises. More precise analysis of emotional equality we could do by brain sector scanning, not outer simptoms.

You can not say[if you do] tht animals don't feel these emotions only because thay don't open their mouths and make funny noises.

I know this, but I was being literal. We do physically demonstrate and express emotion in a symptomatic manner.
What I wanted to find out was; is there any animal that we know does this also?

Originally posted by esp
We also laugh.
Does anyone know of any animal that actually laughs when it finds something amusing?

Actually ESP I read an article about 2 months ago that was about a study that some researchers had done that stated dogs, specifically puppies, had a low frequency noise they made just prior to engaging in frolicking behavior and it had been equated to a laugh. It had also been noted that rats had a similar low frequency noise they made before engaging in such behavior and in both cases they presence of this noise increased the likelihood of frolicking behavior occurring.

Perhaps the next revolution will be an extension of the comms revolution then, down a phalanx of interspecies comms?

We may find out that basic emotions are universal within animal specis. The higher forms express them better (in exponential terms). It is a matter of resolution and detail. Handling much more variables - like a simple PDA and a mainframe.

Originally posted by kmguru
We may find out that basic emotions are universal within animal specis. The higher forms express them better (in exponential terms). It is a matter of resolution and detail. Handling much more variables - like a simple PDA and a mainframe.
If we look at DNA of monkeys (which physically almost same enough with human), can we identify those higher resolution as you told above? ( I am sory, I almost know nothing about biology)

Unless one is well versed in DNA language, it is difficult to tell. It is like the difference between a cheap radio and an expensive one. A cheap radio has lower resolution but has similar circuits such as pre-amplifier, and amplifier stages. Only an electronic engineer can point out the differences such as one uses class A amplification, better tuning stage, better speakers and so on. Unless one knows what combination of proteins make up the brain and the higher functions, well....it is a hit and miss...

As I post this, work is underway to grow human brain inside a pig replacing the pig brain. Will that pig be self aware, talk, I do not know. Is it ethical, I am not sure....a high resolution pig. If it works, why not planet of the apes? Get the apes, jazz up their intelligence and rudimentary talking and you got best labor....

Remember the Gumbas....

If there are universal constants in terms of the emotions of animals, do you think that true communication between humans and 'lower' animals could be possible?
Would there be a way to research a potential common language (not necessarily verbal) by analyzing brainwave pattens, say?

I am hoping that when computers get really powerful and exceed human intelligence (ref: The age of spiritual machines), the computers can decipher our thoughts in relation to our brain waves and traslate them to the animals and vice versa. That technology is probably 30 years off.

What we can not do, or can not figure out, they will do it for us. The tools are evolving faster than us...

A mere thirty years? I totally disagree! The human mind is one of the few things that we've had very little luck deciphering. Consciousness, thought... these things are going to take us centuries to thoroughly discover, if we ever do. (If we don't ever unlock the mysteries it will be because it's not physically possible due to some uncertainty principle or some such thing.) Some postulate that a new theory above and beyond quantum theory will be needed, but I don't know that I believe this. Then of course if you're not a materialist but an idealist, you'll have arguments against a theory of the mind too.

Look at A.I. research. Look how far it's come (or not come) in all the time we've been studying it.

The Carnegie-Mellon Conference was a one-day conference on October 19, 2001 in which an assembly of experts (including Arthur C. Clarke) met. Their mission: to answer the question of whether computers would help or hinder the building of a good world in the year 2050. Their conclusion: HAL will be realized within 50 years time.

But you've got to step back and note that Nobelist Herbert Simon, a speaker at the conference, predicted in 1965 that machines would be capable of doing any work humans can do by 1985 (whereas contemporary doctoral theses are still at the rudimentary robotics stage).

In terms of using a computer to translate brainwave patterns I think that the limiting factor will be the analysis of the animal patterns.
Over a year ago I saw documentary footage of a device which when placed on a human head allows the wearer to turn on a lightbulb by thought.
We're already most of the way there! :)

Electricity is used by our brain's cell. If we can turn on lightbulp by thougth, we really make a progress.

kmguru said that we have high 'resolution' and 'details'. So it is not possible that we can generate electric power using our brain.

Any way, human brain is very different with animals. Human brain is the highest achievment of living creatures evolution, and it is not possible that operation of DNA of human's brain is different with animals one.
Also it is possible that we have not known exactly the ability of our brain.....

