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The ancient city of Atlantis 2015-11-01 01:38:04 Post No. 11453
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The ancient city of Atlantis 2015-11-01 01:38:04 Post No. 11453
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Did it really exist? Or was Plato making things up?
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>>11453
How long does it take for humans to create a modern civilization under perfect conditions?
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>>11453
Atlantis was made up by Plato to be his example of a perfect society.
It's as real as Narnia.
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>>11518
Once the ball starts rolling, about 4-5 thousand years apparently.
But there has to e some incentive to spark civilization to begin with, or else you just end up with static hunter-gatherer tribes like in africa
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>>11453
I personally believe that there was a seafaring pre-Columbian amerindian civilization in what's now modern day Mexico or Brazil but the whole vast empire and crystal technology stuff is absolute horse shit.
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>>11685
Didn't the ancient polynesians cross all over the pasific, starting from current mexico?
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It's probably the so called "pre-andaluvian" (pre-flood) civilization
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>>11453
That's the place where zeus use to take a shit I think. It was essentially a big toilet.
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>>11638
4-5 thousand years seems a little much. I mean take all the times progess was destroyed by wars and so on. I imagine if the library of alexandria wasn't destroyed or they happened to invent the bookprint earlier we would've progressed much faster. Or take the steam engine. The greeks could've invented it much earlier. Everything was there.
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>>11453
>Did it really exist?
I have no idea.
>Or was Plato making things up?
He wasn't. Nowhere in his works does he ever create myths. With him being an initiate to the mysteries and so on, it's far mor likely that he wasn't lying about the whole story being transmitted to Solon by egyptian priests.
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>>11453
Atlantis was a metaphor for a perfect state
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>>11938
how so? The greeks already thought of themselves as having a perfect state. Plato thinking of Atlantis as metaphor doesn't make any sense.
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>>11896
>Nowhere in his works does he ever create myths.
Didn't he write about some magical city towards the end of the republic? I only remember something about colors and rings.
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Plato goes into great lengths to explain how he became aware of this story and how it was not made up, Plato was not a liar.
The fall of Atlantis is most likely related to the stories of a Great deluge that all ancient cultures talk about. I think maybe the mid Atlantic ridge used to be above sea level but something happened that made it collapse into the asthenosphere creating huge waves that engulfed the earth and killed everybody around the Atlantic ocean except those protected by very high mountains.
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>>12469
I think the more likely thing is that the land bridge between the black sea and the mediteranian see broke and some old civilization got flooded.
Does make sense to dig up the dirt from the bottom of the black see? How deep would you need to dig?
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>>11453
If the thing about him getting it from the egyptians is true, then it's possible they made it up.
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>>11767
They crossed all over the South Eastern pacific but started there. The Dravidians (The Brown South part of India) are distantly related to them. They did not start in Mexico.
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>>12469
It's far more likely that it relates to early settlements being engulfed by rising waters at the end of the last ice age. We know that people lived where the North Sea is now, and there where probably semi-permanent settlements in areas like the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea.
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>>11896
this guy gets it
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Egyptians and Irish are the descendants of Atlantis.
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Educate me if I'm wrong, but didn't Plato write fiction as well?
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>>11453
Serbs came from Atlantis
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>>12972
Yes and no. Judging from the republic he does write fiction because it's written from the prespective of socrates if I'm not mistaken and features fictious dialog, but it's just a means to end to get the point accross.
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Atlantis is a concept that Plato extremely warped in order to turn it into a metaphorical device for his writings. The Egyptians knew of these "sea-people" who were probably some late bronze / early iron age people that happened to move around in ships a lot. They're probably the ones who destroyed Minoan civilization or they could have been the Minoans themselves, who were pretty advanced it seems and often decorated their art with oceanic imagery, such as dolphins.
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>>11453
yeah
germanic people built it but jews came and sink it then jew took their intelligence and knowledges so germanics went to be nomads until the romans found them and gave them civilization
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>>13490
This desu
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Atlantis sounds like a fun place to stay
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>>14918
Sure does
I wanna fuck some mermaids to satisfy my fetish
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>>11938
>dis blue pilled argument for everything
every culture on EARTH without exceptions has a flood myth.
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>>11453
The question is, how white were the atlanteans and was it black people and women that ended their reign?
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>>11453
Yeah. It was some where in the straits of gibraltar.
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>>15560
Lookup The Arctic Vedas, Tibetan monks know what's up. Atlantis was at The North Pole when it wasn't yet frozen. There's a magnetic mountain the Pyramids try to emulate. We're the true fist of the north star
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>>15460
Word
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>>11453
Its interesting because that isn't the only legend of a lost contitent being swallowed up by the ocean.
Kumari Kandam is another famous lost empire.
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>>17564
what of Hy Brasil?
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>>11453
The most amazing part about the Atlantis story is:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Timaeus
>This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, [25] and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent.
(Libya means the continent of Africa btw)
Did they know about America or something?
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>>11453
Plato was only repeating what he had heard from visitors to Egypt where the story was recorded
whether he believed or not is not known.
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>>19086
>https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Timaeus
>>This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, [25] and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent.
its more than likely, there had been travels to the Americans for millennia, only Columbus was the first to properly record his journey for the future and navigate back home for another trip
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>>19185
It's why Bacon wrote New Atlantis.
