Principia Discordia

In this hypothetical: the tools in question are at least as complicated as a screwdriver; the tools are 100% without a doubt from the same time period as the surrounding rock; the scientists in question are actually not pulling anyone's leg.

In terms of Occam's Razor, the most sensible explanation is that dinosaurs or other contemporary organisms made advanced tools. IMO.

That's the one I opted for, too. Although it would be such a black swan, it's practically meaningless to speculate. The humans coexisting with dinosaurs is the only one I would discount out of hand.

How hypothetical is this hypothetical?  Yes, this will influence my answer.

So.... there are tools, but no structures on which the tools were used?

Just tools.  And this is a singular finding.

My razor says that there's something faulty with the premise, and to double check the "100% without a doubt" claim.

Utah raptors with claw hammers is not only inoffensive, it is heartwarming.

Time travellers.  Who all failed and died, because they're the sort of fuckers who leave important tools laying around.

Merked to death by Scottish dinosaurs, with their own screwdrivers.  Sad, but forseeable.

Quote from: Cain on November 11, 2014, 08:26:55 AM
How hypothetical is this hypothetical?  Yes, this will influence my answer.

Very hypothetical.

So, I shouldn't expect the NSA to smash down my door then?  Well, in that case.....dinosaurs made the tools requires the least amount of disruption to our current understanding of the world.

Though probably what happened was scientist error.

Given that these are the only explanations left:

1: Overwhelming evidence of the course and timing of mammalian evolution as well as mass extinction makes this exceedingly unlikely.
2: More likely, but there's still the tricky questions of where are they now, why did they leave, and how did they get here.
3: This is explains the otherwise apparent lack of civilization, except, you know, time travel into the past, which given our current understanding of physics is less likely than interstellar travel.
4: Considering that there are several tool using species on this planet, some of which are the dinosaurs' descendants, and the only thing that sets us in the tool making department is metallurgy, I'd have to go with this option. Some species at that time was able to achieve a level of culture that achieved metalworking, but fell short of industrialization.

Actually, I change my mind.

Time travelling alien-human hybrid sent back to genetically engineer and enslave dinosaurs to get double to gold out of the Earth's resources, because aliens like gold.

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 11, 2014, 02:53:06 PM
Given that these are the only explanations left:

1: Overwhelming evidence of the course and timing of mammalian evolution as well as mass extinction makes this exceedingly unlikely.
2: More likely, but there's still the tricky questions of where are they now, why did they leave, and how did they get here.
3: This is explains the otherwise apparent lack of civilization, except, you know, time travel into the past, which given our current understanding of physics is less likely than interstellar travel.
4: Considering that there are several tool using species on this planet, some of which are the dinosaurs' descendants, and the only thing that sets us in the tool making department is metallurgy, I'd have to go with this option. Some species at that time was able to achieve a level of culture that achieved metalworking, but fell short of industrialization.

They could have had planet-spanning urbanization, and we would never know it.  Not a trace would remain after all this time.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on November 11, 2014, 03:00:32 PM

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 11, 2014, 02:53:06 PM
Given that these are the only explanations left:

1: Overwhelming evidence of the course and timing of mammalian evolution as well as mass extinction makes this exceedingly unlikely.
2: More likely, but there's still the tricky questions of where are they now, why did they leave, and how did they get here.
3: This is explains the otherwise apparent lack of civilization, except, you know, time travel into the past, which given our current understanding of physics is less likely than interstellar travel.
4: Considering that there are several tool using species on this planet, some of which are the dinosaurs' descendants, and the only thing that sets us in the tool making department is metallurgy, I'd have to go with this option. Some species at that time was able to achieve a level of culture that achieved metalworking, but fell short of industrialization.

They could have had planet-spanning urbanization, and we would never know it.  Not a trace would remain after all this time.

Fair point. They would have had to have died out prior to exhausting carbon fuels though.

