Could there have been intelligent life on earth?

TeddyTedson

Hello After Hours, I hope you all had an enjoyable St. Patricks day .
Anyway, I've been thinking/wondering/pondering if there is any chance there could have been life on earth more intelligent than the human race before ourselves? Is there any scientific theories that there may have been?
I'm no scientist but is there even a remote chance that there may have been more intelligent lifeforms living on earth in the distant past? Perhaps there was and all evidence has decayed or remained hidden from us?
There's a few knowledgeable folk on here so maybe they can share any possibilities on the subject, despite how farfetched.

Now to get some AH humor out of the way.

Could there have been intelligent life on earth?

...eh

Anyway, I've been thinking

This is where I stopped reading


I'll let the monsters take over from here

GenieOz

Impossible. If there was they'd have figured out a way to survive past us.
The only reasons humans are still alive is because of our intelligence, if it came down to raw power and survival skills we'd be screwed, we need nurturing for for the first 4 or 5 years if our life before we can even attempt to feed or do anything for ourselves.

kumate_champ07

our technology today is not a result of improved intelligence, its a result of advances over 1000's of years, previous civilizations have built the foundations of today's technology

time + writing + reading = smarter

Hunchback

GenieOz wrote: »

Impossible. If there was they'd have figured out a way to survive past us.
The only reasons humans are still alive is because of our intelligence, if it came down to raw power and survival skills we'd be screwed, we need nurturing for for the first 4 or 5 years if our life before we can even attempt to feed or do anything for ourselves.

but, but, comets and jellystone park?

Hello_MrFox

GenieOz wrote: »

Impossible. If there was they'd have figured out a way to survive past us.
The only reasons humans are still alive is because of our intelligence, if it came down to raw power and survival skills we'd be screwed, we need nurturing for for the first 4 or 5 years if our life before we can even attempt to feed or do anything for ourselves.

Unless they were wiped out by something they couldn't figure out how to stop.

EoghanIRL

Their is.

soap1978

gate of the gods in peru

GerB40

No..

endacl

In evolutionary terms, we haven't been here all that long. In a million years some other species may well be asking themselves the same question...

Cookie_Monster

no, there would have been all sorts of evidence left in both the fossil record and of all their junk buried around the place that we would have found.

Karl Stein

These creatures you call mice you see are not quite as they appear, they are merely the protrusions into our dimension of vast, hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings. The business with the cheese and squeaking is just a front.

Akrasia

The velociraptors could open doors

Couldn't build them though cause they didn't have opposable thumbs.

Dionysius2

The earth has existed for billions of years before the arrival of man. Nobody has ever tried to explain to us what was going on during that time.
If there was anything that involved intelligence going on then there must be traces somewhere......true/false ?
Given that man's time on earth would apparently be less than 5% of the time earth has existed then that leaves an awful lot of time for the dinosaurs....eh ?
Any enlightenment....anyone ?

sheesh

easily

the dinosaurs were around for 100s of millions of years surely some of them could have come up with an intelligent species.

and even before that there was an even bigger extinction event

Holsten

Higher up than ourselves? No, not a chance.

There would be evidence of this if it had happened.

So on Earth right now 2014 is the most advanced we've ever been.

On another planet? Who knows, I would say there is a real possibility.

entropi

Well, considering the Babylonians, Mayan and Inca civilisations died out and they were deemed advanced...its inevitable that current humans will probably go the same way. The biggest and current challenge being touted is resource management, since there are far too many people on Earth already.

Maybe we'll be looked upon in a future time for some innovative ideas and the society we have.

Artful_Badger

No. If there was the place would be littered with strange looking beer cans.

GenieOz

Dionysius2 wrote: »

The earth has existed for billions of years before the arrival of man. Nobody has ever tried to explain to us what was going on during that time.
If there was anything that involved intelligence going on then there must be traces somewhere......true/false ?
Given that man's time on earth would apparently be less than 5% of the time earth has existed then that leaves an awful lot of time for the dinosaurs....eh ?
Any enlightenment....anyone ?