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>>11453
Plato was explicitly making things up. He made up Atlantis because he wanted to talk about politics, but not get bogged down in specifics.
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>>20817
Its from Egypt. Atlanteans taught Imhotep
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>>11453
It's the aegean sea OP. It has TONS of tiny islands, what ARE the chances of one of them being flooded?
That's probably what Atlantis was.
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>>11518
Never. The reason our society has progressed technologically is because conditions weren't perfect. Pretty much all technology exists to solve a pre-existing problem. If we had lived without such problems, we wouldn't need to invent anything.
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Yes
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>>21043
Library of Alexandria?
>Around 1000 B.C. Soloman, along with others of noble nature, saw the coming of the 'Dark' Era (Iron Era). There was a decision to try to preserve the records of what was. This group rebuilt an already existing Library at Alexandria, Egypt, and stocked it with much additional material containing records and technology of the high civilzations and countriesthat existed before the Global war. Few men and women of Soloman's time and the Iron era to come understood the writings or what they contained. With survival again threatening humanity, due to famine, ignorance, pestilence, attrition, tribal wars, and general lack of understanding, the writings at Alexandria became 'useless scrolls and records' (to those that vandalized them). Between 500 B.C. and 1200 A.D. the Library was sacked twice, vandelized numerous times, later outright burned, and finally completely destroyed. Large parts of the city eventually was flooded or eroded by tides an further destroying any records and buildings. The records, last source of open knowledge of what was, did not survive its journey of time through the Iron Era of the Yuga's.
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>>21441
Solomon is just code for the Solar Man Sol Om On. I know there's theories that the Pyramid is coded with history though
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>>19185
This is more than likely true.
In Herodotus' time (400 B.C.), which is also Plato's time, we know that the Phoenicians made a complete round-trip around the entirety of the African continent.
http://www.phoenicia.org.uk/educating-phoenician-history.htm
The key to this account is this part:
>These men made a statement which I do not myself believe, though others may, to the effect that as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya, they had the sun on their right - to northward of them.
Libya being the ancient name for all of Africa. This is an actual thing that does happen, that they could not have known otherwise unless someone actually did it.
More info:
http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodotus/hist01.htm
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>>12013
They sure didn't. Have you ever read Plato? He's constantly railing against the prevailing culture of his era.
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>>21103
It's clearly described as being beyond the 'Pillars of Hercules', which is the ancient term for Gibraltar.
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>>20916
This desu. The Aryan kingdoms of Atlantis and Thule were destroyed by Jews who allied with the eternal Anglo.
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>>21431
>I don't know what plate tectonics are
>I've never heard of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland
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>>22231
Doggerland never existed. It's Nazi propaganda.
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>>11453
Does it matter? It would lose all the appeal the moment either one is confirmed.
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Are Atlantians white?
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>>11638
No, sub-saharans didn't develop advanced civilization due to the sahara blocking trade of tech and ideas from the old world.
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>>15528
only mediterranean ones do
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>>1
made up
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>>25063
He wasnt being serious.
I really don't think so anyway.
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>>13350
>but it's just a means to end to get the point accross
Just like Atlantis, which was part of a fucking ALLEGORY.
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>>11518
What are perfect conditions? Perfect for what?
>>11638
No incentive is required. Civilization wasn't built by anyone consciously. It evolved from the new ways people adopted that became effective.
The event that jumpstarted this evolution was the end of the ice age. It is no coincidence neolithic revolution happened everywhere all around the world in the small window of a couple of thousand years despite the fact that some places were habitated by humans more than 90k years later than others.
Eurasia progressed the fastest because it had the largest pool of interconnected humans, facilitating the spread of ideas.
>>21164
You present a wrong premise in that inventions were made because there was a perceived problem that needed being solved. That is not true.
Progress is made by the gradual adoption of whatever is the most effective. New ways of effectiveness become available by random chance. People discover stuff by chance. Therefore the progress of a society depends on the number of situations with a chance to discover something new. Such a situation requires a person and an event that would present him with some new information. Depending on various external factors (famines, diseases, wars, accidents) and internal factors (personality traits, most importantly curiosity and innovation) he may or may not be able to turn this discovery into information (the transformation happens when the knowledge becomes available for others) that then has the potential to evolve into a new more effective way of doing things.
Civilization is not the result of conscious determined effort. It is the result of people doing stuff they feel good about and the occasional progress made on the side fueled by random chance.
Over time this process only becomes faster as the number of such instances increases as does the overall information pool.
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>>11453
Plato copied that shit from someone else.
Also Irish are Atlanteans mixed with ancient Iberoniggers. They even say so in their legends.
It's easy for an underdeveloped civilization to think "oh fug magic" when they see more advanced tech. (more advanced tech not as in a quantum supercomputer but as in, for example, iron armors and decent medicine.
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>>25996
>What are perfect conditions? Perfect for what?
>How long does it take for humans to create a modern civilization under perfect conditions?
Perfect for creating modern civilization. What else?
>No incentive is required. Civilization wasn't built by anyone consciously. It evolved from the new ways people adopted that became effective.
If there is no incentive to adopt new ways as you put it, then civilization wouldn't appear. That's what's meant by incentive.
>New ways of effectiveness become available by random chance. People discover stuff by chance.
This isn't true. People have intelligence and the ability to innovate on their own. If someone finds a clever solution to the problem of moving a cart around, that isn't a random event, it's someone being clever and innovative.