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 11, 2014, 03:06:34 PM

Quote from: Doktor Howl on November 11, 2014, 03:00:32 PM

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 11, 2014, 02:53:06 PM
Given that these are the only explanations left:

1: Overwhelming evidence of the course and timing of mammalian evolution as well as mass extinction makes this exceedingly unlikely.
2: More likely, but there's still the tricky questions of where are they now, why did they leave, and how did they get here.
3: This is explains the otherwise apparent lack of civilization, except, you know, time travel into the past, which given our current understanding of physics is less likely than interstellar travel.
4: Considering that there are several tool using species on this planet, some of which are the dinosaurs' descendants, and the only thing that sets us in the tool making department is metallurgy, I'd have to go with this option. Some species at that time was able to achieve a level of culture that achieved metalworking, but fell short of industrialization.

They could have had planet-spanning urbanization, and we would never know it.  Not a trace would remain after all this time.

Fair point. They would have had to have died out prior to exhausting carbon fuels though.

65 million years is plenty of time for petroleum deposits to form.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on November 11, 2014, 03:27:29 PM

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 11, 2014, 03:06:34 PM

Quote from: Doktor Howl on November 11, 2014, 03:00:32 PM

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 11, 2014, 02:53:06 PM
Given that these are the only explanations left:

1: Overwhelming evidence of the course and timing of mammalian evolution as well as mass extinction makes this exceedingly unlikely.
2: More likely, but there's still the tricky questions of where are they now, why did they leave, and how did they get here.
3: This is explains the otherwise apparent lack of civilization, except, you know, time travel into the past, which given our current understanding of physics is less likely than interstellar travel.
4: Considering that there are several tool using species on this planet, some of which are the dinosaurs' descendants, and the only thing that sets us in the tool making department is metallurgy, I'd have to go with this option. Some species at that time was able to achieve a level of culture that achieved metalworking, but fell short of industrialization.

They could have had planet-spanning urbanization, and we would never know it.  Not a trace would remain after all this time.

Fair point. They would have had to have died out prior to exhausting carbon fuels though.

65 million years is plenty of time for petroleum deposits to form.

Yeah, but we still have deposits from the Carboniferous Era, which would have been available to civilized dinosaurs.

This is, of course assuming they didn't figure out some other way to power industrialization.

Answered 1, but should really have been 4. By humans I meant "some screw-driver using species." Which is, by no means, a reasonable definition of human.

Quote from: NoLeDeMiel on November 11, 2014, 04:31:50 PM
Answered 1, but should really have been 4. By humans I meant "some screw-driver using species." Which is, by no means, a reasonable definition of human.

It is, nonetheless, the definition I am going to adopt and promote whenever possible.

Think about how incredibly complex the simple screw driver is. It is a tool used to drive other tools into and out of surfaces. The other tools (screws) are two other tools (the inclined plane wrapped around the axle). You also have to be able to abstract it again, though time, and realize that giving each screw it's own handle is silly, so you need to be able to carry one handle around with you. You then have to conceptualize the materials and docking/locking mechanism used to make the handledriver/screw one unit while in action, but easily separable. This now allows you to develop multiple different screws that can all be driven using the same tool.


Man, hominids are smart fuckers (the screwdriver tool-set nearly rivals the rock-napping toolset in complexity). Wtf happened to our species.

Quote from: Telarus on November 12, 2014, 03:48:24 AM
Think about how incredibly complex the simple screw driver is. It is a tool used to drive other tools into and out of surfaces. The other tools (screws) are two other tools (the inclined plane wrapped around the axle). You also have to be able to abstract it again, though time, and realize that giving each screw it's own handle is silly, so you need to be able to carry one handle around with you. You then have to conceptualize the materials and docking/locking mechanism used to make the handledriver/screw one unit while in action, but easily separable. This now allows you to develop multiple different screws that can all be driven using the same tool.


Man, hominids are smart fuckers (the screwdriver tool-set nearly rivals the rock-napping toolset in complexity). Wtf happened to our species.

Death by success.

Recently our species invented the internet, mapped a number of genomes starting with our own, sent a space probe to Mars, and is in the process of landing another probe on a comet traveling at roughly 83,885 miles per hour. Not to mention making some pretty decent headway into observing electron behavior.

The screwdriver wasn't a bad start, but holy shit, yeah, let's hope our ability to plan ahead catches us with our mechanical ingenuity before we render ourselves extinct.