Ah stop, earth is only 2014 years old. We literally have a calendar telling us this!

Sauve

I'd give anything for a half hour to root around in your brain Teddy, and see what in the name of Jaysus you do be thinking about.

buyer95

Has to be the stupidist thread ever for its sheer hilariousness.

Zamboni

There was never intelligent life on earth. There still isn't either to be fair...

shopaholic01

Sauve wrote: »

I'd give anything for a half hour to root around in your brain Teddy, and see what in the name of Jaysus you do be thinking about.

I think I'd need a couple of hours.

Ficheall

GenieOz wrote: »

Impossible. If there was they'd have figured out a way to survive past us.

Maybe surviving is not the intelligent thing to do?

BrokenArrows

No.
If we are finding dinosaur fossils we definitely would have found the remains of ancient cities.

The Backwards Man

I is smart and can read good

jobeenfitz

Maybe, sort of. Maybe the earth has been here before. It had a very intelligent species who all got destroyed with that earth. Then the creator/s or whatever, decided to replace it and we are working our way to that level of intelligence again.

This may be inaccurate?

greedygoblin

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I is smart and can read good

But you read right to left Backwards Man, right?

zenno

TeddyTedson wrote: »

Hello After Hours, I hope you all had an enjoyable St. Patricks day .
Anyway, I've been thinking/wondering/pondering if there is any chance there could have been life on earth more intelligent than the human race before ourselves? Is there any scientific theories that there may have been?
I'm no scientist but is there even a remote chance that there may have been more intelligent lifeforms living on earth in the distant past? Perhaps there was and all evidence has decayed or remained hidden from us?
There's a few knowledgeable folk on here so maybe they can share any possibilities on the subject, despite how farfetched.

Now to get some AH humor out of the way.


...eh


This is where I stopped reading


I'll let the monsters take over from here

I believe there was a time in the far past when humans reached a far more technological state than we are now but they moved on to some other habitable planet out there. They are our old and renowned so called Gods people speak of in old literature. They are the one's that can disable nuclear warheads, they can extract your conciousness from your body as what some people call a soul.

They are the ones that moved on when civilisation was almost completely destroyed back yonder.

GenieOz

Ficheall wrote: »

Maybe surviving is not the intelligent thing to do?

In that case fruit flies are the most intelligent of us all.

Ficheall

GenieOz wrote: »

In that case fruit flies are the most intelligent of us all.

Well, I meant surviving as a species. The fruit flies still have to go through the whole pointless "living" thing for a while.

jobeenfitz

GenieOz wrote: »

In that case fruit flies are the most intelligent of us all.

or maybe them little sperm that don't wanna swim toward the egg?

greedygoblin

Here is an interesting little graphic (from the USGS I think) detailing the geological evolution of earth.
The length of time humans have been around is miniscule compared to the age of the planet.

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/geology/publications/bul/1508/images/fig61.jpg

emo72

As far as I know the continents have split up and rejoined 5 times. As the previous poster pointed out " we have just arrived". We haven't discovered what went on, on this planet in the distant pass. So anything is possible. Interesting thread.

zenno

Who's to say, that a very technologically advanced civilisation didn't exist thousands of years ago and moved off to other planets or moons if they had the technological know-how?. Think of us now, as a reasonably technologically advanced civilisation right now.

If sh!t goes tits up as in a world nuclear war today, I'm sure the elites would be shipped off this planet even to the moon (yes I believe there is already a moon-base on the moon built from the black budget monies/trillions used by the secret military aerospace industry) but only saving the elites and scientists and folk that have necessary skills to build a new home on such moon or planet.

We all stay here and get destroyed mostly, in such a catastrophic way that future generations will be like ours today wondering what really happened in the far past of those thousands of years ago.

Capt'n Midnight

considering our current impact on the planet it's very unlikely that a previous species that affected it anywhere as much would have gone unnoticed.

also intelligence is relative, you just need to be the smartest at the time not the smartest ever

zenno

Theories abound, they are everywhere, but will we ever know our real past ?.

jiminho

Battlestar Galactica anyone?

