Where's the evidence for pre human civilization?

[JTEM is Magic]

Google: The Cambrian Explosion.

We find this almost SUDDEN abundance of
(FSVO) large, complex life, some of it amazingly
well preserved in places like Canada, dating
back a half billion years or so.

500,000,000 years.

There would have to be evidence of past
civilizations no matter when they existed. Even if
it was a billion years ago, there are rocks that old.
There are fossils that old.

So the oldest absolutely positively proven as fact
to be fact fossils ever found are BILLIONS of years
old. Well, until the exact same tests that confirmed
it also confirmed fossilized life in meteorites that
likely originated on Mars...

But you get it: If there was a past civilization we
would find it.

Okay maybe we wouldn't find their monogramed
spoons or their TV remotes but, yeah we could find
fossilized impressions of their technology. We could
find the chemical signatures of their industry. We
could find evidence of their exploitation of natural
resources.

Roman silver coins are evidence for the roman
civilization, yes, but so aren't the remains of their
silver mining operations! Either is evidence that they
existed.

The sediments laid down by their rivers, their lakes,
their delta regions, their more shallow seas should
capture both their trinkets and the chemical signatures
of their industry...

We'd see anomalies. We'd find the traces of chemicals
released by manufacturers and the products that they
manufactured.

"Rare earth minerals" are all the rage today. They're a
topic on everybody's Facebook. And if you collect these
things and then deposit an unnatural concentration in
landfills/garbage dumps, that's a sign of civilizations.

...your extraction efforts are also a sign.

And just noticing that, yeah, THESE ARE the conditions
under which we should find rare earth elements, or gold
or silver or copper, and we don't find them,. is evidence
that someone got there before you....

No it wouldn't take 50,000 or 100k years to wipe out all
traces of our civilization. The evidence for our existence
is here to stay. We could all vanish tomorrow and another
civilization might still find the proof that we were here
even a billion years beyond our extinction.







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[Mike]

I think such evidence would and does exist but the
trouble is to interpret it. There are to many factors
that could lead to a skewed interpretation. It would
be easy to come to wrong conclusions.

>
>
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> https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/668803116618137600

[JTEM is Magic]

Mike wrote:

> JTEM is Magic wrote:
> > No it wouldn't take 50,000 or 100k years to wipe out all
> > traces of our civilization. The evidence for our existence
> > is here to stay. We could all vanish tomorrow and another
> > civilization might still find the proof that we were here
> > even a billion years beyond our extinction.

> I think such evidence would and does exist but the
> trouble is to interpret it. There are to many factors
> that could lead to a skewed interpretation. It would
> be easy to come to wrong conclusions.

What kind of evidence would you look for?

I think energy is the #1 target here. Because even if they hit a
level of technology well beyond us -- even 10,000 years beyond us
-- they undoubtedly would need to progress through more primitive
states in order to arrive there.

I mean, you can't go from sticks & rocks to wind and solar. Not only
is it impossible to make such a leap but there would be no reason
for it.

Right?

Heating, cooling, cooking, lighting, communications, transportation... it
all requires energy.

Originally this was accomplished with wood i.e. fire and food.

Feed a human, they do the work. Or feed an animal and it will do the
work for the human. Burn wood to stay warm, cook and make tools.

By the time written history started people could exploit wind power
for sailing, and the Romans (and I'm sure others) exploited water
power (water wheels). Later wind power was harnessed on land in the
form of windmills.

The problem with water & windmills is that it tied you down. Maybe you
could divert a river, that was already a thing in Roman times, but then
your water mill was tied to where ever you diverted it to. The power
was where the river was, and nowhere else. And the same was true of
windmills. BUT THEN steam power came along and the power could
not go to the mill. The mill needn't go to the power.

Steam was powered by wood, yes, but very soon replaced by coal. This
was probably because people could find trees locally, but there wasn't
always a local coal mine. Eventually though the communication systems,
transportation facilities & economics allowed coal to win out, only for
oil to then beat out coal.

When you think of it, the coal boilers on the Titanic needed men to shovel
coal. But the WWII liberty ships, still powered by boilers, were fueled by
oil.

...imagine a car that needed a person to shovel fuel into the engine?

Energy is the key.

So if there was a prior civilization it required energy. So we could look for
the chemical traces of that energy, their fuel. It came from somewhere, we
can find the evidence of that exploitation if we look.

