Does anyone else question things which are accepted by the masses as 'normal'?

Question

I guess that i think of neanderthall man with his rocks as tools and wonder if he really could advance to the stage of creating huge jets which fly at incredible speeds or mobile phones with their ability to send words.Then there is tv,radio,video recorders,automobiles and the list goes on and on and on.All this came from the ground.Its either all part of a mass illusion(dreams feel as real as life so why not??)or we have had help from other sources of intelligence which are not human.I really don't know but i'd like to hear some thoughts.

Answer 1

You could consider imagination. There is no doubt that we have it. If you are given something to play with as a child, you may not use it for the purpose an adult would assign (my godchild having more fun with a cardboard box 'house' than the gift that came inside it).

The same goes for innovation (as I understand it). We can figure out function, we can follow instruction and we can dream all manner of dreams, some of which are imaginative innovations.

You are doing it right now. Using a new tool from Yahoo! that enables you to ask a question in a way unheard of 5 years ago. Someone had to imagine that. Ok, it's not innovation, more like improvement, but it still illustrates the importance of imagination for how we continue to evolve.

For the record, studies show that Neanderthal Man died out eventually, unable to adapt to a changing environment. As human as they were, it seems that they were unable to harness the power of imagination and collectively improve their lot in order to survive and improve.

Will we do the same? Will we become complacent or reliant on age-old myths? Will we see imagination and questions and the ability to create as suspicious and dangerous? The Dark Ages proved that many people do have the capacity to prefer fear and dogma or reason and the quest for knowledge.

Answer 2

The problem is the Neanderthals who control accepted history, they slowly are coming to grips with the idea that ancient Neanderthals could talk and that it was two different cultures moving in two different directions, when changes came Cro Magnon man was in the right place with the right skills to survive, and it could have been a simple matter of disease. It has been proven that they did interchange habitation, so it's not that they killed each other off, but it's thought Neanderthals were more geared towards hunting where Cro Magnon may have found alternate dietary sources, which would have provided better nutrition to survive adverse conditions or disease. Believing that it was simple luck somehow drives sane people crazy, doesn't it? Darwinism doesn't mean there can't be a higher order of things, because religion only effects the things we can make concious choices about.

Answer 3

Question? No, well not the development of scientific advances you cited.

But wonder? Hell yes!

Some of these things are just so amazing! Things are advancing faster all the time! When my Dad was a lad there was no commercial air flight, man hadn't been to the moon and computers were just adding machines.

And now a phone is an MP3 player, is a camera, is a connection to the internet! Wow!

A while back (in the UK) there was a 'personal history' project for people to record an average day for future generations to read. When I wrote mine it made me realise just how much time I spend on the internet, for information, entertainment and to 'talk' to friends. And I only got a computer in 2002!

So yes, it's all remarkable. But I don't think there's any need to bring aliens into the equation. Humans are just amazing talented beings when they put their minds to it!

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Answer 4

Be thankful that you have an inquisitive mind. That mind of yours could lead you to great achievements; possibly put your name and picture in the history books.

The big question is whether history will remember you as having contributed favorably or unfavorably. You sound like an ideal candidate for the study of science because you have a strong desire to understand whether things are really what they seem to be. If I were you, I would jump in with both feet and find out. At some point in my life I read a sentence that really made me think. The sentence? "If you really want to understand something, try to disprove it." My recommendation for you? Study science. Become a scientist. Understand what they understand, and the basis for it. With that knowledge, you'll know how the competition thinks because you'll be part of the competition (a regular scientist). Then, the other you, the scientist who has a higher level inquisitive mind can try to disprove what all the other scientists (your peers) are accepting as valid.

Trying to disprove what's accepted by your peers (if you choose to atempt that) will quietly and secretly place you in a win-win situation. If you can't disprove it, your reward will be to be the one who understands the truth of it more clearly than anyone else because you've tried to disprove it and as a result gained greater insight to its validity than any of your peers. If you can disprove it; well, that's where the other rewards comes in. Not only in this life, but also in the history books. Good luck to you.

Answer 5

All the time, but your theory on it starting with Neanderthall man is flawed. Homo sapiens (which we are) have evolved and Neaderthall it is believed died out because they could not adapt to the changes, or in some cases were interbred with us. I'm sure when I look at some men it still shows!!
I don't question the Evolution of technology, most of the advances make sense! I question what people believe to be normal or true just because ancient ancestors who didn't have the advantages of our technology thought it was!

Answer 6

Admitting there might be sources of intelligence which are not human is sufficient ground for inquiry. This is where I suggest you put everything aside and devote your full attention. Yes, of course others have already started questioning these matters. Martin Heidegger's works are penetrating and thorough regarding the peculiar (but what is regarded as 'normal' by the masses) development of technological thought. Teilhard de Chardin provides a different, less dire, vantage point.

Answer 7

How far are you willing to believe?

Do you believe that cave men, given time and numbers, were able to build Notre Dame? If not, why not? It's just cleverly cut stones and wood really. Nothing implausible, technically.

But once you accept the complexity and beauty of a structure like Notre Dame, where do you stop short of the airplane? Really, once you have discovered the Bernoulli effect and internal combustion you're at the Wright Flyer - and the jump from there to modern jets is just one of degree.

Answer 8

no. no help from other non-human sources of intelligence, be they aliens or gods. we didn't need them, we did it all on our own. well done to us!
so lets all give ourselves a jolly good pat on the back for being human.

now, about this "questioning things accepted by the masses as normal"?
i do it all the time; but, it's my own shortcomings when it comes to technology. when things that fall into that category, I'm not exactly what you'd call, "the sharpest tool in the box".

Answer 9

I reckon there is a possibility that we are visited often by aliens on some history field trip, just to see where they came from, and what they evolved from.

We could be an experiment, in which case, our lives would be tampered with now and again, just to see how we react.

I loved Douglas Adams for his imagination regarding the mice and the creation of earth, what a scream.

Answer 10

Going from using rocks as tools to creating jet engines didn't exactly happen overnight! There was a gap of a couple of millions of years in between, so it seems perfectly reasonable to me that we would advance quite a lot in that time.