You sound like you're trying to conflate technological progress with biological evolution here.
You're also really misusing the word information but I guess this is nitpicking.
>Civilization is not the result of conscious determined effort.
This is not strictly true. A lot of it is not, but some of it is. When the first set of laws was made, that was definitely a conscious and determined effort to improve society, for example.
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>>11518
Define perfect conditions
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>>11518
Define humans.
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>>26325
Define "a modern civilization".
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>>11518
Define "create"
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>>22074
What about this?
http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=42645
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>>17564
Also the kingdom of Ys, but I think it was simply a fairytale from the beginning and never an actual legend or theory.
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>>21528
Careful about believing everything you read at face value. I doubt some Phoenicians actually sailed around the Southern edge of Africa back then. Would have been a massive effort for nothing, considering Africa had very few organised states or places of trade with anything of value at the time.
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>>26412
What about it?
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In a thousand years, after the world has collapsed once or twice and our electronic records have been mostly wiped off the planet, will historians look back and wonder if "Middle Earth" was an actual place in the world?
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>>26312
>Perfect for creating modern civilization. What else?
Well, that doesn't elaborate anything. We already have a "modern civilization". Does this not mean we already had the perfect contitions for evolving it? If so then explain.
>That's what's meant by incentive.
Incentive implies a goal oriented effort. This does not apply to the majority of progress we've made. That's what I meant by saying incentive is not required to "spark a civilization".
>If someone finds a clever solution to the problem of moving a cart around, that isn't a random event, it's someone being clever and innovative.
Emphasis on the word "finds" which in itself implies something that was previously unknown. You cannot set out to find something you don't even know exists. Discovery happens by random chance. For example in your scenario the chance presents itself as this curious and innovative person witnessing something (the "event") that suddenly gave him the eureka moment and inspired him to create a better cart.
The wheel most likely was invented after the observation was made that smooth round objects move further when given the energy compared to other shapes. Nobody set out to make this observation. It was made by pure chance of maybe having witnessed rocks roll down a mountain or apples roll after being dropped. Random chance.
Ever heard how gravity was allegedly first made into a concept?
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>>26312
>You sound like you're trying to conflate technological progress with biological evolution here.
Well fundamentally it's the same. Random chance coupled with our laws of nature in which effective things prevail is both how life got started and evolved and how our civilization did, too. Chance becomes a statistical likelyhood when multiplied and statistical likelyhood creates predictable patterns. These patterns can become however complex or effective, but they're still the result of random chance. As a sidenote: this is what American fundamentalists fail to comprehend when using the end result of a long process as an argument in an attempt to debunk it by implying it couldn't have been the result of a series of random events. This is also what you fail to realize if you're suggesting civilization is the result of concentrated effort with the end result in mind.
>You're also really misusing the word information
What I meant was information for the society as a whole that has the likely potential to become the basis for another discovery.
>first set of laws
Technically laws existed even before they were written down. Evildoers were punished if caught. Were tribal customs and rules the result of conscious and determined effort? Or did they evolve on the sideways over time?
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It was possibly based on a true story of the eruption of Thera but the rest of the story was invented by Plato or the guy who told Plato about it
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>>27648
>Well, that doesn't elaborate anything. We already have a "modern civilization". Does this not mean we already had the perfect contitions for evolving it? If so then explain.
First I'll say that it wasn't me who asked that.
The only thing that comes to mind is that just because something exists, that doesn't mean that the conditions for it were ever perfect, only sufficient. So, it's not even remotely certain that "perfect conditions for a modern civilization" ever existed.
>You cannot set out to find something you don't even know exists.
Yes you can. That's one of the underlying ideals of science, really.
>Discovery happens by random chance.
Your terms are confusing me, so can you please define random chance versus your definition of human agency?
I also think it's necessary here to differentiate discovery and innovation.
>For example in your scenario the chance presents itself as this curious and innovative person witnessing something (the "event") that suddenly gave him the eureka moment and inspired him to create a better cart.
Not necessarily. He could have tried different methods, so it wouldn't be a simple witnessing of the event, he would have caused the event on purpose.
Also I wonder why you're ignoring the bit about the first set of laws. Awkward example for you?
>The wheel most likely was invented after the observation was made that smooth round objects move further when given the energy compared to other shapes.
That's not random chance. That's observation, experimentation and innovation. It can't happen at random, it only happened because of the application of intelligence.
>Nobody set out to make this observation.
Why are you so certain of this? You keep repeating it like it's some kind of evident truth, but I haven't seen you provide any reasoning for it.
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>>27783
>These patterns can become however complex or effective, but they're still the result of random chance.
Oh, I see what you're doing. You're just defining absolutely everything as random chance. Have you ever wondered why we have words other than chance? It's to discuss certain concepts, concepts which are relevant here.
What you're doing is kind of annoying and ultimately pointless, anon, so I ask you to please step back and examine it for a moment.
>Technically laws existed even before they were written down.
Yes. But they were also written down at some point, which clearly shows that the absolutes you're spouting are wrong. There is a non-random component to civilization.
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>>11778
It's called Antediluvian, senpai.
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>>28035
>Perfect in the sense of the fastest way possible towards our technological ability. No bookburnings, a working education system, development of the scientifc method, the amount of influencial thinkers, etc.
