Philosophy Discussion Forums

LuckyR wrote: ↑January 31st, 2018, 4:54 pm

Warden Majere wrote: ↑January 30th, 2018, 5:25 am Steve,

At th end of the day, I am just glad that I am not the only one that has given way too much thought to this particular idea hahaha! Could you imagine their reaction to dubstep? Pulling out that bluetooth speaker would be my last act before being hauled off to a witch trial.

Probably not as dramatic as your reaction to lunch.

Lunch was pretty amazing... Not sure that I'm getting your joke though.

Warden Majere wrote: ↑February 7th, 2018, 4:30 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑January 31st, 2018, 4:54 pm

Probably not as dramatic as your reaction to lunch.

Lunch was pretty amazing... Not sure that I'm getting your joke though.

Well, there was a dish literally called "garbage" (their word for gizzards): "Take good giblets (garbage): chickens’ heads, feet, livers, and gizzards, and wash them clean. Throw them into a nice pot, and add fresh beef broth, powdered pepper, cinnamon, cloves, mace, parsley and sage chopped small. Then take bread, steep it in the same broth, draw it through a strainer, add and let boil till done. Add powdered ginger, verjuice (sour grape or apple juice), salt, and a little saffron, and serve it forth"

Steve3007 wrote: ↑December 19th, 2017, 1:09 pm I don't think the health benefits of hygiene would be immediate or obvious enough to convince them to make you their king or anything. And I don't think the application of modern business principles would be relevant enough. You'd struggle to get them to see the genius of the supermarket loyalty card system, for example.

The food seems to me to be your best shot. See if you can establish yourself as the world's first celebrity chef.

Hi Steve. At the risk that you will send me packing again for not being philosophical enough, I'll just say this. Even in the 1960's, a lot of people had halitosis. Very few people used dental floss, if there even was any, and there were no soft picks. I can only shudder at what kind of breath you would encounter in Medieval times.

Today when I sleep with young women, they will wake up, turn their heads to me, exhale in the existential empiricism (my nod to philosophy) of facing another day, and say good morning. And their breath is wonderful! if a tad earthy. I would never want to go back.

I'd go back to 10kbp and get me one of those mammoth steaks.

I'd go back 70 million years and get a huge dinosaur steak which would be placed on an attachment to the window of my car and would tip the car over, a la Flintstones.

You wouldn't live for a month, maybe not even for a week. The germs and viruses would make short work of you. There were probably a few we haven't even heard of or can't directly identify. Our immune systems are anemic compared to the kind they must have had to even survive 35 years.

Jklint: Given the rapid rate at which bacteria and viruses evolve compared to their larger multi-cellular cousins (us) I fear you're right.

It's interesting to think, in broad terms, about why this rate of evolution is so relatively rapid. I guess one reason is that individual organisms - individual cells - undergo random mutations in the same way that our individual cells do, but the life and death of those individual bacterial cells represents the life and death of a generation of the species. Whereas the life and death of our own cells doesn't. So we, as individual organisms who are also collectives, live longer per generation.

I wonder if it would have been physically possible for a multi-cellular creature to have evolved which could, as necessary, also split up into individual free-living cells. Kind of like the liquid metal robot in the Terminator films.

Or possibly more like "The Thing". 1980s version with Kurt Russell.

Jklint wrote: ↑October 11th, 2018, 3:46 am You wouldn't live for a month, maybe not even for a week. The germs and viruses would make short work of you. There were probably a few we haven't even heard of or can't directly identify. Our immune systems are anemic compared to the kind they must have had to even survive 35 years.

Our immune systems have not genetically changed much for a 100 generations. Our system only evolves in vivo and and ad hoc; what it learns does not pass to the gametes. And what a child's immune system can learn is only limited to a short period post partum suckling, and it's time in the womb.

Since germs evolve continually we might be better equipped to deal with old style bacteria, than a person in the past is able to deal with the modern bacteria. Since being alive now necessitates generational survival of the germs of the last human generation.

ThomasHobbes wrote: ↑October 11th, 2018, 5:51 am

Jklint wrote: ↑October 11th, 2018, 3:46 am You wouldn't live for a month, maybe not even for a week. The germs and viruses would make short work of you. There were probably a few we haven't even heard of or can't directly identify. Our immune systems are anemic compared to the kind they must have had to even survive 35 years.

Our immune systems have not genetically changed much for a 100 generations. Our system only evolves in vivo and and ad hoc; what it learns does not pass to the gametes. And what a child's immune system can learn is only limited to a short period post partum suckling, and it's time in the womb.

Since germs evolve continually we might be better equipped to deal with old style bacteria, than a person in the past is able to deal with the modern bacteria. Since being alive now necessitates generational survival of the germs of the last human generation.

What you write may very well be true if it weren't for antibiotics weakening the immune system. I should have been more explicit. In 3rd world countries, for example, individuals who may never have been exposed to any kind of antibiotic could probably better survive a medieval environment than those in a first world bloc. I may be wrong but if any in the latter group could be transported to that approximate period, I fail to see how they wouldn't be more prone to succumb than those whose immune systems have long been programmed to their circumstances.

I still believe that most individuals of our time, for whatever reasons, would have an exceptionally limited probability of surviving in those times shortly after arriving. But there will always be exceptions.

Jklint wrote: ↑October 11th, 2018, 3:56 pm

ThomasHobbes wrote: ↑October 11th, 2018, 5:51 am

Our immune systems have not genetically changed much for a 100 generations. Our system only evolves in vivo and and ad hoc; what it learns does not pass to the gametes. And what a child's immune system can learn is only limited to a short period post partum suckling, and it's time in the womb.

Since germs evolve continually we might be better equipped to deal with old style bacteria, than a person in the past is able to deal with the modern bacteria. Since being alive now necessitates generational survival of the germs of the last human generation.

What you write may very well be true if it weren't for antibiotics weakening the immune system.

They do not.

ThomasHobbes wrote: ↑October 11th, 2018, 4:38 pm

Jklint wrote: ↑October 11th, 2018, 3:56 pm

What you write may very well be true if it weren't for antibiotics weakening the immune system.

They do not.

No, though they allow those with poor immune systems to pass along their genetic material

LuckyR wrote: ↑October 11th, 2018, 5:12 pm

ThomasHobbes wrote: ↑October 11th, 2018, 4:38 pm

They do not.

No, though they allow those with poor immune systems to pass along their genetic material

A couple of things to consider.
Viruses are not affected by antibiotics, and so are not relevant to the discussion. Additionally :
It's hardly significant for our conversation since they have only been widely available for the last two generations.

For the most dangerous bacterial infections we all carry sufficient immunity from vaccines and exposure whilst in good health, and thus never suffered from the consequences of exposure.


Antibiotics as well as other medical advancements have also allowed people with excellent genetic material to pass on their genes that would otherwise have been denied the human race for the incidence of a random infection.


The danger of getting infected has much more do to with simple hygiene . Were any of us to travel to the past it we would do so with the knowledge of modern hygienic practice.