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 12, 2014, 05:22:49 AM
Recently our species invented the internet, mapped a number of genomes starting with our own, sent a space probe to Mars, and is in the process of landing another probe on a comet traveling at roughly 83,885 miles per hour. Not to mention making some pretty decent headway into observing electron behavior.

The screwdriver wasn't a bad start, but holy shit, yeah, let's hope our ability to plan ahead catches us with our mechanical ingenuity before we render ourselves extinct.

We have been running downhill on ice for 2 million years.

Don't try to stop now.

 :?

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 12, 2014, 03:22:02 PM
:?

Planning ahead only causes problems later.

Newsfeed.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on November 12, 2014, 03:25:36 PM

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 12, 2014, 03:22:02 PM
:?

Planning ahead only causes problems later.

I would argue that human capacity for thinking ahead is severely limited by linear cause-and-effect thinking, and that we rarely actually "plan ahead" beyond "If A then B". We have a spectacularly short time-horizon for forethought, which will likely result in us being extinct.

Well being extinct is the fate of all species (though that's an inductive inference)... question is when? I think we're in the process of trying to get through a bottleneck.

Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 13, 2014, 08:30:46 AM
Well being extinct is the fate of all species (though that's an inductive inference)... question is when? I think we're in the process of trying to get through a bottleneck.

We're not going through a bottleneck. We're forcing everything else through one. There's 7 billion of us. We're not going anywhere soon. Our buildings might, but not our species.

We're also the most mobile species on the planet. The same can't be said for some critter artificially cut off from the other half of its population through development and habitat destruction.

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 13, 2014, 11:11:03 AM

Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 13, 2014, 08:30:46 AM
Well being extinct is the fate of all species (though that's an inductive inference)... question is when? I think we're in the process of trying to get through a bottleneck.

We're not going through a bottleneck. We're forcing everything else through one. There's 7 billion of us. We're not going anywhere soon. Our buildings might, but not our species.

Oh, I fully agree we are forcing all the others, poor things, through a bottleneck! As to humans, I didn't mean in terms of population, but in terms of viability. Meddling with viruses, meddling with nuclear energy, owning a massive arsenal of nuclear bombs and with a dominant form of sociocultural organisation that brutally mistreats the majority of individuals... I'm sure the history of hominids has had a few fortunate turns in the distant path, but I think a massive human extinction event (not necessarily wiping out the race as a whole, but most of us) has been more likely in the last 70-80 years (I would make nuclear fission the dividing line) than for at least ten thousand years beforehands.

Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 13, 2014, 12:27:04 PM

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 13, 2014, 11:11:03 AM

Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 13, 2014, 08:30:46 AM
Well being extinct is the fate of all species (though that's an inductive inference)... question is when? I think we're in the process of trying to get through a bottleneck.

We're not going through a bottleneck. We're forcing everything else through one. There's 7 billion of us. We're not going anywhere soon. Our buildings might, but not our species.

Oh, I fully agree we are forcing all the others, poor things, through a bottleneck! As to humans, I didn't mean in terms of population, but in terms of viability. Meddling with viruses, meddling with nuclear energy, owning a massive arsenal of nuclear bombs and with a dominant form of sociocultural organisation that brutally mistreats the majority of individuals... I'm sure the history of hominids has had a few fortunate turns in the distant path, but I think a massive human extinction event (not necessarily wiping out the race as a whole, but most of us) has been more likely in the last 70-80 years (I would make nuclear fission the dividing line) than for at least ten thousand years beforehands.

Meddling with viruses?

I think even with a nuclear exchange, that would be largely concentrated to major world cities. It would be horrible ecologically, economically and society as we know it would change, but society would still exist and there would still be plenty of people. Starvation would probably be the worst killer, but even then I wouldn't expect the human population to reduce significantly enough to liken it to a human extinction event.

I think the most likely way we'll go extinct is either through some natural global catastrophe or we'll just evolve into something else.

Okay, Twid, I think you are right. What a relief!  :lulz:

Meddling with viruses... I mean (short for) engineering/modifying biological organisms that may accidentally become massive pandemics... so why is that an infeasible scenario? (I mean I'm very willing to accept that it is, I would just like to know why.)

Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 13, 2014, 12:44:56 PM
Okay, Twid, I think you are right. What a relief!  :lulz:

Meddling with viruses... I mean (short for) engineering/modifying biological organisms that may accidentally become massive pandemics... so why is that an infeasible scenario? (I mean I'm very willing to accept that it is, I would just like to know why.)

Well, in order to work with viruses that are pathogenic to humans you would need to know what you were doing to begin with. People don't just dive in and say, right, lets see what happens if we just put a random sequence into this virus and see what it does. When you're working with genes, you already have some idea what you're doing with them. If you don't know what the gene does, more likely than not, you're going to suppress it and see what stops working. You're not going to accidentally make Ebola airborne. On top of that viruses prefer certain species. You're actually covered in viruses right now. Virus are the most abundant form of nucleic acid on the planet. If you're working with a Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, you'd have to alter it in a very deliberate way to turn it into HIV, and it probably wouldn't be that easy to do anyway.

"Meddling with viruses."

This "science" is deadly business, what with the Frankenstein monsters going berserk every 3 blocks.

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 13, 2014, 03:33:19 AM

Quote from: Doktor Howl on November 12, 2014, 03:25:36 PM

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 12, 2014, 03:22:02 PM
:?

Planning ahead only causes problems later.

I would argue that human capacity for thinking ahead is severely limited by linear cause-and-effect thinking, and that we rarely actually "plan ahead" beyond "If A then B". We have a spectacularly short time-horizon for forethought, which will likely result in us being extinct.

We have so far been saved by the monkey habit of "JUST JAM YOUR FACE IN AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS!"

Bad for the monkey, good for monkeydom.

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 13, 2014, 12:41:04 PM

Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 13, 2014, 12:27:04 PM

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 13, 2014, 11:11:03 AM

Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 13, 2014, 08:30:46 AM
Well being extinct is the fate of all species (though that's an inductive inference)... question is when? I think we're in the process of trying to get through a bottleneck.

We're not going through a bottleneck. We're forcing everything else through one. There's 7 billion of us. We're not going anywhere soon. Our buildings might, but not our species.

Oh, I fully agree we are forcing all the others, poor things, through a bottleneck! As to humans, I didn't mean in terms of population, but in terms of viability. Meddling with viruses, meddling with nuclear energy, owning a massive arsenal of nuclear bombs and with a dominant form of sociocultural organisation that brutally mistreats the majority of individuals... I'm sure the history of hominids has had a few fortunate turns in the distant path, but I think a massive human extinction event (not necessarily wiping out the race as a whole, but most of us) has been more likely in the last 70-80 years (I would make nuclear fission the dividing line) than for at least ten thousand years beforehands.

Meddling with viruses?

I think even with a nuclear exchange, that would be largely concentrated to major world cities. It would be horrible ecologically, economically and society as we know it would change, but society would still exist and there would still be plenty of people. Starvation would probably be the worst killer, but even then I wouldn't expect the human population to reduce significantly enough to liken it to a human extinction event.

I think the most likely way we'll go extinct is either through some natural global catastrophe or we'll just evolve into something else.

I think the most likely way we'll go extinct is through either another mass extinction event similar to the Permian, caused by a cascading effect of climate change and resulting in all larger mammals and most aquatic species being wiped out.

That, or we finally manage to get enough endocrine disruptors into our air and water systems that we render ourselves functionally sterile. We won't know when that happens until 20-ish years after we pass the tipping point.

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 13, 2014, 12:59:36 PM

Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 13, 2014, 12:44:56 PM
Okay, Twid, I think you are right. What a relief!  :lulz:

Meddling with viruses... I mean (short for) engineering/modifying biological organisms that may accidentally become massive pandemics... so why is that an infeasible scenario? (I mean I'm very willing to accept that it is, I would just like to know why.)

Well, in order to work with viruses that are pathogenic to humans you would need to know what you were doing to begin with. People don't just dive in and say, right, lets see what happens if we just put a random sequence into this virus and see what it does. When you're working with genes, you already have some idea what you're doing with them. If you don't know what the gene does, more likely than not, you're going to suppress it and see what stops working. You're not going to accidentally make Ebola airborne. On top of that viruses prefer certain species. You're actually covered in viruses right now. Virus are the most abundant form of nucleic acid on the planet. If you're working with a Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, you'd have to alter it in a very deliberate way to turn it into HIV, and it probably wouldn't be that easy to do anyway.

