Transition from a non creative to a creative
being.
We must conclude that, at some point in the past, man
discovered that he had the power to use directed thought to produce
solutions to problems. This transition likely produced a nomadic
creature, one whose primary response to new problems was to
migrate. Before this time, man was apparently confined to the rift
valley in Africa, presumably bound by natural features, desert,
ocean, jungle, to this small space. Man probably got his start here
because of the happy coincidence of the equator and the long series
of fresh water lakes from Lake Albert to Lake Malawi, guaranteeing
a ready supply of water and food. Animals migrate, but are easily
frustrated by natural barriers. When man became creative, perhaps
due to overpopulation of the rift valley with humans, he was able to
envisage possible solutions to geographic barriers, he was able to
create a mental map and alter his movements according to his
understanding of geography. This will have allowed him to envision
and succeed in migrating, first to Egypt and thence east and west
around the Mediterranean Sea, and then to spread over the entire
globe. Being dependent on the natural food production of the earth,
his population density was rather thin, except in particularly
advantageous places, generally near the equator. This creativity
extended to the production of boats, with which he succeeded in
migrating even to Fiji and Hawaii. All of this migration will have
depended on population pressure as its motivating force.
We might suppose that this event occurred about 10,000 years
ago or simultaneously with the beginning of the current interglacial
age, which began with a 13 degree increase in global temperature
within 50 years and led to, up until now, an unprecedented period of
10,000 years of stable and warm temperatures. On the other hand,
perhaps it happened 120,000 years ago during another period of
even greater warmth than we now enjoy.
These time frames are as nothing to geological time. Human
like remains go back at least 3 million years, the dinosaurs occurred
200 million years ago and an occurrence of a humanoid footprint
occurring concurrently with a dinosaur footprint seems to have been
found, living coral goes back 370 million years, rocks appear to have
been created on earth as long as four billion years ago. This is a
significant fraction of the current estimate of the age of the universe,
about 9-14 billion years.
Transition from nomad to farmer.
This transition must have been induced by overpopulation.
When there is plenty of land to go around, it is much easier to move
to another locale than to contend for land with another group. When
there is no place to move to, a new scheme is necessary to decide
who gets to live where and that scheme will be property ownership.
This idea entails certain difficulties. When one is nomadic and the
land does not provide enough resources to live on, one moves to a
place that does. When that potential for movement is eliminated,
artificial means must be employed to enhance production of the
means to continue life, that is one must farm. We can say that, at the
point in time that man decided to farm, he was responding to a
perception that the land did not naturally produce enough to allow
all humans to continue to live. There are only two responses to this
perception, reduced population which will naturally occur if no
intervention is attempted, or artificial enhancement of the
production of food resources.
This event would seem to have happened in three or four
places more or less simultaneously: along the Nile, between the Tigris
and Euphrates, along the Yangtze and/or Yellow rivers, and perhaps
along the Ganges. It did not happen along the Amazon, Mississippi,
or Danube rivers. It would seem to have happened at about the time
of the enslavement of the Jews by the Egyptians, or about 5,000
years ago. The only recorded description of these times is to be
found in the Biblical description of Joshua's entry with the Jews into
Canaan. Abraham would seem to be the author of this strategy.
Transition from non precision to precision
technology.
Farming allowed man to create three high density populations,
Europe, India, and China. But, eventually saturation arrived and
population pressure once again mounted and one of these
civilizations, having most extensively developed its creative
potential, discovered methods by which high precision technology
became possible. These methods mainly involved manufacture of
suitable alloys and from these materials precision tools which
allowed the production of efficient machines, first the chronometer
which freed navigation (see the currently popular book: Longitude by Dara Sobel from Penguin) and then the piston engine which allowed for
efficient high speed movement. The pursuit of a more and more
efficient gun apparently is responsible for motivating this
development. To get to a repeating rifle and then to mass produce it,
required the development of precision manufacturing methods. With
these tools worldwide high density population became possible in the
temperate regions.
We, of course, know that this occurred about 200 years ago,
more or less concurrently with the establishment of the US.
The present
In our times, population pressure is once again mounting,
precision technology having been fully exploited. So, in the past we
first used migration to open up new land resources as a method of
dealing with overpopulation and when that failed we resorted to
farming, which is to say increased efficiency, and then precision
technology, which again opened up new territory. Where can we go
from here? If the cycle repeats itself, efficiency would seem to be
the answer.
Continued immigration into the non temperate regions of the
earth, or under the ocean, isn't likely because the cost of the energy
needed to maintain large populations under these conditions will be
too high, unless some inexpensive source of energy is forthcoming, of
which there is currently no sign. Emigration into space cannot be
done in any economical way for the same reasons, so that we must
conclude that emigration as a solution to overpopulation is probably
not feasible. There is still some potential for farming the ocean,
perhaps. The problems would seem to involve compensation. How
can fish stock ownership be maintained so that the farmers will be
able to sell their produce. How to keep the fish from deserting the
farm and other beings, human or otherwise, from raiding. Some
form of fencing might be possible, and patrolling might keep
poachers away. As for living space, there is no land left anywhere
that is not owned by someone, so that all future increases in
population will produce larger more densely populated cities. There
is also growing resistance to adding area to cities so that probably
the only realistic answer is high rise building.
All in all, the potential does not seem to be great. Nothing like
the results produced by earlier innovations. Not to mention that the
impact of high density population on the environment is particularly
discouraging. So, we must also entertain the possibility that
population reduction is called for due to the realization that
population growth is a dead end.