They had the same intelligence as us. What they didn’t have is the same education. That’s the difference that education makes.
Comment on Hate it when this happens
Sibshops@feddit.cl 3 weeks ago
I feel like we grossly underestimate the intelligence of our ancestors.
bampop@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
cro_magnon_gilf@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
The first ones to crack a nut with a stone definitely did not have the same intelligence as us. That was (likely) 2+millions of years ago, and they were not “human”.
OpenStars@discuss.online 3 weeks ago
They were pretty much as smart as we are - many of them more so than many of us today.
arctanthrope@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
what’s even crazier to think about is that there were likely several thousands of years where our ancestors were about as cognitively evolved as we are now, with language and society and culture, and simultaneously living alongside other now-extinct hominin species, like neanderthals and denisovans, who were likely similarly cognitively capable. makes me wonder if stories were still have from mythology about elves or dwarves or fae are cultural remnants of a time when we actually did live alongside not-quite-human sapient creatures
OpenStars@discuss.online 3 weeks ago
The Neanderthals even had music! And larger brains than sapiens, iirc. We were more brutish and savage hence won out in the end. The TV series Sense8 explores and popularizes some of what you are saying.
wopalopa@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
there not as book smart as we are but a lot def more street smart than most of us today. different generation different kind of knowledge but same hardware
OpenStars@discuss.online 3 weeks ago
Well said.
JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
For example, I think it’s the Chaco Canyon civilization that managed to perfect the math necessary to track the stars, moon, and sun, but as far as we know had no system of writing. Which means they were just memorizing that shit.
Lumisal@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
People underestimate what the human mind is capable of when INCREDIBLY bored.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
Yeah, they were as smart as us it’s just that they had less knowledge, homo sapiens are called like that not because they are smart but because they share knowledge with the future generations
threeonefour@piefed.ca 3 weeks ago
Tibees has a video about the Rhind mathematical papyrus, a writing of math problems used for educating Egyptian scribes from 1650 BCE.
It describes finding volumes for cylinders using a formula similar to the modern one but with 256/81 (~= 3.16) as the stand-in for π.
It also has questions on finding concentration of valuable ingredients in finished product. 100L of beer made from 1kg of grain has a lower concentration of grain in the final product than 50L of beer made from the same amount. If you add water to the 50L of beer, it’s value would change and scribes would be expected to calculate the exact change in value.
Just like there’s a large overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans, there’s an overlap between the smartest ancient people and dumbest people today.
bampop@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Interesting choice, it suggests they didn’t have any way to verify the accuracy of that approximation, since 22/7 is way closer, but (4/3)^4 is really cute and elegant.
untorquer@quokk.au 3 weeks ago
Also the volume of the sphere is then (4/3)^5 r^3 so i wonder if it had something to do with trying to unify that
bampop@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s so neat, we should resurrect the Indiana Pi Bill with this value!