It seems possible to me. Makes you wonder how many different species we are totally unaware of existing. Not just humanoid or intelligent. Maybe we only know of a minute amount of the species and variety of species that existed. Maybe when computer simulations get more advanced we can see what might have been possible.

Yeah just wonder if a lot of the evidence of existence was totally annihilated too. The species we have identified by fossils might just be a drop in the bucket.

this would only happen if people could develop algorithms that would parallel things exactly as they happened here. even if a computer knew of all possible combinations of possibilities, youd still have to be able to simulate here, as it actually was.

the defined starting point really makes that more of a challenge

I don't remember the numbers but especially in the seas there is a high number, millions perhaps, of species we neither know nor will never know. By the time it took me to write this, a species somewhere went extinct without us ever knowing of it.

However, we can pretty safely rule out the existence of any sapient species on Earth, besides ourselves.

Cuttle fish are like alien life forms to me.. they really make you wonder what might have been possible.

Sorry I'm too lazy to look up the past extinction events but if memory serves me correct, the last one wiped out 99% of all living species. With that 1% who survived making up the ancestors of all living organisms on earth today.

I'm a firm believer that all technology we have now today, both consumer and military, was invented over a millenia ago. And even on a different planet. But you know, to most here I'm bat shit crazy, instead of a seeker.

There are legend of druids having advanced telescopes and other 'instruments', it makes 'inventions' by Newton and others in the Royal Society, who were very into druidry and other traditions, seem more like things that were given to them to move things forward for the rest of us. They believe that people are irresponsible and that you shouldn't cast pearls before the swine, and they are right, unfortunately.

Newtons laws came from Keplers which used the measurements made by Brahe during a lifetime of naked eye observations of the sky. All this work for centuries funded by nobility and businessmen. If only these druidic instruments had survived, when could have realised Vernes moon shot!

Legends? How about painstakingly recorded scientific history?

Yeah and the druids and other priesthoods did the observations before them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stukeley

They're not going to tell you everything because they think you can't be trusted, don't shoot the messenger.

They did all the measurements with errors according to the ever improving accuracy of the instruments made by Brahe and others? Quite an unnecessary effort, one would think. Nice story, doesn't fit the data.

Newton's biography on Wikipedia doesn't make much sense to me, it calls him "undistinguished at Cambridge" but also says he discovered "generalised binomial theorem" there, clearly the bar was set much higher back then!

"Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics, and the law of gravitation.",so he NEET'd it for 2 years while the Great Plague was going on and invented the Reflecting Telescope, 80 years after Brahe died, then got admitted into the Royal Society in 1699~. Right.

Your data only makes sense in the unlikely situation that Newton was a complete semi-isolated genius. Which he could have been.

Yes, and it's easy to imagine / believe once you shed the man-made illusion that is time.

Psychedelics and "Battlestar Galactica" are a good start..

... to melt your brain.

Most shit is gone after 300 years. And, shit is buried all over the place just 5 feet down. Look at Gobekli Tepi. I bet there's stuff all over the place just waiting to be found. (And not further hidden or destroyed by the Smithsonian)

Amen to that.

Don't forget the fact that today just about all our major hot spots for human life are near the coast lines. And before the end of the last ice age the coast lines were vastly different. Most of the places that we would have inhabited before 10,000 BC are now under water and sand. Gobekli Tepi was constructed as the Ice Age was ending and waters were rising, imagine what they were building before that.

The sea level rose 360 feet. That’s a lot of land that got swallowed up.

To add onto that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonaguni_Monument

Right now, of course, there is no "evidence" that it is man-made. If anyone is interested more, then Graham, among others, should have some photos/info (I've seen more photos on Graham's site).

I believe Graham backpedaled on Yonaguni more recently. I think he mentions it in one of the Joe Rogan podcasts.

Really? I must have missed it (I've watched 2 of them, haven't watched the newest one).

Graham wasn't the only one that was speculating about Yonaguni Monument being man-made, but even if we won't be taking into account, there is one in Mediterranean and also one in India.