Adamantium

jiminho wrote: »

Battlestar Galactica anyone?

if ever there was a timeless yet depressing truth in that masterpiece series, it was in the saying:

"All this has happened before, and all of this will happen again"

Goes for pretty much everything in life, people their personalities, their actions and learning from the consequences of those actions, not simply forgetting and consigning it as academic history.

Also I've worded this in such a way, that there's no spoikers

Krispie

you not think it is all relative? We know what we know which in the greater scheme of things, we know feck all so the possibility of intelligent life here, and on other planets, imho, is not just possible but certain. It may not have been in "perfect" human form but it was intelligent.
Given what other creatures can do with what is at their disposal, and compare to what the average Joe can do, we are actually not that intelligent, quite stupid really and helpless.

Stavros Murphy

Akrasia wrote: »

The velociraptors could open doors

Couldn't build them though cause they didn't have opposable thumbs.

Or JML multi-saws. We've come a long way.

Fratton Fred

As I sit here, in my mind numbingly boring job, I can't help but marvel at how intelligent we are as a species. I bet our forefathers never believed we would one day spend more time worshipping the mighty spreadsheet God than we do spending time with our families.

Wibbs

endacl wrote: »

In evolutionary terms, we haven't been here all that long. In a million years some other species may well be asking themselves the same question...

Possible, but unlikely. Of all the adaptations to various environments on this planet, intelligence, our type of intelligence is the very rarest of all. Flight? Loads of very different creatures have cracked that one, from dinosaurs to mammals, to insects, to birds and all had a similar basic template. Swimming? Ditto. Intelligence? Nope. Just us. Only the once. And if you're talking about our current kind of intelligence that paints pictures and builds space stations and communicates as we're doing now, that's only been around for under 100,000 years, more like 50,000. Humans in one form or another had been here for well over a million*, but even there we're the major outliers. Neandertals were clever people who survived, nay thrived in various environments for double the time modern humans like us have been around, but they wouldn't have painted the Mona Lisa. Maybe they had their own rare Leonardo or Newton, but he or she was born to a species and cultural environment that meant their genius died with them.

Contrary to the popular idea that "we're just another animal", we're incredibly rare. We are special.

So even if a dinosaur had become intelligent, chances are very high they would have stayed at erectus/neandertal levels and may have not survived very long. Neandertals were slowing in population growth before we showed up and we were nearly wiped out and at one point 50-60,000 years ago(IIRC) we were down to around 10-20,000 people. Imagine Croke park three quarters empty. That was us. So you and me reading this are incredibly, vanishingly, scarily lucky to be doing so.



*I'm setting the bar for human at Erectus. Previous hominids may have been clever bipedal apes, but Erectus brought something new to the table.

RobbieTheRobber

zenno wrote: »

Who's to say, that a very technologically advanced civilisation didn't exist thousands of years ago and moved off to other planets or moons if they had the technological know-how?. Think of us now, as a reasonably technologically advanced civilisation right now.

If sh!t goes tits up as in a world nuclear war today, I'm sure the elites would be shipped off this planet even to the moon (yes I believe there is already a moon-base on the moon built from the black budget monies/trillions used by the secret military aerospace industry) but only saving the elites and scientists and folk that have necessary skills to build a new home on such moon or planet.

We all stay here and get destroyed mostly, in such a catastrophic way that future generations will be like ours today wondering what really happened in the far past of those thousands of years ago.

We cant find a lost plane on earth and you think they have secret moon bases?

Interesting.

conorhal

endacl wrote: »

In evolutionary terms, we haven't been here all that long. In a million years some other species may well be asking themselves the same question...