You're assuming that modern civilization can form under those rules, but it's not necessary that it can. Really, I think such a civilization would be very different from ours.
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>>21564
Is Atlantis really Platonic though?
Sounds like something crazy he heard from Egyptians.
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>>11453
It probably was San Torini
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>>11453
I bet they weren't even white
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>>28193
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>>11896
Initiate of the mysteries =/= secret history knowledge
The 'mysteries' in this sense are spiritual truths revealed after undergoing secret initiations
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>>28118
Fair enough, but then that's the question. Personally I would think it could be possible to reach a fairly sophisticated state within 500 years maybe, if you had the right mixture out of rulers and wise men, or thinkers.
Imagine a king who is affraid of death giving him the incentive to search for a remedy in combination with a few sokrates, platons, and so on where the populace was trusting the state enough to go along with progress.
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>>12469
> I think maybe the mid Atlantic ridge used to be above sea level but something happened that made it collapse into the asthenosphere creating huge waves that engulfed the earth and killed everybody around the Atlantic ocean except those protected by very high mountains.
>t. A fucking retard
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>>27832
>So, it's not even remotely certain that "perfect conditions for a modern civilization" ever existed.
Not even the "perfect conditions" are remotely certain. We wouldn't be able to to define them.
>Yes you can. That's one of the underlying ideals of science, really.
The fundamentals of science are irrelevant. Discoveries are made by chance through observing something that existing knowledge cannot explain or simply haven't taken advantage of.
>define random chance versus your definition of human agency?
They're not contradicting each other. It's just that people have a tendency to disregard the former. For example they fail to realize how the size of a society has an impact on the speed with which it progresses. They focus on the individual side of progress and forget the statistical proponent.
>differentiate discovery and innovation.
They go hand in hand often. To realize you're dealing with a discovery you first have to be able to think outside the box and comprehend how what you've just witnessed contradicts what you've known so far.
But basically if you want to differentiate then it's easy - one is the attainment of new information while the other is putting it to use.
>That's not random chance.
But it is. Without the event there wouldn't have been an observation made. The discovery was the end result of having a specific person with specific traits witnessing a specific event that took place at a specific time and location. If that's not chance then I don't know what is.
>Why are you so certain of this?
You think people wake up with the intention of making a groundbreaking observation?
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>>28335
>The fundamentals of science are irrelevant. Discoveries are made by chance through observing something that existing knowledge cannot explain or simply haven't taken advantage of.
Science is increasing the chance of making discoveries. A shitty religion might be enough to trigger the formation of science by providing bad explanations for natural occurances that are easily debunked.
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>>28335
>The fundamentals of science are irrelevant.
That's a very ignorant thing to say.
>Discoveries are made by chance through observing something that existing knowledge cannot explain or simply haven't taken advantage of.
No, they are made on purpose by a human by observing those things. Not by random chance.
>It's just that people have a tendency to disregard the former.
Then why are you completely disregarding the latter? I mean, that's the entire impression I have of your points here: "Everything about humanity is pure random chance, it doesn't matter what people want or try to do, we can't actually do anything on purpose."
>But basically if you want to differentiate then it's easy - one is the attainment of new information while the other is putting it to use.
Ah, I see. But putting it to use wasn't random, was it? Someone actually had to do it. Here you have some more proof that civilization isn't pure randomness.
>But it is. Without the event there wouldn't have been an observation made. The discovery was the end result of having a specific person with specific traits witnessing a specific event that took place at a specific time and location. If that's not chance then I don't know what is.
There is some chance in there, but mostly it's just the agency of the people who did those things. Sure, it's all contingent on chance, but I don't know why you're denying that people had anything to do with it.
>You think people wake up with the intention of making a groundbreaking observation?
Uh. Yes. A lot of people do that. Most of them come to useless or wrong observations and then get annoying about them.
For example, someone could make the observation that humans don't have a will of their own and everything we ever did was pure randomness. Which only works if you misuse the terms chance and will enough. But in that case you should look into a dictionary.
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I don't know how or why but the idea of Atlantis is one of the most fascinating things to me. In fact it's the reason I ever cared about history at all as a kid
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>>28633
I know this feel.
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>>27931
>>27931
Well everything could be defined as chance but that's not what I'm doing. Right now I'm merely defining external factors to the person as chance.
>which clearly shows that the absolutes you're spouting are wrong
How in the hell? You mean people writing down something that took millions of years to evolve using a method that evolved for thousands of years somehow proves that their action was the result of only the concentrated effort it took to scribble it down, and not the result of incomprehensibly huge and complex processes involving what can be basically described as endless trial and error that is humanity as a whole? The civilization's a huge jackpot machine and sometimes hitting all three marks is enough to pull humanity up a rung on the ladder of progress.
People think that just because we've created something we've now 'mastered' it. That we're now above those who preceded us. That its invention was inevitable in hindsight. They fail to realize that without random instances we wouldn't have them. They have the illusion that the human mind was somehow capable of creating it when in reality it was the human mind coupled with an extraordinary situation. Beyond this statistical likelyhood there would be nothing else that would make it happen. If theoretically we would lose all our progress we would only be able to restore just a fraction of it. The rest would yet again be at the mercy of chance and variables. Our intelligence would wither away starting from the first generation born into a much simpler world and from then on we would be back to whatever square in the past, with only a statistical chance of evolving further.
The non-random component is at the mercy of the whims of the random component.