Even if all the silver of ancient Rome were lost or long since melted and
reused, we could still find the evidence of their mining.

Roman slag -- the biproduct of their iron operations -- was so plentiful that
people were exploiting it as an iron source less than a century ago!

(Ancient industry was far from efficient. Their slag had a lot of iron remaining
in it)

So for over a thousand years it was far easier to find the remains of Roman
iron production than Roman iron itself...

The point here is that you can search for things directly or indirectly.

That's the second point. The first point is that a civilization needs energy, so
if we were going to find evidence, and everything is to some extant "Gone,"
the residual from the energy.

Pollution. Mining. Waste.

Even solar panels & wind turbines require some pretty fancy stuff. Rare earth
minerals. Polymers.





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[Mike]

On Thursday, 25 November 2021 at 20:44:03 UTC-8, JTEM is Magic wrote:
> Mike wrote:
> > JTEM is Magic wrote:
> > > No it wouldn't take 50,000 or 100k years to wipe out all
> > > traces of our civilization. The evidence for our existence
> > > is here to stay. We could all vanish tomorrow and another
> > > civilization might still find the proof that we were here
> > > even a billion years beyond our extinction.
>
> > I think such evidence would and does exist but the
> > trouble is to interpret it. There are to many factors
> > that could lead to a skewed interpretation. It would
> > be easy to come to wrong conclusions.
> What kind of evidence would you look for?

Evidence of their satellite system that burned out and
feel back to earth. All kinds of things could be that could
leave all kinds of evidence that we would never have any
clue of, just because our minds may not be thinking along
those lines or that dimension.

>
> I think energy is the #1 target here. Because even if they hit a
> level of technology well beyond us -- even 10,000 years beyond us
> -- they undoubtedly would need to progress through more primitive
> states in order to arrive there.

Maybe their 'technology' didn't revolve around energy.
Acupuncture and reflexology are technologies that
might not leave the kinds of trace you might expect,
especially if one doesn't even believe this is possible.
I could think of probably infinite possibilities. Our
definitions of technology can be somewhat constrained.

>
> I mean, you can't go from sticks & rocks to wind and solar. Not only
> is it impossible to make such a leap but there would be no reason
> for it.
>
> Right?

I don't see why that has to be true at all. I believe technology
transfers are possible over the eons or over huge distances.
I think the Universe has an innate technology transfer, one that
doesn't require physical exploration or traversing huge distances.
For instance eyes can develop spontaneously anywhere in the
universe. There are even a variety of different kinds of 'eyes', but
eyes seem somewhat universal. I think it's fair to say creatures
on other planets might have eyes too, at least some might.

>
> Heating, cooling, cooking, lighting, communications, transportation... it
> all requires energy.

No, they could have had crystal balls that they used in their caves
that would allow them to peer into the Sirius Galaxy. There are all
kinds of notions of technology that could even exist naturally that
one might not even consider. Think of a plant that might grow a
leaf that when you put it on your ears you could peer into the
Andromeda systems. Anything is possible in a Universe of infinite
possibility.

>
> Originally this was accomplished with wood i.e. fire and food.

Some civilizations used magic to get everything done, and it worked.
It's not my place to say how. I'm just speculating.

>
> Feed a human, they do the work. Or feed an animal and it will do the
> work for the human. Burn wood to stay warm, cook and make tools.

The concept of work may be a misnomer. It may not be a universally
necessary requirement. Pockets of abundance always exist and civilizations
spring up around its natural abundance. It's actually a stupid people who
adapt to live in places where they shouldn't survive, Don't live in the desert
and then you don't need air condition. To survive on less and less is a worthy
aim for a civilization. I can imagine just about anything could be lurking just
beyond ones awareness.

>
> By the time written history started people could exploit wind power
> for sailing, and the Romans (and I'm sure others) exploited water
> power (water wheels). Later wind power was harnessed on land in the
> form of windmills.

Some civilizations may have perfected the technique of
how to survive on just breathing air. If they could do it
why not. What trace would there be of a civilization that
survived simply from breathing fumes? An Indian woman
told me once that some gurus can survive on just a leaf
everyday.