I think it is the one with John Anthony West maybe. Not sure, I binged like 3 of them in one day.

Can you expand more on that part in parenthesis? Gobekli Tepi is fascinating to me and it seems to be little discussion out there about it

Get book:

Magicians of the Gods by Graham Hancock.

In depth analysis of gobekeli tepe.

Thanks I'll have to check it out. I've listened to the JRE podcasts with Graham and it amazes me that he doesn't get more publicity

So, just to be clear, you are asking, essentially, the following:

"What would be the effect of someone existing in a manner that doesn't effect us at all?"

So, literally exactly what I said, then.

ok. I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm just saying the question you're asking kind of answers itself. It's actually kind of elegant to be honest.

AND WHAT IF NOT?!?!

Woah man I mean.. yeah? Right? Mind blown. Cool stuff tho right bro?

I don't know about 1 billion years ago, but we did have the Great Dying some 250 million years ago. Geological studies show the symptoms (e.g dramatic shifts in CO2, O2 levels in the atmosphere), though no real source for the extinction event was ever agreed.

Having a global civilization collapse around that time is intriguing, though sadly beyond the realm of science (unless new evidence is somehow uncovered..)

True, true. My fear is that we would reach our "great filter" as a civilization before understanding how to get past it or, if the situation is hopeless for us, how to preserve the knowledge we obtained for posterity (lest we become a source of speculation for future "redditors" 1 gy from now...)

My fear is that we're already beyond Fermi's "Great Filter" and are currently fucking it up by being a bunch of divided idiots.

Completely plausible imho

I agree to an extent. For example, we can find fossils of dinosaurs but so far no evidence of past civilizations. But maybe past evidence was just reused continuously like how generations of people have lived in Jericho up to this day. Also, since most cities are near the coast, and since sea levels rose, there could be many underwater cities

"All man-made structures disappear from the earth in 50 or so million years. The earth has been around for 4.5 billion years."

It's a LOT LOT less than that, dude. There are cars that are just frames in less than 100. 10,000 years tops, and a skyscraper wouldn't even exist.

we build a lot of things using granite now, someone would find our inscriptions in granite or some type of stainless metal. I am assuming this stuff is buried and not out in the elements for millions of years. I think our current civilizations is leaving behind a ton of discoverable items for future generation.

Atlantis. And the other legendary cities.

To learn more about this subject I strongly recommend to check out Graham Hancock and Randall Carlsson's outstanding works. Start with the Joe Rogan podcast, the evidence they put out is incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFlAFo78xoQ

There is plenty of evidence for civilizations in the distant past, they are called "out of place" artifacts.

"Plenty of evidence" is a funny way of saying "hoaxes, natural elements and uninterpreted findings".

it is hard to tell what is real and not real on the internet these days.

In many things, yes, but when it comes to science, sources and peer reviews decide the facts. The thing about most out of place artifacts is that they are either shown to be hoaxes, can be explained as natural products, or it can be demonstrated that a known civilization had the ability to make them (like the Nazca lines).

Modern science is dominated by money, power and manipulation. Scientists are humans just like everybody else.

Someone is asking the point so I'll say this. What if these advanced civilizations were spacefaring and while some of them were off planet the initial destruction happens. So, they come back and visit and they have colonized other planets. Also, they wouldn't be human. Unless, you're saying somehow humans evolved and we're mostly wiped out and the remnants invented civilization again.

There have been several mass extinctions and one of them really did wipe out 95% of all life. I doubt they were spacefaring no matter how I'd like to think so. So there's a point where the biologically current human had to begin, it's not going to stretch back forever. Unless you take into account that we really are designed genetic hybrids or evolution does takes the same "path". Maybe the gods and giants are the previous human path form.

Atlantis, Lemuria/Mu, Hyperborea, Pre-Maya, Avalon, Eden, etc. would it surprise you to know that most of these civilizations were human and that most of them exist today in some form?

I'd be more than interested to see some of this, especially Avalon. Got any good links?

You're asking: what it something existed that is not knowable? Well, then it remains unknown.