>>28035
An education system wouldn't have done jack during the dark ages. The scientific method is constantly evolving. Influential thinkers are a rarity. What you're asking for is how fast could a civilization develop in a utopia.
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>>28844
>Well everything could be defined as chance but that's not what I'm doing. Right now I'm merely defining external factors to the person as chance.
No, you're doing a lot more than that. If that was all you were doing you wouldn't have come to the conclusion that civilization is exclusively based on random chance.
>You mean people writing down something that took millions of years to evolve using a method that evolved for thousands of years somehow proves that their action was the result of only the concentrated effort it took to scribble it down, and not the result of incomprehensibly huge and complex processes involving what can be basically described as endless trial and error that is humanity as a whole?
Humanity does a lot more than trial and error. Humanity is intelligent. We don't only scribble down things we've seen, we also make up new stuff on our own.
I'm again thinking that you're conflating civilization with biological evolution. In evolution it's actually true that everything is pure trial and error, pure random chance.
But in civilization it's not. Sure, it's contingent on chance, but it's also contingent on willful actions by intelligent humans. Not everything humanity does is trial and error, get it? Sometimes we actually use our brains and make what seems like the smart choice.
The very concepts of discovery, innovation, invention, and so on, are based on the fact that they're not only random chance. Discovery is the closest to that, but even discovery *absolutely* requires someone with the initiative and intelligence to turn random observations into a meaningful discovery.
Please explain why you're completely discounting human intelligence and will from this equation.
>People think that just because we've created something we've now 'mastered' it. That we're now above those who preceded us.
I find this line of thought both irrelevant and pretentious, but maybe I'm misjudging it. What exactly are you trying to say here?
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>>28469
>A shitty religion might be enough to trigger the formation of science by providing bad explanations for natural occurances that are easily debunked.
Holy shit what a fucking fedora thing to say. You've yet again ousted yourself as a shortsighted faggot who can't see further than his nose. A religion evolves over time. The explanations it gives cannot be shit and easily debunked because they needed to be believable in the first place. Religion played a specific role in society and it was ultimately a reflection of the human mind and how we think even on an individual level. It wasn't simply a misconception stupid people came up with which smart people debunked later on. You're shortsightedly focusing on the individuals and their achievements without seeing how they were part of a bigger picture and it shows even in this remark about religion.
>>28614
>That's a very ignorant thing to say.
Way to take things out of context.
>No, they are made on purpose by a human by observing those things.
Do you think people started growing crops because they were purposefully observing the plants during the neolithic revolution and noticed a change? Instead of just reacting to the external and adapting by facilitating the growth of edible plants, which eventually evolved into agriculture? Really?
>Ah, I see. But putting it to use wasn't random, was it?
If A is random and B is dependent on A, then B is in its core also random.
>Uh. Yes. A lot of people do that.
?
>misuse the terms chance and will
Where?
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>>28844
>They fail to realize that without random instances we wouldn't have them.
Well, it's not like you have much room to talk while making the inverse mistake.
>They have the illusion that the human mind was somehow capable of creating it when in reality it was the human mind coupled with an extraordinary situation.
Oh, so now you are admitting that it wasn't only random chance? Amazing. Seeing your further points I bet you didn't even notice this slip you made here.
>Our intelligence would wither away
Our knowledge base you mean.
>The non-random component is at the mercy of the whims of the random component.
And yet it was still what built civilization. Aren't we just amazing, huh?
>Do you think people started growing crops because they were purposefully observing the plants during the neolithic revolution and noticed a change? Instead of just reacting to the external and adapting by facilitating the growth of edible plants, which eventually evolved into agriculture? Really?
Do you think a computer was made by random chance? Really? Nobody had to design maths and electronics first? Nobody had to come up with the idea for a complex system of logic gates that could be used to solve various problems?
That's quite the claim.
>If A is random and B is dependent on A, then B is in its core also random.
But the randomness is irrelevant, since B is all that matters.
>>Uh. Yes. A lot of people do that.
>?
A huge amount of people want to make discoveries, innovations, profound observations, and so on. It is, in fact, something that people even today are out there and doing.
>>misuse the terms chance and will
>Where?
I was going off on a tangent.
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>>29022
>Holy shit what a fucking fedora thing to say. You've
That wasn't the same person as me who you've been talking to for the most part.
I'll add something here to not make this an empty post.
Since intelligent actions and random chance are being contrasted here, we could use an analogy which also includes both in the same positions.
Playing cards. Cards are first dealt out randomly, then you have to accomplish something with them. The same situation in the most basic terms.
From what I can tell, what you've been saying is that a card player is completely at the mercy of what cards he gets dealt. What I'm saying is that that's silly, because intelligent choices make a huge difference. If it were only random chance then just plopping down cards at random would give you the same odds of winning as trying to be clever about it. Which obviously isn't the case.
Intelligence and agency make all the difference.
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>>11784
DESIGNATED SHIT CITY
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>>29562
Whoops thought I was on the front page
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>>29562
We hate them because of history and close borders. Basically the same reasons as any neighboring countries hate each other.
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>>29011
>No, you're doing a lot more than that
Refer to the AB example.
>We don't only scribble down things we've seen
We don't? Elaborate because there's so many ways I could argue against this I want to first know what you're insinuating.