>
> The problem with water & windmills is that it tied you down. Maybe you
> could divert a river, that was already a thing in Roman times, but then
> your water mill was tied to where ever you diverted it to. The power
> was where the river was, and nowhere else. And the same was true of
> windmills. BUT THEN steam power came along and the power could
> not go to the mill. The mill needn't go to the power.

Transduction the various dimensions through meditation, is another
kind of civilization. Civilizations don't necessarily have to be physical
in nature, at least not to my thinking. The purpose for existence is to
have a richer experience. Enhancing experience should be the main
purpose of a civilization. I'm not even sure what we have should be
classified as a civilization. I think it functions more like a farm. There
is a distinct distinction between civilizations and people farms.

>
> Steam was powered by wood, yes, but very soon replaced by coal. This
> was probably because people could find trees locally, but there wasn't
> always a local coal mine. Eventually though the communication systems,
> transportation facilities & economics allowed coal to win out, only for
> oil to then beat out coal.

I honestly believe an advanced civilization can spring up
spontaneously around a single idea starting out in it's very
advanced stage, not needing to go through the process
of evolution. There is always change, but change does
not need to be seen as evolution. Nothing is more evolved
than anything else. It all depends one ones perspective.

>
> When you think of it, the coal boilers on the Titanic needed men to shovel
> coal. But the WWII liberty ships, still powered by boilers, were fueled by
> oil.

As far as I know The Hindus use crystal balls and didn't need any
of that shit. Which would you prefer, a trip on the Titanic, or a trip
across all the psychic astral dimensions?

>
> ...imagine a car that needed a person to shovel fuel into the engine?
>
> Energy is the key.

There is no energy greater than consciousness and the greatest
transducer of that energy is the imagination. It's from the imagination
that all manifestations come.

>
> So if there was a prior civilization it required energy. So we could look for
> the chemical traces of that energy, their fuel. It came from somewhere, we
> can find the evidence of that exploitation if we look.

The Sun is the most fundamental source of energy and photosynthesis
is the most efficient way to turn light int conscious energy. Nature
has already worked every thing out.

>
> Even if all the silver of ancient Rome were lost or long since melted and
> reused, we could still find the evidence of their mining.

If they were mining a substance that had utility to them but has no
utility to us, it may be hard to know what they were doing. Even the
rock you found could be a piece of evidence of something grand.
It has encapsulated in it's 'body' all the forces that went into it's
creation. What if you could read the information contained in a rock?

>
> Roman slag -- the biproduct of their iron operations -- was so plentiful that
> people were exploiting it as an iron source less than a century ago!
>
> (Ancient industry was far from efficient. Their slag had a lot of iron remaining
> in it)
>
> So for over a thousand years it was far easier to find the remains of Roman
> iron production than Roman iron itself...
>
> The point here is that you can search for things directly or indirectly.
>
> That's the second point. The first point is that a civilization needs energy, so
> if we were going to find evidence, and everything is to some extant "Gone,"
> the residual from the energy.

I don't think civilizations need all that energy. They could
go directly to something without going through all the
immediate steps, they could have been able to tap into a
form of 'free energy' or developed a technology that didn't
rely on it. The association with technology and energy may
not be universal.

>
> Pollution. Mining. Waste.
>
> Even solar panels & wind turbines require some pretty fancy stuff. Rare earth
> minerals. Polymers.

Some ancient technologies may have resulted in all
kinds of ghosts and entities roaming the astral plains.
How can you even begin to know what they did until
you find a way to detect the astral dimensions? We
might not even be aware such dimensions exist even
though they might be in plain sight.

A very advanced civilization may leave their traces in the interdimensional,
or the astral planes, and not necessarily the physical ones. We have a notion
that energy is needed to run a machine, but what about a way to transduce
consciousness? Maybe a sort of 'generator' that could make you experience
anything, without even the need for a clumsy contraption like a holodeck?





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[JTEM is Magic]

Mike wrote:

> > I mean, you can't go from sticks & rocks to wind and solar. Not only
> > is it impossible to make such a leap but there would be no reason
> > for it.
> >
> > Right?

> I don't see why that has to be true at all.

Because wind, solar, nuclear (etc) are useless without electronics. No
electronics, no need for technology to produce electricity.

Imagine beaming an electrical generator to ancient Egypt? If they could
figure out how to start it, what are they going to plug into it?

And think of all the things that need to be invented FIRST before you can
invent the Model-T. Now what about Photo Voltaic cells?