This.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on November 13, 2014, 04:05:56 PM
"Meddling with viruses."

This "science" is deadly business, what with the Frankenstein monsters going berserk every 3 blocks.

:lulz: This gave me the laugh I needed today.

:lulz: I changed my mind about molecular biology, I want to do mad science in the field of Frankenvirology.

The other thing to keep in mind, holist, is that if you alter a viral genome in order to make it airborne you might accidentally render it relatively harmless compared to wild type. So in the process of trying to make Ebola airborne you might also make it non lethal. It wouldn't be the same virus anymore.

Curse that Dr. Picker, meddling about willy-nilly with viruses! http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2014/09/oregon_health_science_universi_31.html

I think it's safe to say that eventually we'll have a pretty comprehensive grasp of genetics. At that point, sure, wankers will be able to code all manner of nasty ass shit but, by the same token, generating a vaccine will be a much quicker and more straightforward affair. It'll balance out.

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 13, 2014, 06:22:43 PM
Curse that Dr. Picker, meddling about willy-nilly with viruses! http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2014/09/oregon_health_science_universi_31.html

Ooh. I'm going to forward this to Professor Dunphy (my cell bio professor)

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on November 13, 2014, 06:26:50 PM
I think it's safe to say that eventually we'll have a pretty comprehensive grasp of genetics. At that point, sure, wankers will be able to code all manner of nasty ass shit but, by the same token, generating a vaccine will be a much quicker and more straightforward affair. It'll balance out.

I mean, it's possible, and it might get easier, but again, in altering something to do a particular thing, you might deactivate something else. I could be wrong but if I recall, the Soviets did actually try to weaponize Ebola (not to bring the damn thing up again) and they failed, because sometimes you can't make something do what you want without disabling some other function needed to do the thing you wanted it to do.

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on November 13, 2014, 06:26:50 PM
I think it's safe to say that eventually we'll have a pretty comprehensive grasp of genetics. At that point, sure, wankers will be able to code all manner of nasty ass shit but, by the same token, generating a vaccine will be a much quicker and more straightforward affair. It'll balance out.

I don't know if that's safe to say at all, actually. I mean, hypothetically we could eventually have a pretty comprehensive grasp of genetics, but right now we're at the "Oh shit, we finally know enough to recognize that we know almost nothing" stage.

Basically, we just crossed the Dunning-Kruger threshold with regards to our knowledge of genetics; we are just barely competent enough to be aware of our own incompetence.

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on November 13, 2014, 06:29:23 PM

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 13, 2014, 06:22:43 PM
Curse that Dr. Picker, meddling about willy-nilly with viruses! http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2014/09/oregon_health_science_universi_31.html

Ooh. I'm going to forward this to Professor Dunphy (my cell bio professor)

It's pretty awesome. Some bad-ass research is going down up there.

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 13, 2014, 06:47:23 PM
Basically, we just crossed the Dunning-Kruger threshold with regards to our knowledge of genetics; we are just barely competent enough to be aware of our own incompetence.

Your mind. I love it.

I still think this question isn't hypothetical.

Quote from: Cain on November 13, 2014, 08:53:22 PM
I still think this question isn't hypothetical.

Yeah, I kinda want to know what sparked this question.

I kinda hope there really is a dinosaur screwdriver, if only for the fact that it would be delightfully weird

Quote from: Reginald Ret (07/05/1983 - 06/11/2014) on November 13, 2014, 08:13:30 PM

Quote from: Sexy St. Nigel on November 13, 2014, 06:47:23 PM
Basically, we just crossed the Dunning-Kruger threshold with regards to our knowledge of genetics; we are just barely competent enough to be aware of our own incompetence.

Your mind. I love it.

Awww shucks! <blushing>

Quote from: Cain on November 13, 2014, 08:53:22 PM
I still think this question isn't hypothetical.

Me too and I haven't slept for days. Is this another aztec camera?  :?