>Sure, it's contingent on chance, but it's also contingent on willful actions by intelligent humans
And intelligence is the result of what? Genes. Genes are chance. What else is it reliant on? A healthy childhood; good nourishment, good relations. What does that rely on? A functional society. A society can be functional if it has the resources to feed its population and if it is stable. Wars, diseases, famines, catastrophies all go against it. What are they reliant on? Chance. What was the development of agriculture, the source of food that allowed first modern civilizations to arise, dependent on? Climate change. Chance, in this context.
An intelligent person is nothing. An intelligent person in an intelligent society capable of comprehending his ideas and seeing their merit is probable progress. But that's reliant on the aforementioned.
>Please explain why you're completely discounting human intelligence and will from this equation.
I'm not. But it's part of the randomness. An unintelligent person seeing the position of the sun over the course of a year produces nothing. An innovative person doing the same, provided the subject catches his interest - for example he notices the difference in shadow lengths because he can't do woodwork anymore sitting in the same place, because he needs light (chance) - can do wonders with that observation. His curiosity, intelligence and innovation are all the result of what I've just named.
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>>29687
>We don't? Elaborate because there's so many ways I could argue against this I want to first know what you're insinuating.
Uh. You're under the impression that people
have only ever scribbled things down. I mean, you can't think of anything else?
I'm not typing up another example just after giving you that computer one.
>And intelligence is the result of what? Genes. Genes are chance.
Irrelevant. Everything is ultimately reliant on chance, but that doesn't mean that you can just discount everything else. Especially in a conversation about topics which are removed from it by definition.
Refer to >>27931
>Oh, I see what you're doing. You're just defining absolutely everything as random chance. Have you ever wondered why we have words other than chance? It's to discuss certain concepts, concepts which are relevant here.
>What you're doing is kind of annoying and ultimately pointless, anon, so I ask you to please step back and examine it for a moment.
You aren't actually telling me anything new or clever by saying that genes or our roots were based on chance. But we weren't discussing our genes, we were discussing our civilization.
I literally asked you that question, by the way. Have you ever wondered why we have words other than chance?
>I'm not.
You pretty much did in every post.
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>>29011
>I find this line of thought both irrelevant and pretentious
You (or whoever post it was) demonstrated same sentiment when speaking of religion. I may have extrapolated a bit too much but judging by what I've seen so far it's likely true.
It's relevant in that it puts all the focus on individuals and their accomplishments without realizing they were the result of their circumstances. Born into another circumstances they might've been a nobody. This goes further. Our entire civilization is the fruit of our circumstances. Were the climate to stay as it was during the ice age, we would likely still be tribal apes, regardless of our traits.
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>>29144
>Well, it's not like you have much room to talk while making the inverse mistake.
AB, man. AB.
>Oh, so now you are admitting that it wasn't only random chance?
Obviously without a human there wouldn't be the cart or the wheel. That doesn't change my point though.
>Our knowledge base you mean.
No. I specifically mentioned that we would be able to restore just a fraction of our progress, knowledge being part of it. Intelligence is a separate issue. And it is dependent on factors that would become very disregarding towards intelligence. People had an IQ of 70 by modern standards just 100 years ago simply because their lives were simpler and didn't require or encourage as much cognitive effort. How much cognitive effort do you think a post-apocalyptic farm boy would need? How much would his parents be able to sate his curiosity? Would he even learn to speak properly, considering how little variance he would have in human contact?
>And yet it was still what built civilization.
Only after the random component basically said "yes, go ahead, I won't wreck your shit I promise ;^)".
>Do you think a computer was made by random chance? Really? Nobody had to design maths and electronics first? Nobody had to come up with the idea for a complex system of logic gates that could be used to solve various problems?
>Do you think a human was made by random chance? Really? Nobody had to design heart and the cardiovascular system first? Nobody had to come up with the idea for a complex system of neurons, capable of transmitting data, that could be used to solve various problems?
There. You're the fedora equivalent of an American religious hick.
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>>29900
I haven't spoken about religion, so no, that wasn't me.
I also haven't spoken about focus on individuals or anything like that. But what are you trying to say here, that individuals are irrelevant? I mean, this is the history board, and you say that?
>This goes further. Our entire civilization is the fruit of our circumstances.
More like, our entire civilization is the fruit of our labor, watered by our circumstances.
It wouldn't exist without either of those things in the same form. And the meaningful things about it come from our labor, not from our circumstances.
>Were the climate to stay as it was during the ice age, we would likely still be tribal apes, regardless of our traits.
You're just indulging in baseless speculation here. Sure, that's possible. Or maybe we would've colonized space by now. It's impossible to know.
>Obviously without a human there wouldn't be the cart or the wheel. That doesn't change my point though.
Yes it does, actually. It goes completely against your point.
>There. You're the fedora equivalent of an American religious hick.
And you're the fedora solipsist who's arguments are literally below the level of ad hominem, and who can't even see when he's disproved himself countless times in a row.
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>>11453
It was a fable made up by Plato to explain to what extent humans could develop into perfect, near gods and his own ideas of state. Given the lack of archaeological evidence (and no, finding a bunch of sites in the mediterranean that *may* be Atlantis does not count as being evidence). Moroever, if Atlantis was put within the historical context of the Minoan settlements, as some historians/archeologists have tried to do so with the Minoan settlement of Akrotiri, surely we would have had any reference of them showing up in Archaic literature.