He's asking, "what if something existed that actively contradicts known evidence?"

I like using imagination, and I don't fault anyone for inventing these kinds of scenarios, but there simply isn't any scientific reason to assume OP's scenario to be true. There is no evidence, and what we have contradicts the proposition.

Science readily admits that human beings, "just like ourselves", have been around for at least 150,000 years and quite possibly even as much as 250,000 years based on what scant remains there are.

What little evidence we have regarding the earliest civilizations known to us goes back about 12,000 years with the progression that has lead to our own modern one starting about 3,500 years ago with the development of writing and being able to keep information that prior to that could only be kept alive orally and within human memory. A situation in which any accident, early death, or deadly disease, could have easily wiped-out all kinds of essential information before it could ever be passed on, some of which might never be recovered.

Clearly with all of that missing time about which we know nothing other than that "humans just like ourselves" were certainly around during them then they must have led lives that were organised and satisfactory enough to both survive and continue on throughout that inordinate amount of time.

As a species we are innately expressive, creative, and artistic which was what led to the development of writing at a relatively primitive stage and we have enough examples of separate and different languages arising and reaching that point in isolation from each other that such a development seems to be more likely than not whenever there is a stable and comfortable enough environment for a community to remain fixed and with enough of a surplus to permit some or even many of it's members to more thoroughly pursue and explore their innate creative, artistic, and intellectual abilities.

So I'd consider the odds that there have been many major civilizations, perhaps even some more advanced than our own in different ways that have come and gone without a trace, to be more than likely.

Some of the archeological evidence we have shows that in many instances the societies and civilizations that were built on top of previous ones were less rather than more advanced than what came before them. Something we also know to be true about the builders of the great pyramid compared to all the inferior ones that were constructed well after it. More advanced and yet lost or supplanted by a less advanced one that apparently paid no attention to what was better and more developed about them than their own or unable to understand, replicate or incorporate them.

So we are left with some serious questions about the past that fly in the face of any notions of any steady or progressive line of human development over time. Civilizations that may have had great achievements in some areas that failed for the want of others that were replaced by ones that placed more or even all of their attention and emphasis on the missing aspects that led to failure and demise of what came before it. Perhaps more rough and ready with more practical and pragmatic aspects we merely assumed what think was more advanced before it would have known when perhaps they didn't.

Surplus. The answer is surplus. The reason human civilization appeared so late is because humans lacked the means of having a surplus of food.

For example, even to this day there are tribes that still have not advanced to civilization, for the simple reason that they lack a surplus mechanism.

Why it's so important, is that a food surplus is the key that lets some people in a society focus on things other than just survival. It also allows sustaining stable settlements, a key for organized civilization.

You would notice that the estimated beginning of civilization coincides with the advent of agriculture. Before agriculture tribes needed all hands on deck to survive, and thus there was no meaningful civilization besides rock paintings, simple shrines and such. Farming allowed the birth of cities, and civilizations, which is why it took so long.

As for earlier civilizations, it's definitely possible (and even likely) that unknown civilizations existed between the birth of agriculture 10000 years ago, and first known civilizations like Sumer. However, there is no scientific reason to believe that any meaningful civilization existed before agriculture.

So I'd consider the odds that there have been many major civilizations, perhaps even some more advanced than our own in different ways that have come and gone without a trace, to be more than likely.

There is simply zero evidence to indicate that. Not only is there no evidence, but this idea actively contradicts known evidence.

Would that be the advent of agriculture of just a rediscovering. After a major cataclysm like the one of 12,800 years ago agriculture was probably the last thing on the minds of the wandering humans attempting to survive scouring for food.

Well the problem is that there is neither any evidence to suggest that, and such a hypothesis contradicts known evidence. "Wouldn't it be cool, if.." just doesn't cut it.

"An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence..." as I said in the beginning the normal workings of Mother Nature and the elements can obliterate and completely swallow the remains of any defunct society or civilization in a matter of few thousand years or less.

