The Most Important Breakthroughs in Human History

[allegoring]

From Wikipedia:

As of December 2019, the ATOMKI paper describing the particle has not been peer reviewed, and should therefore be considered preliminary. Furthermore, efforts by CERN and other groups to independently detect the particle have been unsuccessful.

The ATOMKI group had claimed to find various other new particles earlier in 2016, but abandoned these claims later, without an explanation of what caused the spurious signals. The group has also been accused of cherry-picking results that support new particles while discarding null results.

The X17 particle is not consistent with the Standard Model, so its existence would need to be explained by another theory.

Well, in three years the Large Hadron Collider should let us know if the research is good or not. According to one researcher at CERN, "By 2023, the LHCb experiment should be able to make a definitive measurement to confirm or refute the interpretation of the Atomki anomalies as arising from a new fundamental force." In the meantime, healthy skepticism is in order, although it's undeniable that if true it will be one of the most significant discoveries of the past fifty years.

[allegoring]

Can't think of anything really big from the last 10 years. Hmm well, it may be also very early, but there seem to be some direct confirmation now that black holes have no hair. That may eventually do away with the idea that black holes have high entropy, which never made much sense frankly. And do away with the "encoded information" nonsense in general that has plagued science and philosophy for the last few decades.

Black holes definitely seem like one of the most fertile areas for research now, although they're also one of the hardest to fathom, not least because the laws of physics seem to break down within them. What's also interesting is further research into the possibility that black holes may eventually become white holes toward the end of their "life cycles," ultimately spewing out matter and energy in a massive eruption. It's speculated even the Big Bang itself may have been just such a white hole.

[allegoring]

You forgot to mention the date of my conversion to German idealism. The list assumes the important things have objective, that is, visible to all, features. But this is not true; in fact, there is only one reality, and that is the self and its phenomena. Momentous events are all entirely in the abstract if considered as occurring within the institutions we construct. These institutions have existence only in so far as they are found within an actual self and have no existence, no actuality, outside this. Forget about the Hubble telescope, e.g.: there never was such a "thing" but there was only a collective that agreed, and this agreement found it instrumental to some purpose, but the purpose was always reducible to individuals and their needs, desires, thoughts.

German idealism played an important role in the development of modern philosophy, but I think it'd be more accurate to characterize it as a religious movement on the whole rather than a philosophical movement. Its basic claims ask more for belief than skeptical rationality. Hegel, for example, took the Christian God and basically substituted the Absolute for it. Naturally a person can only ultimately know the contents of his or her own mind, but the most reasonable explanation for the sensory input that a person's mind receives is the existence of some kind of outer world that gave rise to our brains along with other brains like our own -- brains which natural selection sculpted over millions of years in order to generate the emergent phenomenon of consciousness, which in turn can interpret and perceive external stimuli so as to aid our survival on this planet. Of course there's no way of knowing what the world would look like without our eyes being around to perceive it (which Kant famously called the "thing in itself") and it's clear that the way natural selection shaped our brains and sensory organs is a bit arbitrary and at times very misleading -- hence optical illusions, blind spots, phenomena that our senses can't perceive but other animals can, etc. But to think that our minds are a magical emanation of the Absolute seems like a bad explanation compared to the explanation that science and specifically evolutionary theory provides. If Hegel had been able to read Darwin, I think he would have come to some very different conclusions. But if solipsism is your thing, far be it from me to try and dissuade you, but I just don't see much to back up that particular outlook other than a kind of blind faith.

[allegoring]

History is fairly well known and taught in schools across the world from this point on.

But early history is not well know, and prehistory is anybody's guess.

But this is how I would lay the early discoveries and accomplishments out.

We will never know the name of the lady who probably invented agriculture, but she influenced all of us the most.

Thanks to her our bellies are always full.

Thanks for the detailed reply. It's an interesting idea to start the list with the achievements of our hominin ancestors . . . I briefly toyed with the idea of starting with the Big Bang and summing up the most important milestones that the universe and evolution reached to give rise to human beings, but ultimately decided against it since the dates get too fuzzy and the breakthroughs too sketchy (although it'd still be fun to try and do). I would add that some of your list is a bit speculative, and some of the dates rather questionable. For example, the Altamira cave paintings are thought to date back to 34,000 BCE, not 2 million BCE. Also, several different cultures independently developed agriculture at different times around the world, so it's unlikely there'd be just one "agricultural eve" as you mentioned.

[Sy Borg]

Prehistory and history then both go on for several millions of years with nothing really significant that we know by anyone particularly significant, until we come to the inventor of agriculture. This person was probably a female, because females were gatherers while males were hunters. She may have returned some of her seeds or fruits that she gathered into the earth, as a thank offering to the gods. Then she may have seen them sprout into newly growing plants. Eventually she may have begun to grow her own food. This would have sparked a major revolution for all the population of the Earth at that time. We don't know a name for her nor where she lived, but it is likely that she lived in one of the major river valleys.