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>>11453
A fable inspired by distant, mythologized cultural memories of the Minoan civilization.
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>>29144
>But the randomness is irrelevant, since B is all that matters.
What in the wat?
>A huge amount of people want to make discoveries, innovations, profound observations, and so on. It is, in fact, something that people even today are out there and doing.
I could say the same for murder and thievery. There's a lot more people out there and doing that.
Are any of those the result of conscious human effort? Or maybe it was the situation they were born in? Are they the result of human psyche being put into a position where it has no other choice but to act immoral to survive, reviving an echo from the past when murder and pillaging was the norm?
>>29493
A bad player won't do anything with a good hand just like a stupid person won't do anything with an observation. However the observation still has to be made just as the right hand and position has to pre-exist before the good player can bank in.
A more appropriate example would've been blackjack.
>>29817
>Uh. You're under the impression that people have only ever scribbled things down. I mean, you can't think of anything else?
Can you?
Can you somehow prove that all our creativity isn't just something we've seen and experienced and then modified and spat out into the world? That a work of literature isn't a deformed experience of someone? Can you prove with certainty that all our artistic creativity isn't just a regurtiation of what we've seen?
>but that doesn't mean that you can just discount everything else.
But there is nothing else. We just arbitrarily chose where to put the line in this discussion.
>Have you ever wondered why we have words other than chance?
Because in our day to day lives we don't concern ourselves with being right in irrelevant philosophical issues? I mean, have you ever wondered why we have words other than "being right"?
>You pretty much did in every post.
It's because everyone defines chance differently. Is it something you can't affect? Is it pure randomness?
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>>30061
>I also haven't spoken about focus on individuals or anything like that. But what are you trying to say here, that individuals are irrelevant?
That's like focusing on the snowflakes on top of the heap that managed preserving their shape because they weren't crushed.
>You're just indulging in baseless speculation here.
Agriculture is what created our civilization. Had the climate not changed there would've been no other way of people living in densely populated areas. This means a permanent tribal society.
>Or maybe we would've colonized space by now. It's impossible to know.
Nah.
>Yes it does, actually. It goes completely against your point.
It doesn't.
We only do shit when circumstances allow for it.
This shitposting got really out of control.
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>>28241
None of those locations is beyond the pillars of Atlas. Are researchers retarded?
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>>30524
>I could say the same for murder and thievery. There's a lot more people out there and doing that.
So?
>A bad player won't do anything with a good
So? Does that mean it's impossible to be a good player?
>A more appropriate example would've been blackjack.
No, because blackjack doesn't involve much dynamic decision making and thought.
While civilization did and does.
>Can you?
Yes, I already gave you an example too.
>Can you somehow prove that all our creativity isn't just something we've seen and experienced and then modified and spat out into the world?
You're making the claim that it is. Can you prove that it is? Why should I have to disprove your absurd absolute statements?
>But there is nothing else. We just arbitrarily chose where to put the line in this discussion.
No, you arbitrarily chose to get rid of the line of abstraction.
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>>11896
>Nowhere in his works does he ever create myths.
Platonists everyone!
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>>30635
>It doesn't.
>We only do shit when circumstances allow for it.
>This shitposting got really out of control.
Yes it fucking does. You're saying that civilization is based ONLY on random chance. NOTHING ELSE. This is a direct example that you're wrong.
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>>30403
Probably just flooding from the glaciers melting at the end of the last ice age.
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>>11453
Look up Dimitri Rebikoff and Dr J. Manson Valentine.
There findings are interesting to say at least.
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>>11453
>Did it really exist?
Yes and no.
It's certain that there was an ancient civilization to the west of Greece that was swamped by rising seas some thousands of years before Plato lived.
But there probably wasn't an island kingdom out in the Atlantic ocean that matches Plato's description.
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>>11453
Its a rememberance of the antediluvian world.
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>>30871
>So?
Next paragraph, mouthbreather.
>So? Does that mean it's impossible to be a good player?
See, this is why poker is a bad example. A good player can just bluff all the way into the bank, basically cheating retards of their money. But reality isn't something you can cheat. You won't bluff yourself out of a shit weather for crops.
The fact that we're using poker as the allegory means the hand is absolutely irrelevant, because you can just keep arguing that it is theoretically possible to be so good you win always.
Blackjack is appropriate because the hand actually matters. It emulates the reality better.
>No, because blackjack doesn't involve much dynamic decision making and thought.
Are you kidding me?
Are you honestly saying that being good at probabilities isn't something that requires much thought? In a discussion where it's posted side by side to the invention of a fucking wheel??
>Yes, I already gave you an example too.
Yeah and I already showed you how the computer wasn't invented by one single person or even through the continued effort of a group of people with the same goal. It took time, generations even, for the information to accumulate and for the possibilities to connect the last dots to open. Most who contributed directly or indirectly did so with no interest of even knowledge of the goal the guys who actually finished building the first computer had in mind.
It is through these unconscious and/or indirect contributions that most of society got built. Laws, customs, ideals and beliefs evolved over time. Inventions and inventors are the rare exceptions only in regards to how influential their part of the chain was. They're a statistical anomaly, sure, but their contribution is still just one dot amongst many despite having managed connecting many more dots than others. But those other dots still had to be there. And those dots are largely random. Good parents, good nutrition, good neighborhood, good education etc down the line.
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>>30871
>Why should I have to disprove your absurd absolute statements?