> I believe technology
> transfers are possible over the eons or over huge distances.

If you sent a modern Main Battle Tank back 100 years they'd know what it
was. They could figure out how to operate it. But fixing it would be next to
impossible, replicating it would be completely impossible.

Now send that tank back a thousand years.

Now send it back 10,000 years.

The oil fired burners on the liberty ships would have been recognizable to
the boiler room crew on the Titanic. One was an evolutionary step after
the other. It's one reason why they chose the design -- so pretty much any
crew with any experience would know how to operate the ship...

Quantum leaps are difficult, several quantum leaps at one time would be
next to impossible if not impossible.

> For instance eyes can develop spontaneously anywhere in the
> universe.

Eyes can EVOLVE anywhere. They can't and don't spontaneously form.

Most eyes are really only good at spotting motion. Those would be eyes
located on the side of the head. "Binocular Vision" is a relative new
development. It's good at focusing on specific objects or animals. It's
good at judging distances and speed.

Eyes evolved from photo sensitive cells. They probably told an animal
when something was between it and the sun i.e. food or predator.

That's how the motion thing works: Eyes told an animal when something
was moving -- a threat or a meal.

> There are even a variety of different kinds of 'eyes', but
> eyes seem somewhat universal. I think it's fair to say creatures
> on other planets might have eyes too, at least some might.

I'm sure eyes would have to be common to most life-hosting worlds. Even
if a dominant technological species didn't have them, SOME life forms
would have to.

> > Heating, cooling, cooking, lighting, communications, transportation... it
> > all requires energy.

> No, they could have had crystal balls that they used in their caves
> that would allow them to peer into the Sirius Galaxy.

Not if they all froze to death a million winters earlier.

> There are all
> kinds of notions of technology that could even exist naturally that
> one might not even consider. Think of a plant that might grow a
> leaf that when you put it on your ears you could peer into the
> Andromeda systems. Anything is possible in a Universe of infinite
> possibility.

Lol! Now you're into the Babel Fish from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

It's also an argument from ignorance.

You have no proof that I'm not a giant orange dragon so I guess it's 50-50
then? No. Of course not.

> > Originally this was accomplished with wood i.e. fire and food.

> Some civilizations used magic to get everything done, and it worked.

Lol! I don't think so. I know of less than one.

> > Feed a human, they do the work. Or feed an animal and it will do the
> > work for the human. Burn wood to stay warm, cook and make tools.

> The concept of work may be a misnomer. It may not be a universally
> necessary requirement. Pockets of abundance always exist and civilizations
> spring up around its natural abundance. It's actually a stupid people who
> adapt to live in places where they shouldn't survive, Don't live in the desert
> and then you don't need air condition. To survive on less and less is a worthy
> aim for a civilization. I can imagine just about anything could be lurking just
> beyond ones awareness.

Living in the desert, surviving, brought astounding wealth. The Nebataeans
were rich enough to draw the envy of the Romans, and the hellenistic rulers
of the Seleucid Empire before even them.

> > By the time written history started people could exploit wind power
> > for sailing, and the Romans (and I'm sure others) exploited water
> > power (water wheels). Later wind power was harnessed on land in the
> > form of windmills.

> Some civilizations may have perfected the technique of
> how to survive on just breathing air. If they could do it
> why not. What trace would there be of a civilization that
> survived simply from breathing fumes? An Indian woman
> told me once that some gurus can survive on just a leaf
> everyday.

It wouldn't be a civilization.

Period.

Plants are vastly more complicated than that, breathing air, yes, but drinking
in water and other nutrients, converting sunlight into energy, and they aren't
civilizations. They're forests and fields.

If you define cats as dogs then there's no such thing as cats, there's twice
as many dogs and you made liars out of everybody who insisted that dogs
bark. You also stymied communications because now nobody knows if
when you say "Dog" if you mean "Dog" or "Cat."

> Transduction the various dimensions through meditation, is another
> kind of civilization.

No it isn't.

> Civilizations don't necessarily have to be physical
> in nature, at least not to my thinking.

Which is akin to proclaiming that cats are dogs.

> The purpose for existence is to have a richer experience.

I don't believe that at all. Given your often spoken "One consciousness"
philosophy and running with it, the most plausible model would be the
one where consciousness returns to the collective upon death, so that
the great hive mind can experience everything. Including freezing to
death in a cave, naked, because all you have is air to eat & breath and
a crystal ball to keep you warm.