Personally, I don't think the ability to talk to animals is the next step in evolution.

What we could accomplish with making more thorough use of what abilities we already have - focusing on developing communications skills and education alone would be enough to render the world we live in as primitive so I'm also not sure of what is to be considered criteria for qualification as the next step.

In regard to what makes us different from other animals is communication more than imagination. Though I think the important thing was the development of language that can convey concepts at a detailed enough level that we can pass our imaginings on creating a heritable repository of information. The written word is in many ways a significant extension of this and is very important in avoiding the loss of knowledge (think of how much the ancient greeks still impact our thinking after years of loss from oral tradition and rediscovery of written versions).

In that mere thread of human evolution unlocking telepathic communication would certainly allow a whole new level of passing information. I wonder though how quickly you could even learn what a person knows if you could read their mind. What if education was shrunk to 4-5 years though. I'd certainly be psyched about not having cell phones ringing in movies and such though. Huge side benefit.

In regard to telekinesis and such, I'm not sure how useful that would be unless we could also absorb energy at the same time. Otherwise unless we're also wrong about basic physics we would get real hungry if we did much significant with it (well I suppose if we could just coordinate thermal vibrations with a light touch we might be able to do things efficiently, but if we could track that many things simultaneously the ideas we came up with would probably be more significant than that anyway.).

Personally I think the next step in evolution would be our learning how to improve biological evloution using our brains. Many significant steps in evolution have come from organisms developing ways to more intelligently create useful variations. The dangers of doing so before we know what we're doing could unfortunately make it the last step. Personally I think it would be cool if somehow we took things full circle and somehow incorporated all the technology we need for life back into us. Then again most people who were in to what I'm talking about were kind of psycho, so I'm going to just stop here.

(I'm not evil - really I'm not. I think the main problem with taking evloution into our hands is that we have shown many times we don't always know what's for the best ...)

Though I think the important thing was the development of language that can convey concepts at a detailed enough level that we can pass our imaginings on creating a heritable repository of information. The written word is in many ways a significant extension of this and is very important in avoiding the loss of knowledge
Exactly.

I was more thinking about the next technological revolution rather than the next evolutionary stage though, and using the whole communication thing as an example.

And I think, technologies can made evolution to living creature, as we can seen in what Ian Wilmut doing to "Dolly".
Cloning process need technologies, right?
Like when processor were created, the technologies development then become faster than before.
Is it impossible that we may will find something like processor which made technologies growing faster than now? Is immposible that those technologies can influence the living creature evolution?

I suspect that technological advancement has had, will have, significant impact upon, if not the nature of human evolution, certainly the rate.

There is little or no environmentally forced evolution in first world countries.

Here is an interesting article from Nature on the communications between mice and their offspring...

(I wasn't sure if the link would work, so here is the text of the article)

"Mouse communication suggests language has deep roots. 31 December 2001

JEREMY THOMSON

The squeaks made by baby mice in the nest are similar to some human infant sounds, new research suggests, hinting that linguistic communication may be based on mechanisms that evolved long ago.

Günter Ehret and Sabine Riecke of the University of Ulm, Germany, recorded the wriggling calls baby mice emit when struggling to reach their mother's teat or falling out of the nest. Mother mice respond to some calls by nest building, changing position or licking pups.

Ehret and Riecke found that mothers react to the calls that contain word-like groups of at least three clearly separated tones, each of a different frequency. Similarly, the human ear can distinguish vowel sounds easily only if they contain three distinct notes.1

The duo then synthesized different artificial mouse calls and played them to weaning mothers alongside recordings of natural calls. By trial and error, they created an artificial squeak that is almost as effective as a natural call.

The sound that elicited a strong maternal reaction comprises three tones of 3.8, 7.6 and 11.4 kilohertz. The separation between these frequencies matches the smallest difference that the mammalian ear can easily resolve.

Removing the lowest, or 'fundamental', frequency robbed the call of its effectiveness. Removing either higher note made less difference. Thus the mouse brain seems to rely most strongly on the lowest note, Ehret and Riecke say. Likewise, humans struggle to understand a voice from which the bass has been removed.

