Pumapunku how did they do it?

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by Believe, Apr 15, 2012.

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  1. Stoniphi

    Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    You are quite welcome.

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    I also have enjoyed watching a few of those shows, but having hands - on experience with the ancient technology that was certainly employed to do these works does kind of take the awe out of the imaginative speculation.

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    I like to think that truly appreciating what our ancestors did such a very long time ago gives one optimism for what we could do now if we were to set our minds to it.

    I love rocks and anthropology, the profound sense of deep time that comes with standing in a place that other people lived and worked in thousands of years ago. Actually laying hands on things someone made a very long time ago gives one a feeling of connection with folks that have been dead for many centuries, makes one feel part of a very long and complex story.
     
    Stoniphi, Apr 26, 2012
    #21

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  3. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    If you think about it, most technology is 99% knowledge and only 1% artifacts.

    Even if we "bomb ourselves back to the Stone Age" in the nuclear holy war that many of our governments seem determined to wage, the knowledge of bronze metallurgy, iron metallurgy, fossil fuel exploitation and electrical generation will be remembered for a long time. Not perfectly so they won't get it right at first, but the knowledge that that kind of technology is possible will encourage them to keep trying.

    So IMHO the concept of a "lost technology" is the province of fantasy literature. Hobbits might forget how to build a forge and bellows, but humans won't. (And that's a racial slur against the poor hobbits, their world had both Bronze Age and Iron Age technology.)
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Apr 27, 2012
    #22

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  5. Believe

    Believe Happy medium Valued Senior Member

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    Until the religion of the time says that the nuclear holocost is gods punishment for our technological decadence.
     
    Believe, Apr 27, 2012
    #23

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  7. spidergoat

    spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    What if the devastation is so great that technology is only dimly remembered and everyone is illiterate? It is unlikely with the same benefit of raw materials like ores and oil that the culture that comes after us will be able to develop to the same degree.
     
    spidergoat, Apr 27, 2012
    #24
  8. spidergoat

    spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, it's possible, but the secret to porcelain eluded the British for centuries.
     
    spidergoat, Apr 27, 2012
    #25
  9. Believe

    Believe Happy medium Valued Senior Member

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    Do you offer a better explination of how it was done?
     
    Believe, Apr 28, 2012
    #26
  10. spidergoat

    spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Hard materials can be easier to work than soft ones sometimes. For instance, granite can be worked with fire. You heat up a spot and a flake pops off.
     
    spidergoat, Apr 28, 2012
    #27
  11. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    You don't have to convince me that religion is the most evil of all human emotions. (I call it an emotion because, as Jung argues, irrational belief in the supernatural appears to be an instinct we're born with.) It's no coincidence that the thousand years during which European culture was repressed by the Christian church is the era we call "the Dark Ages." The Romans were consummate engineers who invented the technology of sewers, but under Christian leadership they fell into neglect and by the middle of the last millennium the continent's entire water supply was polluted. This had a cascade effect: people who had to drink beer instead of water (because alcohol is a great disinfectant) weren't terribly bright or productive. It wasn't until coffee was imported from Ethiopia, and their daily water ration contained a stimulant rather than a depressant, that the Renaissance could reach its full potential.
    Starting with the Neolithic Revolution, it took us a millennium to invent the technology of city-building, six more to invent bronze metallurgy, another to invent iron metallurgy, three to unlock the chemical energy in fossil fuels that made industry possible, barely a century after that to discover electricity, and one more to invent computers.

    We could probably do that again.
    Isn't that why we call the stuff "china"?

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    Fraggle Rocker, Apr 28, 2012
    #28
  12. Believe

    Believe Happy medium Valued Senior Member

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    Religion is not inherintly evil, it is only evil in the wrong hands.
     
    Believe, Apr 29, 2012
    #29
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