Timeline for How advanced can a civilization get without scientific thinking?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
47 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 18, 2020 at 20:56 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | Doesn't history show that people "eventually figured" most of what matters… for example brewing, distilling and metallurgy - even corrugation. When d'you think anyone might figured those out without stumbling across them? On the other hand, what "lot of things" might they do with a nail and a hammer, specifically? Hit or stab the hammer with the nail, perhaps? Did you notice "scientific thinking" came to Earth only at the end of the 17th Century? It's amazing you could imagine knowing that joining two groups of 3 gave 6, but not predicting from that. How would that "knowing" work? | |
| May 19, 2020 at 6:35 | vote | accept | Neinstein | ||
| May 12, 2020 at 15:12 | answer | added | Nosajimiki | timeline score: 0 | |
| May 12, 2020 at 15:02 | answer | added | David Hambling | timeline score: 0 | |
| May 12, 2020 at 13:24 | comment | added | pg4919 | This question is a very good one; it's well thought out and useful. You have earned my upvote. | |
| May 7, 2020 at 2:33 | comment | added | John | you basically just described much of the tools chimpanzees create, but even then chimps can make some extrapolations. but they will never reach anything we would call a civilization and certainly never writing, not unless they evolve more abstract forms of thinking. the problem is you want civilization with something that does not even have chimp level intelligence. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 23:05 | history | reopened |
Separatrix In Hoc Signo Adrian Colomitchi Neinstein a4android |
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| May 6, 2020 at 21:54 | comment | added | In Hoc Signo | I am going to have to agree with St. Aquinas; a creature can't be considered sentient if it can't do inductive reasoning. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 20:03 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| May 6, 2020 at 23:05 | |||||
| May 6, 2020 at 19:33 | comment | added | Gary Walker | You are asking for the net effect for a radically different type pf society / culture that humans do or even can have experience with. This is necessarily opinion based so no-one can have have experience with or analyze the effect of such a different race of beings. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 19:31 | history | closed |
John Escaped dental patient. sphennings Frostfyre Gary Walker |
Needs details or clarity | |
| May 6, 2020 at 19:24 | answer | added | sqlbie | timeline score: 1 | |
| May 6, 2020 at 19:10 | history | edited | Neinstein | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
enabled some very basic abstract thinkink as the lack of it was deemed implausible. Clarified their inability to make predictions without past memories.
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| May 6, 2020 at 19:04 | history | edited | Neinstein | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
enabled some very basic abstract thinkink as the lack of it was deemed implausible. Clarified their inability to make predictions without past memories.
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| May 6, 2020 at 18:51 | history | edited | Neinstein | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
enabled some very basic abstract thinkink as the lack of it was deemed implausible.
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| May 6, 2020 at 18:44 | comment | added | Neinstein | @John I ended up with the wording of "scientific thinking". My intention is that they may try new things, but only out of curiosity or error. They won't develop a tool for a specific purpose and they have no idea "why" things work. Maybe they try to use a tool for something else, but without any idea what might happen. Kind of like dolphins maybe. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 18:36 | history | edited | Neinstein | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Re-replaced the "abstract thought" from the title as 'science' is maybe more close to the concept. Please check comments; if you have a better word please edit.