I was thinking that agriculture was the turning point. As you mentioned, nothing much changed until the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. A fair bit has changed since.

Still, it could also be said that not much changed after the advent of agriculture until the development of the nation state - Egypt, Carthage, Greece, and Rome in the west (unsure of far eastern timelines but I assume they were roughly equivalent).

Again things stabilised until the steam engine. The heating of the Earth can be traced to the industrial era, as can rapid advancements.

Then we have the internet. Another transformative force leading to rapid change.

So we have these pivotal moments in history. But perhaps the most pivotal change was the first, with the first tribe of hominids capable of perceiving the passing of time. Until then, all animals lived in the present moment, unable to even plan a day ahead. The capacity to perceive the passing of time was as important an evolutionary innovation as the first true, clearly seeing eyes.

This gave humans the capacity to cooperate flexibly in groups, constantly outflanking other animals just as trilobites - the first animals to see clearly - did 400 million years ago.

A special mention to Sputnik, the first craft sent into space, a critical first step if humanity's successors are to have a long term future.

[allegoring]

If I had to choose the most important breakthrough of all, I'd probably say language. Without the ability to communicate with one another, to name things, and to manipulate the language of numbers that is mathematics, I don't see how humans could have developed rationality, civilization, and all the rest. We can see this directly in the case of feral children who are raised by wolves or other animals from birth -- they never develop linguistic skills without other humans around to teach them, and never gain more than a bestial sort of intelligence and very primitive sense of reason. Of course, you could argue that language isn't fundamentally a human invention, but instead one of natural selection, since there are deep structures in our brains that are soft-wired to wield languages. The thing is, there's really no agreed-on date for when our ability to use language began, with estimates ranging from millions of years ago to just a few tens of thousands of years ago. The most likely case is that language has been evolving our ancestors' brains, and our ancestors' brains have in turn been developing language, in a sort of reciprocal back and forth -- hand-in-glove with natural and artificial selection -- since before our species formally arrived 300,000 years ago.

[NickGaspar]

The most important breakthrough in Human History will be our decision to use the most successful intellectual method we currently have to organize and take care the problems of our human societies. That is Science.

[Tamminen]

You forgot to mention the date of my conversion to German idealism. The list assumes the important things have objective, that is, visible to all, features. But this is not true; in fact, there is only one reality, and that is the self and its phenomena. Momentous events are all entirely in the abstract if considered as occurring within the institutions we construct. These institutions have existence only in so far as they are found within an actual self and have no existence, no actuality, outside this. Forget about the Hubble telescope, e.g.: there never was such a "thing" but there was only a collective that agreed, and this agreement found it instrumental to some purpose, but the purpose was always reducible to individuals and their needs, desires, thoughts.

I agree. In my opinion, the most important breakthrough in the history of the whole cosmos is the Copernican revolution, not of Copernicus, but Kant. It started perhaps in Greece with the principle of homo mensura, and got more depth in the ideas of Descartes, until received its name and further analysis in the works of Kant. Then it got increasing depth with Husserl. It is still in progress, being in its counter-revolutionary phase at the moment. It is the cosmic revolution of understanding that there is no cosmos without the subject's existence. It is the revolution of our coming back to ourselves, from where we are alienated at the moment, especially in science.

[allegoring]

Nietzsche probably offered the pithiest and most eloquent critique of Kant's circular metaphysical arguments in Beyond Good and Evil:

"It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present to divert attention from the actual influence which Kant exercised on German philosophy, and especially to ignore prudently the value which he set upon himself. Kant was first and foremost proud of his Table of Categories; with it in his hand he said: "This is the most difficult thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics." Let us only understand this "could be"! He was proud of having discovered a new faculty in man, the faculty of synthetic judgment a priori. Granting that he deceived himself in this matter; the development and rapid flourishing of German philosophy depended nevertheless on his pride, and on the eager rivalry of the younger generation to discover if possible something--at all events "new faculties"--of which to be still prouder!--But let us reflect for a moment--it is high time to do so. "How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?" Kant asks himself--and what is really his answer? "By means of a means (faculty)"--but unfortunately not in five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, and with such display of German profundity and verbal flourishes, that one altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved in such an answer. People were beside themselves with delight over this new faculty, and the jubilation reached its climax when Kant further discovered a moral faculty in man--for at that time Germans were still moral, not yet dabbling in the "Politics of hard fact." Then came the honeymoon of German philosophy. All the young theologians of the Tubingen institution went immediately into the groves--all seeking for "faculties." And what did they not find--in that innocent, rich, and still youthful period of the German spirit, to which Romanticism, the malicious fairy, piped and sang, when one could not yet distinguish between "finding" and "inventing"! Above all a faculty for the "transcendental"; Schelling christened it, intellectual intuition, and thereby gratified the most earnest longings of the naturally pious-inclined Germans. One can do no greater wrong to the whole of this exuberant and eccentric movement (which was really youthfulness, notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and senile conceptions), than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral indignation. Enough, however--the world grew older, and the dream vanished. A time came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still rub them today. People had been dreaming, and first and foremost--old Kant. "By means of a means (faculty)"--he had said, or at least meant to say. But, is that--an answer? An explanation? Or is it not rather merely a repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep? "By means of a means (faculty), "namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor in Moliere,

"Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva, Cujus est natura sensus assoupire."

[h_k_s]

Prehistory and history then both go on for several millions of years with nothing really significant that we know by anyone particularly significant, until we come to the inventor of agriculture. This person was probably a female, because females were gatherers while males were hunters. She may have returned some of her seeds or fruits that she gathered into the earth, as a thank offering to the gods. Then she may have seen them sprout into newly growing plants. Eventually she may have begun to grow her own food. This would have sparked a major revolution for all the population of the Earth at that time. We don't know a name for her nor where she lived, but it is likely that she lived in one of the major river valleys.

I was thinking that agriculture was the turning point. As you mentioned, nothing much changed until the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. A fair bit has changed since.

Still, it could also be said that not much changed after the advent of agriculture until the development of the nation state - Egypt, Carthage, Greece, and Rome in the west (unsure of far eastern timelines but I assume they were roughly equivalent).

Again things stabilised until the steam engine. The heating of the Earth can be traced to the industrial era, as can rapid advancements.

Then we have the internet. Another transformative force leading to rapid change.

So we have these pivotal moments in history. But perhaps the most pivotal change was the first, with the first tribe of hominids capable of perceiving the passing of time. Until then, all animals lived in the present moment, unable to even plan a day ahead. The capacity to perceive the passing of time was as important an evolutionary innovation as the first true, clearly seeing eyes.

This gave humans the capacity to cooperate flexibly in groups, constantly outflanking other animals just as trilobites - the first animals to see clearly - did 400 million years ago.

A special mention to Sputnik, the first craft sent into space, a critical first step if humanity's successors are to have a long term future.

France was actually the first "nation state."

Prior to that time there were empires, but not "nation states."

And Sargon The Great was the first empire builder. I mentioned him.

[h_k_s]

History is fairly well known and taught in schools across the world from this point on.

But early history is not well know, and prehistory is anybody's guess.

But this is how I would lay the early discoveries and accomplishments out.

We will never know the name of the lady who probably invented agriculture, but she influenced all of us the most.

Thanks to her our bellies are always full.

Thanks for the detailed reply. It's an interesting idea to start the list with the achievements of our hominin ancestors . . . I briefly toyed with the idea of starting with the Big Bang and summing up the most important milestones that the universe and evolution reached to give rise to human beings, but ultimately decided against it since the dates get too fuzzy and the breakthroughs too sketchy (although it'd still be fun to try and do). I would add that some of your list is a bit speculative, and some of the dates rather questionable. For example, the Altamira cave paintings are thought to date back to 34,000 BCE, not 2 million BCE. Also, several different cultures independently developed agriculture at different times around the world, so it's unlikely there'd be just one "agricultural eve" as you mentioned.

There could have been several "agricultural Eve's," you are correct.

[gater]

With the year 2020 almost upon us, I thought it'd be fun to look back on the most important events in human history -- those watershed moments where paradigms radically shifted or horizons dramatically expanded. Naturally there are many different ways of looking at history, which will in turn yield very different lists of humanity's most significant achievements. But regardless of the particular philosophy of history to which you subscribe, there are certain discoveries that most people would agree stand out as crucial. I've put together a relatively short list of these, but don't doubt that I'm leaving a lot out, so I'd be interested to hear what other people would add to (or remove from) the list. Okay, here goes:



Nice list. I'd put mans abilty to make and use fire as his greatest acheivement. It's what really separated man from ape.

[Palumboism]

I would add:

Electro megnetic induction - Michael Faraday 1831

Alternating current and AC electric motor - Tesla 1886

[Palumboism]

The Mits Altair 8800 computer really kicked off the home PC movement in 1975. This is the computer that sparked the creation of both Microsoft and Apple.

[Palumboism]

Also add:

The Apple 1 released in 1976
Netscape navigator 1994
The Iphone in 2007

I see the Apple 1 as the start of the PC revolution and the Iphone as the start of the smart phone revolution. For most people the internet started with the release of Nescape Navigator.

In my lifetime I see the internet, smartphone, and PC as the key inventions that changed to world and most of us lived through these changes.