Possible survival from Extinction

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Wmhoerr
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Possible survival from Extinction

Post by Wmhoerr »

Let’s say humans suddenly disappeared because of some catastrophe such as a bird virus or asteroid strike. There would then be a huge void for a top predator. A niche has become vacant. However, if there were still chimpanzees or one of the other five ape species, a few mutations and a few million years later and we might have humans back again in roughly the same configuration. (The chimpanzee/human split was about 6 million years ago).

If the apes were gone and we were back to earlier monkeys the evolutionary path would be longer. If there were only rodents left well, who knows?

Had the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago not happened, we might have had a reptile as the dominant predator today. People should not take their existence for granted. There was a large element of chance in our evolution. It seems that we have been lucky along the way.
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LuckyR
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Re: Possible survival from Extinction

Post by LuckyR »

It's well known that the victor gets to write the history books. Humans are currently doing the writing, as you say it is really an accident of history. As to the future, I agree with you that a few million years post humans, it will be difficult to tell we were ever here.
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Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
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Re: Possible survival from Extinction

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Moderator's Note: I moved this topic to the off-topic section since all topics in the argumentative forums must make a full philosophical argument or ask an open-ended philosophical question.
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

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I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
Wmhoerr
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Re: Possible survival from Extinction

Post by Wmhoerr »

There are two main ideas in this question. Perhaps my writing style does no make them so obvious.

The first is "do we consider ourselves as special?" If we can come and go several several times in more or less a similar form then humans are not unique. There is a place at the top of the triangle and that is it.

The second is that our form contains an element of luck and if physical events in our geological past had not happened in the way they did, something else might be at the top.

If these ideas are correct, then we are not special, not created in anyone's image, and should not have such a high opinion of ourselves.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Possible survival from Extinction

Post by Sy Borg »

Wmhoerr wrote: February 1st, 2019, 1:37 am There are two main ideas in this question. Perhaps my writing style does no make them so obvious.

The first is "do we consider ourselves as special?" If we can come and go several several times in more or less a similar form then humans are not unique. There is a place at the top of the triangle and that is it.

The second is that our form contains an element of luck and if physical events in our geological past had not happened in the way they did, something else might be at the top.

If these ideas are correct, then we are not special, not created in anyone's image, and should not have such a high opinion of ourselves.
Heh, of course humans are special! I don't see many other species with a a space program.

Then again, it's not actually humans, is it? It's humanity. That's not the same thing. Humanity is "The System", "The Establishment" and, let's face it, most of us loathe and detest many aspects of the collective as much as we love and value individual beings. Yet we identify with the collective's achievements as if they were our own.

When we speak of ant nests, the individual ants are not considered impressive at all, but the collective is seen as a force to be reckoned with. It's much the same with humans. By ourselves we are unusual with some evolutionary "innovations" but exactly the same could have been said of dinosaurs and trilobites in their heydays. However, as the collective "humanity" we have become a powerful and transformative part of nature, as profound in our influence as a supervolcano or a continental shift.

Not since the advent of microbes has the biosphere generated such a powerful transformative force. Until the emergence of "super-powered" colonial beings like microbes and humans the most powerful influences on the Earth's surface were the crust, the atmosphere and hydrosphere, with biology passively being shaped by these larger powers.

We and other mammals descended from shrewlike animals (probably monotremes) that survived the dinosaurs' asteroid in just 60 millions years (each post extinction regeneration happens more quickly). So, if humans suddenly died out, then my money would be on rats being the germ of the next intelligent line. They are immensely more sophisticated and intelligent than early mammals would have been (still with residual reptilian limitations). However, if a runaway greenhouse effect is in play, given the heating of the Sun, that might also be game over for intelligence on the planet.

Still, I see the most likely scenario as being that elements of civilisation will remain and the most privileged humans will become more machinelike and their machines more humanlike. By the time something really serious happens that ends biology on the planet's surface, my guess is that sentient machines will carry on, probably seeding as many local planets and moons as possible with either themselves or microbes.
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