alt Hacker News> A human being has the potential for intelligence.
Were we "human" 200.000 years ago the way we are now?
Was the required brain and vocal hardware present?
Replies
A human is more then the hardware. A human is hardware with cultural software. A human is decorated with parental education. A human is decorated with local cultural influences. A human inherits his economic circumstances and behavior.
A modern human is a complex artifact and can not be produced everywhere. The ability to cooperate, form institutions and build complex tools may be severely restricted even today. Of course its also restricted in the past.
A human is more then the hardware.
A human is hardware with cultural software.
A human is decorated with parental education.
A human is decorated with local cultural influences.
A human inherits his economic circumstances and behavior.
A modern human is a complex artifact and can not be produced everywhere. The ability to cooperate, form institutions and build complex tools may be severely restricted even today. Of course its also restricted in the past.
Yes. Some important parts of the software, like complex tools, art, or the use of symbols only appeared between 100.000 and 50.000 years ago, however.
Of course they were. A human from 200,000 years ago would be almost genetically identical to one from today. That's what makes us homo sapiens. 200,000 years is absolutely nothing on an evolutionary timescale with generations as long as ours and reproduction rates as low as ours.