It's interesting when one ponders biological development and environmental adaptation. Each creature is uniquely adapted to suit their particular niche/environment. Even we Homosapiens have adapted to some degree or another. What intrigues me is the manner in which we do this. We do so by manipulating our environment directly, or through the utilization of tools. This isn't unique to our species. Other creatures do the same. How-ever we do so on a much more detailed, convoluted, and at times grandiose scale (terrestrially speaking anyway). Many of us equate this to being a sign of intellectual and conscious advancement. It is no doubt, but is it the only sign? When peering into vastness of the cosmos, often we imagine others like ourselves on distant worlds who have also taken to technological manipulation as a means of advancement. What if we peer one day, and what peers back has taken a completely different developmental path? What if this species is so advanced that they don't need the use of technology? Would we be be able to recognize their development, their genius, and see them for what they truly are? It's been said that genius in the face of ignorance and inexperience appears as unintelligent. The mind has no frame of reference from a point of conscious understanding, and thus relates it to arbitrary nonsense. It's similar to a computer that crosses data that it isn't designed to process. Typically it either crashes, or sets it aside as erroneous. It isn't until later on when it's had an upgrade, that it can recognize the data.

I take this same concept and apply it to different elements of our own terrestrial past, present, and future. Could it be that our ancestors in the ancient past were far more advanced than is currently given credit to by the many facets of Academia? Could the same be applied to the other species we share this tiny planet with? Could this even be applied to Earth and other celestial bodies? Just what does it mean to truly be conscious?

Increasingly, I take your last paragraph as a given. You only really need look at some of the remaining 'ancient' structures that we're allowed to know about to know that we are not being told everything there is to know.

I can see how it might be very easy to live your entire life without every addressing such issues (I mean, how could you really ever 'know', anyway?) but I do believe that there are greater minds than mine at work here busily and intentionally 'muddying the waters'. Certainly, to know what we actually once were or are capable of, whilst being beneficial to us all as a group, would serve absolutely no purpose to those of us who currently think that they are in charge.

I've also lived enough by now though to realise that in most instances, it's all just a little bit of history repeating itself.

Ab Origine wrote:
There may be some people out there who do know about our past. For the most part though, many appear to be locked into conscious bubble of sorts. In that bubble, everything is linear. What was in the past was old and only relevant for traditional and historical purposes. Problems arise though, like the building methods of the megalithic structures of the old world. As you know Ab, some are so advanced given the era, that academia won't even acknowledge it. A lot of it I think has to do with the fact that this disturbs the functioning of that conscious bubble where everything is explained. It's tough to admit that one simply doesn't know when their world HAS to have an explanation. It implies that each of us, and as a species, are still both consciously and intellectually developing.

I often wonder if history truly repeats itself, or whether it's just people repeating history? Why does this happen? Is it based simply upon a lack of physical experience, societies shifting from balances and imbalanced in social-political power? Elitists come and go, so I think it really boils down to a species wide conscious development process. Like physical adaptations, consciousness also go through phases and changes.

When it comes to ancient civilisations I am frustrated, because I can only go with what some researches claim to have researched. To truly know I think we would have to have access to all of the academic research on these subjects and visit the sites of ancient monuments and talk to archaeologists, professors and people at museums. Then 'normal' people would be able to come to their own conclusions and make a better informed decision.

It looks like certain facts aren't dealt with, or have been deliberately ignored. As Mr Indigo points out, it disturbs the functioning of the con­scious bub­ble. Dealing with these facts could potentially render hundreds of years of academic research irrelevant, not to mention some current research.

I'm very much in favour of the pendulum swing theory, whereby all things repeat ad-infinitum. I believe it to be the very nature and perhaps even 'purpose' of our universe.

"Why"? Just because.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:
You raise some very good points of concern here, Lesley. A lot of us outside of academic funding don't have the financial resources required to give the ancient megalithic monuments our own investigations. We're at the mercy of professionals and freelance journalists/civilian researchers when it comes to this information. Some of what's said on both sides, and in some cases omitted, is questionable in nature. Really the best we can do given limited funds, is to focus on the basic fundamentals as a point of reference. The nice side of that is we aren't locked into a staunch set of expectations designed to keep 'the machine well oiled'. That bothers professionals, because they can't dip into the unknown (or the 'fringe' as they've playfully named it). They risk their professional, social, and financial standing in many cases. It's given rise to a group of people who call themselves skeptics, though they don't actually practice skepticism. Skepticism entails holding no preconceived notions during investigative endeavors. In short they believe nothing until the data points one way or another. Creating a thesis and postulating on potential outcomes is fine, but they're not meant to be held on to. That's the problem, they hold on to the theories as if they were fact without irrefutable data.
Ab Origine wrote:
That's an interesting way of looking at the grand scheme of things, Ab. There is a rather repetitive pattern throughout the physical. The coriolis effect is one example of that. You've given me some things to think about, much appreciated!

hey... i had a conversation with my friend today, and we were watching the rover press conference and he said those guys are like twice as smart as a regular joe. and i said if you have 2 people they still wont be as smart as that 1 guy, no matter how hard they try. its more like an average total intellegence, than a cumulative.

so.. as smart as we think we are, its so limited.. it takes inspirations, accidents, research + time, hard ships. we need to overcome problems but we get comfy and try to make our life luxurious and easy. wheels dont get invented all the time.
and we can't just solve things by throwing brain hours at it. if every scientist in the world had unlimited funds and dedicated their life to figuring out large scal teleportation, do you think it could happen? that would be amazing. a world changing event. nothing would ever be the same. the truth is we're not smart enough right now, we dont have the ground work done.
so what happens.. we wait and wait and in a thousand years maybe.

so 30000 years ago, people might have had those inspirations/accidents, and it snowballed from there to 'advanced technology'. hey, the industrial revolution happened in the blink of an eye.

Mrindigo wrote:
That's a great post real thought provoking and challenges many of the assumptions of hierarchy on which the whole world is based really.

It's also nice to see Batou taking a brief break from satire so +10 for affecting that change indigo

If I said e=mc2 but it has some type of flower growing out of it that I can't quite explain I would be seen as mad.
If I said e=mc2 and I understand it fully. I would never be seen at all.