One answered by the homind fossel with an iPhone grafted to it's hand. Since we haven't seen any Dinosaur remains trapped in their fossilized cars after a volcanic explosion, I think it's safe to assume that we're the first intelligent life to evolve on this planet.

conorhal

Dionysius2 wrote: »

The earth has existed for billions of years before the arrival of man. Nobody has ever tried to explain to us what was going on during that time.
If there was anything that involved intelligence going on then there must be traces somewhere......true/false ?
Given that man's time on earth would apparently be less than 5% of the time earth has existed then that leaves an awful lot of time for the dinosaurs....eh ?
Any enlightenment....anyone ?

Let me enlighten you so! For most of those billions of years the planet was hostile to life.
Logically, even if archiological evidence was ploughed under by time, any advanced intellegent species would have left some space junk floating around the solar system to find.

housetypeb

Dionysius2 wrote: »

The earth has existed for billions of years before the arrival of man. NOBODY HAS EVER TRIED TO EXPLAIN to us what was going on during that time....

Seriously? There's plenty of books and documentaries on the subject.

Feisar

http://www.rabbithole2.com/presentation/ancient/ancient_artifacts_that_challenge_modern_archaeology.htm

I'm sure there are counter arguments to the items in the link but interesting stuff none the less.

steddyeddy

Neanderthals were nearly as intelligent as us it seems. They buried their dead, played music, had religious ceremonies and now some studies suggest they may have been responsible for some of the cave art originally attributed to humans.

Wibbs

steddyeddy wrote: »

Neanderthals were nearly as intelligent as us it seems. They buried their dead, played music, had religious ceremonies and now some studies suggest they may have been responsible for some of the cave art originally attributed to humans.

Well... I'm not so sure SE. I'd love it to be true, but... If they did bury their dead it was seemingly a rare event. The evidence for the practice is slim indeed and in nearly every case alternative explanations hold as much or nearly as much water. Much more evidence exists of them butchering the dead and consuming them(as did we). The sole "evidence" for music is a bone "flute" which now looks like the holes were made by the action of a carnivore. Tooth holes basically. The religious aspect was considered solid enough, particularly the idea of a cave bear cult, but the original evidence and dig was fraught with supposition and bad practice. The cave art idea has more legs as they have found some cave art in Spain that predates us showing up by a few thousand years. Still, until they find more of it to back this up, it could mean a) a mistake in dating, or b) we were in Europe a little earlier than is currently thought.

What we do know is they were inventive enough. It seems they had figured out a way to synthesise a glue(in a very delicate and involved process), they also made quite sophisticated wooden objects of which sadly a tiny amount remains. They also utilised pigments in some way, maybe culturally, maybe for camouflage. They may have also utilised feathers, again in a cultural way. Jewelry is looking likely. One thought I've had is that they may have even tattooed themselves. When you think about us today, there are people walking around covered in body art that will die with them. In a million years you'd never know we did it.

Culturally and socially they seem to have been a very isolated, territorial even xenophobic people so maybe their pigments and such were important to show which group you belonged to. However it doesn't look like they externalised their art like we did. Evidence for trade is very slim to non existent, even where groups butted up against each others territory. This seems to have been location specific as when we first met in the middle east we got jiggy with each other so mate trading may have gone on. Though IMHO when this happened we were very similar in general thinking. The "big bang" of our abstract thinking hadn't happened yet.

There is another way to look at it. All of the pre "us" possibly cultural/art type evidence going back two million years could comfortably fit in a laptop case and pretty much none of it is definitive. However a single square meter of a cave floor in France say that is the first example of where we inhabited would triple that amount. Projectile weapons, jewelry, needles and fitted clothing, art, lots of art. We really landed like aliens into this world. We were and are that different. I suspect this updated version of us would have been nearly incomprehensible to other humans of the time.

Overflow

GenieOz wrote: »

Impossible. If there was they'd have figured out a way to survive past us.
The only reasons humans are still alive is because of our intelligence, if it came down to raw power and survival skills we'd be screwed, we need nurturing for for the first 4 or 5 years if our life before we can even attempt to feed or do anything for ourselves.

You would make a terrible scientist

zenno

RobbieTheRobber wrote: »

We cant find a lost plane on earth and you think they have secret moon bases?

Interesting.

It was just a drunken theory of mine