Modern Man vs Ancient Man?

Well my view are in modern times we are crippling ourselves both mentally and physically.It is a known fact that our lifespand and of ability to retain information is deminishing. It starts of from what we eat in our time compared to theirs. In our modern societies today their are perservatives in every meal, which while making food last longer without spoiling kills us slowly. Also theses perservatives affect the whole body as far as growth and your brain chemistry. Now there are some civilizations in the world today in which a 100 year life spand. they are seclueded from society so they are not exposed to the toxins placed in our bodies everyday.
Yes we as people depend upon technology too much the anicent man probaly walk 40 miles just to get to the hunting grounds for food, and then had to walk all the way back home. Nowadays we have the "convenience" of the car to drive and get a burger a block away. As far as ancient Egypt how did they move those bricks machines cannot move these days. Stone hedge no one still doesn't know the purpose of that! (It sould have been for human sacrifices we don't know). Even the art of building bridges we cannot make them as strong as we use to and no one knows why.

As the world turns it stands still. I believe through our "progression" technolgy and teachings over the years has been made to contrls our thoughts actions and lifespand.

[Edited on 12-6-2003 by JUL]

Ya know, I love the fact that I can just think of the most off the wall things to ask and discuss and I can always count on you fabulous people to add a deeper meaning to my thoughts I am a heavy thinker and wonderer and it means alot to me to be able to share what I think about with you all and have you share back is that much greater to me..

I know, that in reality we are much more advanced then our ancient kin. But sometimes I just can't help think that we could very well be using a great deal less of our brains today then what they did long long ago. They just seem to have it together so much more then we do today, there wasn't too many material things to focus on therefore they had so much more dependence on theirselves and eachother. They used their minds together and their strengths to acheive what they strived for and needed. They moved through life with less objects and devices to depend on..and this is just so impressive to me.

Seems our world has become far less easy and much more complicated then it has ever been. The more things we learn, the less we actually know and this is why I wondered if we weren't actually reversing in intelligence. Sometimes I think 'less' is better, but our world and state of mind that we live in has become so dependant on more more and it's never enough. It reminds me of having way too much info on your computer and it causes it to slow down and even could cause it to crash with the overload of info that it has no idea what to do with and where to store it-that's how I feel about our minds and knowledge today.

Really fantastic thoughts you all added though here, think we all kind of took it further then actual intelligence..which is no complaint to me This is what discussions are all about..
Mags

Originally posted by jagdflieger
In the hunter/gatherer stage, dumb people would be more likely to end up as lunch for some passing predator. This would tend to eliminate people who were too stupid to recognize the danger. Also it takes some intelligence and cunning to be a successful hunter. You must be able to observe animal behavor and utilize the information. The more intelligent you are, the better hunter you will be. Most likely, the dumb ones who were not eaten had a tendency to starve to death. As far as more recent times, you have cultures which figured out how to build Stonehedge, the pryamids, etc.

This is the problem i have with our society nowadays. one upon a time long ago it was the clever, the strong, the able who achived in life and had the chance to pass on their genes and ideals on to the next generation but now everybody cares for everybody else so people who perhaps have nothing to offer evolutionarily speaking live on and have many children, passing on thier "defective" genes and hinder the progress of ourselves as a species.

to put it simply. our society is no longer evolving and it is for this reason our existance will amount to nothing and our species will die off and be replaced by a better, more advanced form of ourselves.

you may see this as a very deppresing world view but its what i believe and thats all i have to say for now.

I think there are a couple of ways to look at this question.

1 Kids today ARE more intelligent (ie: know more stuff)than kids in the past owing to the intense informational input into their lives.

So if you ask them some questions they would more quickly be able to answer them based on the information they have been given as children and the ways of thinking they have been exposed to.

So its a sociological inteligence, based on their formal and informal education.

2. Let a kid from today grow up with a kid from the past and I say they would come out equal.

3 Don't mistake technology for intelligence, can you make a TV?

4 People in the past had far better memories than we do, we have lost some abilities that we don't need today, but we don't need those skills so they remain undeveloped.

Mankind hasn't changed, just the environmental and sociiological influences on their lives has changed.