The results indicate that a single mechanism may underlie the perception of sounds in all mammals, and may form the basis of human language. "The perception of speech sounds in mammals' auditory system follows evolutionarily old rules," comments Ehret.

References
1.Ehret, G. & Riecke, S. Mice and humans perceive multiharmonic communications sound in the same way. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99, 479 - 482, (2002).

© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001"

Is talking/language really a technology?

In terms of big tech revolutions, the next fundamentally new one is likely to be nanotech (possibly quantum computing, but I think it falls under nanotech). While big stuff could happen in bio or electronics it is really part of a revolution in progress not something fundamentally new (unless it's nanotech electronics).

Though I suppose you could consider technology that can directly translate thoughts pretty new. Then again we don't really understand the brain at all and research along these lines is not heavily funded so I'll stick with nanotech.

Seeker ... living dangerously - what about copyright laws? Interesting article though.

scilosopher,

We could have a whole topic on the pertinence of copyright laws in view of the Internet, but that is for another thread:D

I found the article on the net and just reposted it here.

As to communications being a technology, I think the start of this thread was discussing communications. I also think you could readily argue that without the 'technology' of verbal communications, none of our other technologies would have advanced as far as they have.

Without the technology of a mouth or a brain we wouldn't have much to say, but I'm not sure I would consider them technology.

copyright scilosopher 2002 ... all rights reserved ... (I agree we shouldn't get off on that tangent)

For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals... Then something happened that unleashed the power of our imagination ... We learned to talk.Could it not be that a mutation occurred that prevented us from maturing and we remain
in a state of perpetual juvenile curiousity and playfulness?

Abet, with the developement of technology, an ever more dangerous playfulness?

Just a thought.

Chagur,

I have heard it proposed that human evoulution has reached an impasse, that we're barely evolviong anymore.
As you say, we have become a race of very dangerous children.

It doesn't have to be like this.
All we need to do...
Is make sure....
We Keep Talking


In terms of big tech revolutions, the next fundamentally new one is likely to be nanotech (possibly quantum computing, but I think it falls under nanotech). While big stuff could happen in bio or electronics it is really part of a revolution in progress not something fundamentally new (unless it's nanotech electronics).
Scilosopher.

This is a little more like the response that I hgad hoped for when posting the start of the thread!:)

you could readily argue that without the 'technology' of verbal communications, none of our other technologies would have advanced as far as they have.
SeekerOfTruth

Spot on! Exactly what I meant when I wrote Then something happened that unleashed the power of our imagination... We learned to talk

Originally posted by esp
...

Spot on! Exactly what I meant when I wrote Then something happened that unleashed the power of our imagination... We learned to talk

esp,

Since I first read your post I have been trying to find the article I recently read that described how speech may have arisen in the human race. Unfortunately I have not been able to find it so I will try to summarize.

It basically stated that our speech capability was the result of the position of the larynx in our throats and that there was a distinct difference between ours and Cro Magnon man. Our larynx position allows for a much greater range of vocal sounds. The article also theorized that the change in our larynx position may have been to support some other necessity and speech was just enabled by it. The article also theorized that speech may have arisen out of younger children vocalizing during play and then grown from there. All in all it was an excellent article and I wish I could find it to quote it exactly.

Indeed.

The theory's sound (ha ha).
I think it would be interesting to have research done to try to deduce the reason for the positioning of the larynx.

Keep trying to find that article!

Originally posted by scilosopher
Is talking/language really a technology?

In terms of big tech revolutions, the next fundamentally new one is likely to be nanotech (possibly quantum computing, but I think it falls under nanotech). While big stuff could happen in bio or electronics it is really part of a revolution in progress not something fundamentally new (unless it's nanotech electronics).

How we can take the advantageous from nanotech?
We need to communicate nanotech.......
What will happen if nanotech cannot being explained to human?
Communication is the important part in creating progresses. Animals only have limited word, but we always develop our language, just live we develop the technologies.
BTW, the word "nanotech" is developed from the word nano and technology. We might have hear this word...before nanotech actualy created.

Originally posted by esp
Indeed.

The theory's sound (ha ha).
I think it would be interesting to have research done to try to deduce the reason for the positioning of the larynx.

Keep trying to find that article!

Found It! It was in hard copy of all places.:D

And I misquoted it previously. It was not Cro Magnon Man, but Neanderthal that we differ from.

