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I can understand why the op was down voted, but just assuming that a civilization was "not smart" simply because we cannot find evidence feels dumb. > The real

I can understand why the op was down voted, but just assuming that a civilization was "not smart" simply because we cannot find evidence feels dumb. > The real bigots are the conspiracy nuts who think ancient civilizations we know of couldn't have achieved the many things we evidence of, and think it must have been aliens You are not presenting any evidence that it was otherwise. I am not saying that this device was presented by aliens, but neither you are that it was not. > So should we assume they had such things? We simply make the best estimates we can and adjust when we find wonderful surprises like this one. We have evidence that they had it. How they had it is a separate question. I assume the next "civilization" might not be able to figure out how/what out machines are doing and they would have a similar discussion.

simonh 5y ago
> I can understand why the op was down voted, but just assuming that a civilization was "not smart" simply because we cannot find evidence feels dumb. As I explained very carefully, this has nothing to do with them being smart or dumb. We already know they were very smart from their written records. I explained how we know that. They just didn’t have our technology. It turns out they had more technology than we previously suspected, that’s all. > You are not presenting any evidence that it was otherwise. It’s not possible to prove a negative. The only route to reasonably reliable knowledge is following the evidence and preferring the simplest explanations for things. If I have to provide evidence it wasn’t aliens to doubt that explanation, do I also have to provide evidence it wasn’t Atlanteans, and evidence that it wasn’t time travelers, and evidence that it wasn’t extra dimensional beings? If I can’t provide that evidence what do we conclude, that it was probably alien time travelling extradimensional beings from Atlantis?

simonh 5y ago

> I can understand why the op was down voted, but just assuming that a civilization was "not smart" simply because we cannot find evidence feels dumb. As I explained very carefully, this has nothing to do with them being smart or dumb. We already know they were very smart from their written records. I explained how we know that. They just didn’t have our technology. It turns out they had more technology than we previously suspected, that’s all. > You are not presenting any evidence that it was otherwise. It’s not possible to prove a negative. The only route to reasonably reliable knowledge is following the evidence and preferring the simplest explanations for things. If I have to provide evidence it wasn’t aliens to doubt that explanation, do I also have to provide evidence it wasn’t Atlanteans, and evidence that it wasn’t time travelers, and evidence that it wasn’t extra dimensional beings? If I can’t provide that evidence what do we conclude, that it was probably alien time travelling extradimensional beings from Atlantis?