A conscious creature, reaching down with its mind, and developing a model of what the fabric of the universe is made of at its most basic level.
It's like, using the least real thing to recreate the most real thing.
And it all started with walking apes banging rocks together.
And we came to rely on those sharp rocks for survival. And we spread. Into places where banging rocks together didn't make sharp rocks. And so to survive we had to get sharp rocks from the places that did have them. And primates are territorial. So to do that we had to talk to each other. We had to offer as the benefit to those who had sharp rocks. And so we developed language, with which to explain our selves, and labor, with which to offer goods in exchange.
And so society was born. And culture. And oral tradition, with which to pass along the technologies of stone and rope and bone and architecture. And camaraderie. Kinship. People that it was ok to trade with. Because we saw each other as part of the same... thing.
And this leads to civilization. The first great civilizations were stone age civilizations. We forget this. The pyramids were not built in the bronze age. They had copper. But cooper is not good for building in stone. They had camaraderie. Kinship. Cooperation. Cooperation built the pyramids. And that entire civilization. Cooperation, and the passing of knowledge. So that knowledge could increase from one generation to the next.
That cooperation and compounding knowledge lead to the bronze age. Bronze is an alloy made from copper and tin. Cooper and tin, geographically, are not usually found in the same place. Either the copper or the tin had to travel great distances in order to come together to make bronze. That didnt happen by itself. It took humans in North Africa cooperating with humans in the middle east to make bronze. That took mutual benefit. Processed goods, and trade. Organization. Division of labor. Obeying orders. Roles.
And the increased benefit of bronze allowed increased surplus labor. Allowed thinkers. Clergy. Philosophers and writers. To make new knowledge. And the language allowed it to be passed down. And not forgotten.
The iron age more so. And the great empires more so still. More surplus labor, more organization. More clergy, more thinkers, more philosophers, more knowledge.
And then we got to the point we could do science...
Basic stuff at first. Weights and measures, and then velocities and torque. And the gravity and the planets and then the stars.
And then we came to a place where, physicists, a supreme division of labor, could feed themselves by unlocking the most basic secrets of matter, using math and experiment.
And now we know we are made of atoms. Combined particles to make atoms, which combine to do chemistry. Which under the right conditions, make life.
And so we are life that knows what it is.
And all from walking apes banging rocks together.
Author: Trevor Andersen