The article is in the December, 2001 issue of Scientific America, starting on page 56. It is called 'How we came to be Human' and is a book excerpt from Ian Tattersall's book 'The Monkey in the Mirror: Essays on the Science of What Makes Us Human', published by Harcourt, Inc., 2002.

It is an article that directly addresses some of your questions and the origion of speach and symbolic thought and I suggest that if you can find it, or the book, it makes for excellent reading.

To quote from the article:

"If there is one single aspect of human mental function that is more closely tied up with symbolic precesses than any other, it is surely our use of language. Language is, indeed, the ultimate symbolic mental function, and it is virtually impossible to conceive of thought as we know it in its abscence."

and

"Given the fact that the brain is not a static structure like a rubber ball but is rather a dynamic entity that reorganizes itself during development (and indeed, given the right stimuli, throughout life), it is not implausible that a rudimentary precursor of language as it is familiar today initially arose in a group of children, in the context of play. Such prelanguage might have involved words - sounds -strung together with additive meaning."

Weitzel, interesting topic:
“The human mind is one of the few things that we've had very little luck deciphering. Consciousness, thought... these things are going to take us centuries to thoroughly discover, if we ever do.”

Half full, half empty? Progress in understanding the human brain over the last ten years has been amazing. Tools such a MRI and PET are giving increasingly high resolution images of dynamic brain processes. Direct non-destructive measurement of individual neurons using electronic probes. Study of brain cells in tissue culture is providing understanding of growth, development, and neural interconnection. Computer simulation provides a tool for modeling and testing new theories of brain function. Cognitive science research is teasing out the functional details. Tasty seeds.

Biological evolution led to language capable primitive. (Biological evolution plays little further role.)

Enabled cultural evolution. Development and transmission of knowledge. Creation of larger societies. (Cultural evolution predominated.)

Enabled sophisticated technologies including the breakthrough, writing. (Technology begins to replace culture as dominant evolutionary force.)

Confluence of technologies including printing press, steam engine, factory, and gunpowder accelerate technology. (Technology is now the dominant force.)

Technology provides tools to augment human thinking and communication. More of world populace engages in knowledge generation. (Technological evolution accelerates.)

Technology allows modification of human brain and development of artificial intelligence leading to…singularity?

I would add a couple of lines before the singularity.

Technology provides capability to modify biological evolution (artificial biological evolution plays significant role)

Modification of human brain through technology combined with artificial biological evolution creates new forms of intelligence and new forms of humanity

New forms of humanity create new societal evolutionary processes which dominate

...

It could by a cyclic evolutionary process.

Do normal hamsters even like seeds? You seem to be a real enthusiast.

I've always wondered if the human mind can understand the human mind. If you think of the brain as modelling some how what it understands, can it create a model as complicated as itself or not quite. Then again maybe you can understand how the brain works, but not understand a fully developed brain as smart as yours or something and it's whole network of thoughts. Hell I can't understand myself or the brain though so I'm just blathering.

We've definitely down-played the power of biological evolution, especially since we control our environment so much, but the frequencies of different genes has definitely continued to change. For instance medicine has allowed genes that have a negative impact on health to increase in frequency by providing effective therapies. It's actually kind of scary. The strength of technology might actually be weakening some of our biological capacity. Who knows what will come of it. At least there's so many people we'd be hard pressed to screw things up enough to kill everyone off. Then again Human ingenuity sometimes seems boundless ...

edit: seeker, are you talking about natural preference for mates or genetic engineering. Interesting that we were posting similar ideas simultaneously.

Genetic Engineering.

It, combined with nanotechnologies, will radically alter humanity, maybe for the better, maybe not.

Think. If we genetically modified our brains to produce different signals or modified brainwaves, we could more readily interface with our technology.

Scary thought that brings to mind the Borg.

hopefully people would disagree about what they consider important and humanity will undergo conscious speciation. That would be much safer from an extinction stand point. Also such tech allows for continued cross fertilization if anything really terrific is hit on.

Borg ... I actually don't think forced assimilation is necessarily that scary a thought. If they want to grow rapidly they would be better off to use test tube babies (also more control). If they want to add more species for diversity they only need a couple individuals or even a few stem cells and a DVD with a list of the various alleles of genes. Plus sooner or later they would assimilate a conscience if they were actually getting anything out of assimilation.

