Could a more sophisticated being follow humans?

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vetivert
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29 May 2005, 2:48 am

street cred? pah! i don't feel the need for street cred, having never had much (i suspect). but then, i decided to be the weird, bizarre, outlandish eccentric i am at an early age. bollocks to street cred - I'LL decide about it, and be the one who decides i'm "cool" (or whatever colloquialism is in current vogue - i'm sure someone will enlighten me). be a leader, not a follower.

actually, thinking about it, this really does happen - you'd be amazed at the number of kiddies who start wearing clothes/hair like me, after i've been in a school a few times...

anyway, the bonzos are geniuses. and i don't even mind being compared to someone's dad - after all, i'm probably a similar age.

so, i stick by my original comment.

/me sticks tongue out, in a very same-age-as-your-dad way.



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29 May 2005, 3:31 pm

Just like to say, YES, there are lotsa fossils out there. But for the most part, the areas in which Hominids and relations were supposed to have lived do not create an excess of fossils. Fossils require very specific environments from which to form. Those fossils we have found, of Homos habilis, erectus, floresiensis, neanderthalis, and the other non-homonid ancestors, have been INCREDIBLY lucky finds.

The amount of fossils we have found on earth cannot begin to compare to the number of species who have lived and died here.


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Morlock
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30 May 2005, 2:48 pm

for a very strange "superior being" and end-of-the-world scenario involving genetically-enhanced squid, the Carter Catastrophe, and superintelligent aspie children from the future(I kid you not), see Staphen Baxter's excellent book Manifold: Time



Morlock
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30 May 2005, 2:52 pm

pizzaboss wrote:
no theory I know proves there is another being.

WOOHOOT! a fellow solipsist!! ! At least as far as I can imagine I have met a another solipsist, but... wow, isnt this inherently contradictory.



vetivert
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30 May 2005, 5:51 pm

good ol' bishop berkley...

i wrote a short story about solipsism once (sort of)...



Morlock
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30 May 2005, 11:00 pm

vetivert wrote:
good ol' bishop berkley...

i wrote a short story about solipsism once (sort of)...

A story? what kinda story? and who's this bishop guy?



TAFKASH
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10 Jun 2005, 10:27 pm

vetivert wrote:
i wrote a short story about solipsism once (sort of)...


....or maybe I just thought that you did.....


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11 Jun 2005, 2:08 pm

Bishop Berkeley, man. "Nothing exists unless I perceive it!" WOOHOOOOOO!! !


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12 Jun 2005, 12:03 am

It really depends on what you mean by the ultimate creature. If we are to believe that Evolution is a natural mechanism in the universe(which i do), then the ultimate creature is just one which perpetuates its existance best. But best is also kind of subjective. Bacteria have a very short lifespan relatively speaking, but they're still doing pretty well for themselves. Humans live about 60-70 years in some of the better countries and we are certainly not the longest living creatures out there. And although we have dominated all of the bigger animals for a few thousand years, bacteria have been existing for an obscene amount of time compared to how long homosapian-ish things have been around and their population makes ours look embarising. So as far as ultimate in the sense of a creature capable of prepetuating its existance best, i think it is fair to say that nature has a ways to go.

Ultimate in terms of changing our environment to fit us instead of the other way around? I think nature could produce a species more proficient at it than us, but we wont be seeing such a thing on our planet besides other variations on homosapians. We may run into alien creatures which are more proficient at it, but we'll kill or ret*d the development of anything other than homosapian-ish creatures.

And humans are not moving in the direction of smarter, more scientific, intelligent people. If you may have noticed, stupid people have had little to no problem breeding. If we wanna make smarter humans we can't do it with eugenics. Stupid people are not going to stand for eugenics. We have to create a new environment where humans who are a certain degree of stupid are doomed to die.

It really depends on what you mean by ultimate creature but in general yes, nature can produce a s**t ton better of an ultimate creature based on our values than we are right now.