...so that brings the experiences of embarrassment to the
collective, and not just thirst, starvation & freezing to death.

> Enhancing experience should be the main purpose of a civilization.

It's not. Humans are a social animal. Civilization brings form to that
instinct. People thrive the most when they are free. GROUPS thrive the
most when there are rules, an order to things.

> > Steam was powered by wood, yes, but very soon replaced by coal. This
> > was probably because people could find trees locally, but there wasn't
> > always a local coal mine. Eventually though the communication systems,
> > transportation facilities & economics allowed coal to win out, only for
> > oil to then beat out coal.

> I honestly believe an advanced civilization can spring up
> spontaneously around a single idea starting out in it's very
> advanced stage, not needing to go through the process
> of evolution.

Lol! You very often try to batter down discussions.

> > When you think of it, the coal boilers on the Titanic needed men to shovel
> > coal. But the WWII liberty ships, still powered by boilers, were fueled by
> > oil.

> As far as I know The Hindus use crystal balls and didn't need any
> of that shit.

It doesn't seem to be associated with them at all, not before modern times.

> Which would you prefer, a trip on the Titanic, or a trip across all the psychic
> astral dimensions?

I'd rather experience the love of a single gorgeous Twink (Preppy, Jock, Nerd, etc)
than dream of receiving the admiration of a hundred.

> > So if there was a prior civilization it required energy. So we could look for
> > the chemical traces of that energy, their fuel. It came from somewhere, we
> > can find the evidence of that exploitation if we look.

> The Sun is the most fundamental source of energy and photosynthesis
> is the most efficient way to turn light int conscious energy. Nature
> has already worked every thing out.

Lol! Sure if you define plants as a civilization but then what's the point?

> > Even if all the silver of ancient Rome were lost or long since melted and
> > reused, we could still find the evidence of their mining.

> If they were mining a substance that had utility to them but has no
> utility to us, it may be hard to know what they were doing.

Not really. They were mining.

> I don't think civilizations need all that energy.

Lol! Well they do. If we're not defining plants as "Civilization" then we
need energy.

> They could go directly to something without going through all the
> immediate steps,

No. Like has often been said, Someone could invent the car only
because someone else had already invented the screwdriver.

Even if you sent complete blueprints of the Model-T back to 1850
it would be pointless, because gasoline didn't exist. It was more or
less a biproduct of kerosine and kerosine comes from oil but the
first oil well wasn't drilled until 1859.

> The association with technology and energy may not be universal.

Again, that's an argument from ignorance. And a bad one at that, as
there are zero examples.





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[Mike]

So do you think it's possible a plant can be genetically
modified to grow computer chips, or something of similar
functionality? It's not beyond the realm of my imagination.
An advanced civilization may grow their technology on
trees just as we grow fruit. We can look for their technology
left in leafs, plants and trees.

Beyond Machines: The Year 3000, Rudy Rucker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifddXYCPCYU





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[JTEM is Magic]

Mike wrote:

> So do you think it's possible a plant can be genetically
> modified to grow computer chips, or something of similar
> functionality?

Tom Baker was the longest serving and probably the most popular
Doctor Who. His episodes are still available today, if you look for
them. And, was it his last? His first? I dunno. But there was this one
episode where such-and-such a place was super duper uber
important because, now get this, it's computers used bubble memory.

I'm guessing it was already old by the time the episode was written.

I'm not saying you could grow a plant that does this bubble memory,
but maybe something that works that way. But it could never be that
good. No Moore's Law.

> It's not beyond the realm of my imagination.

Just look at Otherkin!

> Beyond Machines: The Year 3000, Rudy Rucker
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifddXYCPCYU

Even if he's right, and there's no sense in arguing about it because this
is true whether he is or isn't but, ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY and all of our
activity up to the very moment we start growing things has already
taken place. Put short:

It's too late!

The evidence of our existence has already been created.





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[Mike]

I love Rudy Rucker. He's my favorite science fiction writer.
He's one of the very first who turned me on to metaphysical
concepts and inter-dimensional thinking. This is the book that
he wrote that started me off. He is an incredible author. He goes
really far out.

Infinity and the Mind: The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0691191387/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&psc=1





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