Scilosopher, a hamster friend once opened its cage (how?), climbed out, filled its pouches with sunflower seeds, climbed back into its cage (how?), emptied its pouches, and then repeated the process until a pound of sunflower seeds had been transported. The hamster ignored a variety of other hamster foods. Imahamster thinks hamsters like seeds. (More surprisingly, hamsters like their cages.)

A friend researching the human visual process once joked that he was afraid that if he ever did understand how it worked he’d immediately go blind. (Thinking too hard about how we do things can make us clumsy.)

“What does it mean to understand?” seems a deep question. I “understand” turning on a light by flipping a switch. Continue to ask “Why” down to details of mechanics, electricity, optics, and I admit I don’t know. Is the ability to answer a question about Special Relativity the same as understanding Relativity? Is knowing where the answer is and being able to retrieve it quickly the same as knowing the answer?

I have faith that we will be able to answer more and more questions about the human brain. I don’t know if that means we’ll understand it. If “understanding” means being able to predict a brain’s every thought, my guess is that we will never understand the human brain. (Butterfly Effect for chaotic systems?)

Need we worry about future generations of “Marching Morons”? Biological change is slower than cultural change which is also slower than technological change. There are far more scientists and engineers working today than ever before. They have access to tools and resources undreamed of by their predecessors. I don’t think humanity will exist in its present form one hundred years from now so I don’t worry about changes that won’t significantly affect humanity for thousands of years.

SeekerOfTruth, scary or not I believe such changes are inevitable. Man as whole and me as a hamster will have to accept that what it means to be a man or a hamster is going to change.

"WE ARE THE BORG.
LOWER YOUR MINDS AND PREPARE FOR EVOLUTION"

Very interesting.
This brings us to a possible answer to the Question.
Pehaps the next technological revolution will be the expansion of true cyber-technology.
I'm sure most of you are aware the guy who hosted the Royal Institute Christmas Lectures in 2000 (I think!).
He's a British university professor who's ambition is to become the first cyborg for the sake of being cyborg, not through need for prosthesis.
Anyway, he implanted a chip in his arm. This chip is bio-electrically powered. It is used to open doors and record his position in the facility where he works, and turns lights on amd off for him.
Memory fades, but I think it also tells his computer who he is when he's at it.
As far as I'm aware, this prototype is undergoing periodic improvement.
There was a documentery on British TV sometime in the last six months with the same professor and he was saying he has plans to implant a similar device in his wife's arm.
The idea being that some nervous interface could be established to allow two way communication between the units.
I think that the primary reason was for research and the secondary reason was to allow sexual interchange.

I apologise for the lack of detail or certainty of some of the aspects of this post, but my recollection is sketchy!
The general theme however, is accurate.


Could we be looking at a cybergenetic revolution?

Best read up on William Gibson!

Language is, indeed, the ultimate symbolic mental function, and it is virtually impossible to conceive of thought as we know it in its abscence."

SeekerOfTruth...

This strikes me as so accurate that you simply wouldn't believe!
Several times in the past I have (in various states of chemical stupor) tried to imagine thought without thinking in terms of words.

There are only one or two possible adjustments I would think applicable to this.

The first being that a distinction must be made between active thought and instinctual or intuitive thought.

For example when driving a car or performig a repetitive task, you can let your active mind wander while you are on 'autopilot'.

Secondly, sometimes when you let your mind wander, you can think in terms of images, like when you daydream.
Perhaps this is the closest that we can come to understanding the way that individual 'humans' thought before true communication. But he point is that it might not be true active thought.

In my mind the quote I gave is very applicable as long as this distinction between active and automatic thought.

This idea holds too much potential to trap in this thread. I will start a new one for the nature of thought!
I think Free Thoughts is a suitable forum!

When I try and understand something I try and really grok it. Understand it in it's entirety to the point I feel I can visualize the whole process and what's going on (though I admit it will never be complete, just up to a certain level).

Which actually relates to what esp was saying, when I think about mechanisms in science it is all visualization. Sometimes I think verbally, but usually only when I'm translating a verbal explanation into pictures and thinking through the different possibilities. I do admit that all social thought I have is verbal. The concepts are all verbally shaped. We learn them through discussion so the two are totally linked.