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| May 6, 2020 at 17:39 | comment | added | TitaniumTurtle | Abstract thought is pretty widespread even among animals. The species you are describing couldn't possibly exist without it. Likewise, predictive thinking is a key ability of most predatory animals. It is awfully hard to hunt if you can't predict where your prey will go or what it will do. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 17:31 | comment | added | Schwern | @Neinstein It is hard to nail down in a few words, that may indicate it needs refinement. Perhaps "have no a priori knowledge?" | |
| May 6, 2020 at 14:30 | answer | added | GuilleOjeda | timeline score: 1 | |
| May 6, 2020 at 13:27 | comment | added | Pete Becker | Vaguely related. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 13:04 | review | Close votes | |||
| May 6, 2020 at 17:37 | |||||
| May 6, 2020 at 12:44 | comment | added | John | I think your problem is its not possible to have enough abstract thinking to read and write, and build things but not enough to improve things. they are the same processes. they definitely can't be curios and not inventive, curiosity meas trying new things. you might be better off asking how to get the behavior you want as a separate question first. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 12:34 | comment | added | Neinstein | @Schwern re your edit, I'm not sure the lack of abstract thinking was my main focus. It's more like they can't think on how to improve an existing tool/method at all, and they can't do research and science. They don't have concept of mathematics/logics/whatsoever, and I believe this means lack of abstract thinking regarding this. It's a bit overly constraining because obiviously they need to have a minimal level of abstraction to survival; but they can't really use it on purpose. I don't know how to describe this better. (I leave it as is because I already have good answers.) | |
| May 6, 2020 at 12:31 | comment | added | Neinstein | @John Regarding writing, kind of true and I was struggling with this part. My intention was that whatever they learn is not lost upon death, and GS|ε scientist can find records. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 12:10 | comment | added | John | they won't even be able to use tools, seeing a sharp blade inside a round lump of rock is pretty abstract, and is likely the reason humans are so good at abstraction. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 11:05 | comment | added | Andreas | Without predictions memory has no advantage. Without abstract thinking memory runs out immediately. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 7:24 | answer | added | Separatrix | timeline score: 4 | |
| May 6, 2020 at 2:01 | comment | added | John | if they have writing they understand abstract thought writing a pretty big abstraction, this squggle of lines represent Bob or trees or whatever, is a massive abstraction. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 1:56 | answer | added | Schwern | timeline score: 3 | |
| May 6, 2020 at 1:55 | comment | added | Daniel B | If you can’t generalize experiences, you aren’t going to survive. | |
| May 6, 2020 at 0:52 | history | edited | Schwern | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Improve the title. This situation goes much futher than simply not having the scientific method.
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| May 5, 2020 at 22:21 | history | became hot network question | |||
| May 5, 2020 at 16:45 | history | edited | Neinstein | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 174 characters in body
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| May 5, 2020 at 16:34 | answer | added | elemtilas | timeline score: 10 | |
| May 5, 2020 at 16:30 | history | edited | Neinstein | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 84 characters in body
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| May 5, 2020 at 16:23 | history | edited | Neinstein | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 84 characters in body
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| May 5, 2020 at 16:23 | comment | added | Halfthawed | I'd hate to argue semantics, but I'm not really certain that you can call them 'intelligent' at this point. | |
| May 5, 2020 at 16:16 | history | edited | Neinstein | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
explain no science
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| May 5, 2020 at 16:12 | comment | added | Neinstein | @Separatrix I would say, they lack ability to recognize abstract patterns, and they don't know how to make deductions. They know that a nail goes across two slice of wood, and joins them. They won't know that a sharp thin object can be used to join two things together. They won't know that the nail goes through the wood because it's sharp and the wood is soft. They may realize by chance that three piece of wood can be joined by a single nail, but won't think of this themselves until someone accidentally does it. | |
| May 5, 2020 at 16:11 | answer | added | CaptainSkyfish | timeline score: 4 | |
| May 5, 2020 at 15:20 | answer | added | Halfthawed | timeline score: 6 | |
| May 5, 2020 at 15:16 | comment | added | Matthew | What Separatrix said. It might help to clarify what you mean by "science". Offhand, I'd say the premise sounds plausible, though. I will, however, note that "science" has been around since the time of the early Greeks, albeit under the name "natural philosophy". I think you are thinking of the scientific method as being a recent development (although even that I'm not entirely sure about). | |
| May 5, 2020 at 15:15 | comment | added | DWKraus | The Mayans didn't use conventional engineering, but built buildings based on proportionality (this wall is three lengths of rope, that one two, etc.) and a bigger building would have the same proportions but with a different, longer rope. Are your aliens capable of this variation on engineering? A lot could be done with work-arounds like this. | |
| May 5, 2020 at 15:01 | comment | added | Separatrix | They have science, because they have the fundamental understanding that a sequence of actions is repeatable to gain a repeatable result. Perhaps what they lack is creative imagination? | |
| May 5, 2020 at 14:29 | answer | added | Random Driveby | timeline score: 2 | |
| May 5, 2020 at 14:19 | history | asked | Neinstein | CC BY-SA 4.0 |