Our history isn't anywhere complete even in regards to ones we keep finding that have been lost and unknown within the 10,000 year window you suggest was the only one when there's no reason the entire process hadn't and couldn't have occurred countless times before at other times besides the ones we are aware of in which that same process happened in numerous places at different times giving rise to completely different human civilizations.

Satellite images of South America, for instance show what is believed to be thousands of acres that were irrigated at some point in time and that could have supported millions of people that have since been re-claimed by the jungle.

We also know that the Sahara Desert wasn't always a desert and that fossils of tropical ferns and palm trees have been found in the rocks on Baffin Island in the far north.

The Vikings prospered and raised enough food to support themselves and raise hundreds of valuable horses they shipped back to Scandinavia from Greenland before a sudden downturn in temperatures made it impossible for them to continue to live there.

We can't very well have evidence of a past civilization that was abandoned, or failed for reasons unknown that nature has had over 100,000 years to re-claim. Nothing that we have created ourselves is capable of enduring that amount of time without constant maintenance and re-building. Not enough would be left to even suggest what it was or that we even existed at all.

I think thats what we have geologic record for, so to answer your question, "who is to say?" Well, mother earth is saying.

OP, you might be interested to look up Maldek, the alleged former planet between Mars and Jupiter. The theory is hard to swallow, but the framework and history that goes along with that theory is fun to think about.

Everyone seems to forget about Cetaceans, dolphins, whales, etc. They are highly intelligent, maybe more so than humans even. Who knows how long they have been roaming the oceans, which are two thirds of the planet. They probably know much more about the planet than we do honestly, just my opinion though.

Cetaceans evolved in the post-dinosaur era. This is attested from fossil records. For example we know about Ambulocetus as an ancestor from the era of transition from land to sea.

As for intelligence, dolphins are exceptionally smart "for an animal", but there is no scientific reason to believe that their intelligence parallels ours.

Interesting, thanks! However, as humans we are incredibly biased towards our own intelligence being the pinnacle of animal intelligence. Obviously we cannot observe Cetaceans all the time and actually quantify their intelligence in terms we would understand. There are arguments to be made that they could be more intelligent as they don't wreck the environment they live in and or decimate the rest of the wildlife around them as we have. Of course "intelligence" is a pretty ambiguous term that only means anything to us as humans.

There has been quite a lot of research on dolphin intelligence, and all that's ever been found is that they are really smart for an animal species but that's it. That's just the fact of it. We can play with ideas all we want, but the facts tell the truth - dolphins are smart, but not that smart.

There are arguments to be made that they could be more intelligent as they don't wreck the environment they live in and or decimate the rest of the wildlife around them as we have.

Well that's just not how we define intelligence.

Of course "intelligence" is a pretty ambiguous term that only means anything to us as humans.

There are many fairly objective ways of defining intelligence. Self-awareness, problem solving, the ability to think ahead and plan. Again, dolphins are pretty good at all this, for an animal species, but nowhere near the ballpark we are.

Right I understand what you are getting at but my only point is that we judge other animals "intelligence" based on what we think is important and what we define as intelligent, which is based entirely on our own cognitive capacities. I'm not saying they are more or less intelligent than us just that they exhibit different forms of intelligence. But humans have massive ego problems as well which force us to see ourselves as the pinnacle of nature. Or we think we are so special and intelligent that we had to be created by some other ultra intelligent being like God.

Ya know, the human brain is the most complex thing in the universe... according to the human brain. See what I'm getting at??

Also I am willing to make the argument that "intelligent" creatures would not destroy the only environment they have to live in in exchange for short term gains such as humans have.

If they built anything like what we have today we'd know.

However, even Iron Age civilizations could have emerged between 20,000-200,000 years ago and frankly they would have been located on sea shores from the ice age hundreds of feet underwater.

Don't forget the Voth.

Multiple religions talk about a great flood that took out civilization.

I dig this. My thought has been that if plates are constantly being pushed under each other and new landmass being created as plates spread, eventually there will be total turnover. A civilization would turn to dust, get buried, and eventually return to the molten hot interior of the earth for recycling.

Amen to that.