Actually I think a totally transparent interface to computer and other technologies would certainly have a bigger impact on society than extension of those actual techs themselves ...

Hamster. Nice story. If you only think about things in the short run, the future comes as a nasty surprise. I don't want that to happen to my kids or their kids or even other people's kids. Then again if you always figure things out in the short run you're fine forever. So maybe we shouldn't worry.

Esp, your distinction between “active mind” and “autopilot” is interesting. Seems to be some evidence that the monolithic “self” is an illusion created by our own mind. Could be lots going on and the “self” only pays attention to the loudest talkers. A quiet Imahamster drives while another is listening to music and the “self” is day dreaming. Suddenly the “self” attention is grabbed as the visual Imahamster shouts, “Cute girl to the right!


Scilosopher, ”Grok” from “Stranger in a Strange Land”? Ah hamster pup days.

A typical human can only focus on seven different items. Information is chunked. Thinking of a chunk brings the chunk components into focus. (It’s easy to imagine a classroom full of people. Now try to visualize them as twenty separate people simultaneously. Even remembering them one at time would likely use a strategy like first listing near neighbors, then those to the right, then those the left, etc.)

I believe this human focusing limitation implies that “visualizing” a complicated system means easy traversal of the knowledge. Somewhat like following hyperlinks. As you visualize each piece the connected pieces blossom in your mind like flowers. After traversing a subject easily you tag the subject as “understood”. (Imagine your dismay when as you get older you discover that those “known” subjects should be re-tagged as not-so-well known due to fading memory, deteriorating mind, or just that the subject has progressed considerably since your last visit. You lose track of what you know.)

Supposedly Einstein intuited physics by feeling it in his body. I’ve read that babies think and store visual images. As they become verbal they transition to storing symbolic concepts. “Smell” memory and thought gives new meaning to “the idea stinks”.

As least that’s what Imahamster understands but doesn’t really grok.

PS A good run on a wheel cures most worries.

Originally posted by Imahamster
....
I believe this human focusing limitation implies that “visualizing” a complicated system means easy traversal of the knowledge. Somewhat like following hyperlinks. As you visualize each piece the connected pieces blossom in your mind like flowers. After traversing a subject easily you tag the subject as “understood”. ...

Imahamster,

In a critical thinking class I had in college we went over a variety of memory enhancement techniques. One of the best, both as desribed by the book and instructor as well as actually applied, for remembering a list of names or numbers was to associate the names or numbers with a common path you actually traversed often.

For example, if I wanted to memorize a list of names, then I would think of my path from home to school, identifying specific points I remembered about the path, and then link the point with the name I wanted to remember. You could readily recall a very long list of names because you really only had to remember 1 name at a time because it was only associated with 1 point on the path. Try it sometime, the technique works great. Another technique for remember large numbers, such as 10 diget telephone numbers was to break them up into distinct number sets so something like 123-456-7890 becomes 123 (one hundred twenty three) 456 (four hundred fifty-six) and 78 (seventy eight) and 90 (ninety). This also works fairly well because instead of try to remember 10 numbers, you are now trying to remember 4 numbers.

Another thing about visualization. In one of the martial arts I was studying I was taught that I could 'watch' myself thinking by attempting to clear my mind for meditation and then just acknowledge the thoughts that came into my head without analyzing them. You can actively 'watch' yourself think in this way while meditating. You can eventually get to a point where you can 'stand outside yourself' and 'watch' thoughts float through your mind as if you are outside the process.

Following SeekerOfTruth’s suggestion, I’ve moved my reply to his new thread “The Nature of Thought”.

Originally posted by Weitzel
A mere thirty years? I totally disagree! The human mind is one of the few things that we've had very little luck deciphering.

What are they teaching at that University? You should get your money back. Wait to read the book "A new kind of science" by Wolfram - then you may change your mind.

There is a story about two monkeys talking on top of a tree branch a few million years ago. One says: Someday there will be a new kind of animals that will evolve to build bird nests that move at high speed like a cheetah and carry 50 of them inside. The other one says: I totally disagree. We have the best brain around! :D

Originally posted by scilosopher
(I'm not evil - really I'm not. I think the main problem with taking evloution into our hands is that we have shown many times we don't always know what's for the best ...)

Shifts in paradigm occur not in million years but in days. It is almost a step function. Look at ENRON....a paradigm shift in action....