Because you just made a claim just like that of the opposite statement?
>No, you arbitrarily chose to get rid of the line of abstraction.
What line? Was there ever a specific point it was at, in this discussion? Didn't it vary in every post?
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>>31357
Well what else is it based on, that in turn isn't based on random chance?
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>>11518
never gonna happen mate
wait till you're dead and hope to go to heaven
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>>31665
If it was everything was just random occurances than there's a chance everything just comes together perfectly if the environment is right.
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>>31665
>See, this is why poker is a bad example.
Who said poker? It can be literally any game that has a random card spread at the start and has some skill involved during play.
That's the analogy. You have a complex system with many random variables, but you can play them off against each other. That's why saying that only randomness matters is absurd.
And YES, it is like that with civilization. You have random roots, and then you have intelligent actions. And unintelligent decisions too, but the fact remains that some of them will be intelligent.
>Are you honestly saying that being good at probabilities isn't something that requires much thought? In a discussion where it's posted side by side to the invention of a fucking wheel??
It's just an array of probabilities. I was going for something with more strategy, since that gives a better civilization analogy.
>Yeah and I already showed you how the computer wasn't invented by one single person or even through the continued effort of a group of people with the same goal.
And why would that matter? A dude went out and designed a computer in simple math terms. Was that random chance? No, he designed it intelligently. It was his decisions and his hard work that created it.
>>31708
Human agency and decision making.
>>31696
>What line?
The line between the hand you're dealt and how you play it.
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>>11453
Yes/no
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>>31708
>that in turn isn't based on random chance?
Well how reductionist are you going to get with what "random chance" is? Because you could argue literally everything is random chance but that'd be the laziest fucking explanation for anything. "Why did the Mongols invade Europe?" "Random chance." "Why did Rome fall?" "Random chance." "Why did my coffee taste like shit this morning?" "Random chance."
As the other anon has been mentioning, human agency is massive in the development of civilization, and much of this can be dependent on circumstances. I believe the debate originated from the theoretical discussion of how quickly a modern civilization could develop under 'perfect circumstances', and assume you basically mean "if all the dice rolls of history worked out perfectly" which is completely unmeasurable anyway.
Not to mention how much development came as an answer to a deficiency. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. Think of all the things war lead to scientifically, whether through conquest or through developing weapons. Does that mean wars are calculated into these "perfect circumstances"?
I agree with what he said, that the modern society we have today is the invention of our own personal "perfect circumstances." All the dice rolled exactly as they did to get us to our exact outcome. Modern society would be different if certain factors had changed.
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>>33592
>Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.
I don't think this is true at all. The egyptians invented so much because the floodings would generate enough food that some could bother with art, astronomy, etc. If all opportunity is the mother of inventions.
If necessity was the crucial factor the greatest inventors would come from the poorest nations, but it's almost always the other way around.
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>>11453
Plato doesn't strike me as a liar.
I'm sure there was an ancient culture that was destroyed by a deluge that was the basis for the story. The rest was probably Chinese whispers style embellishment over many generations.
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>>11453
No, but I personally think Tarshish was in Sardinia and not in Spain.
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I thought it was pretty well accepted that the Minoans were the origin of the Atlantis story?
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>>22266
>Doggerland never existed. It's Nazi propaganda.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3218074/Who-lived-Britain-s-Atlantis-Scientists-set-uncover-secrets-Doggerland-huge-North-Sea-island-lost-waves-7-500-years-ago.html
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/12/doggerland/spinney-text
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/maps/doggerland/
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27224243
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/science-nature/never-heard-of-doggerland-blame-climate-change-from-millennia-ago-72154423/
Doggerland did exist, it's just we don't know the full history of it yet.
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>>11453
This place must have been real. I mean come on, the amount of coincidences is astounding. there must have been an ice age civilization, it isnt even a stretch to say the story is just a bit older than we thought. and of course if there was a civilization during the ice age, they certainly would be wiped out by the destruction at the end of it. so many cultures around the atlantic talk about coming from some sort of atlan/atlantica/atlantis, etc
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>>11453
It might have been referring to the Minoan civilization. Similar story and then that whole volcano eradicating their whole everything tidal waves etc etc.
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>>35970
Maybe it's the merging of multiple stories. There could have been various places like that.
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>>35970
oh yeah lots of similarities but its not beyond the pillars of Hercules, didnt sink, and we have to leave a lot up to analogy vs fact
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>>11453
Plato talking out of his idealistic ass.
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the coolest theory for atlantis I've heard is that it was some sort of land mass from the mid atlantic ridge, which is the meeting place of the european and north american continental plate. during the ice age, the vast, multi-mile thick layers of ice covering the american and european continents were causing an effect called isostacy on the crust. the isostatic pressure is basically caused by the weight of the ice, and where it was on the conintents. because the ice was all on land, the ends of the plates, where the ridge is, would have popped up a a lot, like if you were holding a paper towel with both hands, and then someone put some ice cubes in the center of it. that, combined with the lower sea levels from before the ice melted would have caused a lot of the mid atlantic ridge to be exposed, and from there, it basically fits all of platos criteria, if you discover people lived there, and during the ice age, that was a very lush, resource abundant area of the earth, and the exposed ridge would have probably had valuable metals and stuff too. but i dont know anything of course lol
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>>35112
they arent even outside of the Mediterranean
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