We can only go by what we know and what we have evidence for. Sure, other small civs likely existed, but we don't have known evidence of them and their history, etc. At most we have tombs and archeological ruins to go by. So we go with the earliest civs for whom we have written evidence as well as lots of physical evidence for in addition to present-day influence. Otherwise things start to get very speculative.
> We can only go by what we know and what we have evidence for
There is nuance here, in the degree to which uncertainty due to lack of evidence is surfaced in scientific communications for the public.
Take for instance, the behavior of dogs. Science cannot [yet] objectively answer the question of how much the subjective qualia of a dog is comparable to the qualia of humans. What then can we say about whether dogs feel 'love'? Some might say that science has not yet answered this question; that is fine.
But others get overeager and assert that because science hasn't demonstrated that dogs feel love, the scientific position is to assume all apparent demonstrations of love from dogs are little more than elaborate food seeking behavior. This goes too far, it assumes a lack of evidence is evidence to the contrary, implicitly treating science as complete until proven otherwise. I think this overzealous sort of 'scientific' thinking reflects a dogmatic attitude which is actually antithetical to the real scientific method.
There's strong evidence that some animals, at least, process visual stimuli similarly to humans, as illustrated by cats responding to the "rotating snakes" illusion:
And if you pause to consider that emotions, particularly such core and foundational ones as love (maternal, partner, tribal) are all but certainly evolved, then existence of them or precursors in other species seems all but certain. That thought had occurred to Charles Darwin, who wrote a book on the question, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
When you get to the edge of knowledge, ignoring obvious things and glossing over tends to rule the day.
Knowing what we know about people, it seems absurd to think that people just went poof, “civilization” has arrived! There were a lot fewer humans in the past, and hundreds of generations are lost to time. But the narrative of the pageant of history, often leading to the <insert nation here> greatness of today doesn’t work with “I don’t know”
Well, it would seem like the middle way would be to postulate things such as these but not assert them as 'received knowledge'. And just as we might postulate that dogs can experience love, we can also postulate the opposite and discuss both without giving one a preponderance of support till we can develop such support.
I chose to use that word to preempt nitpicky objections about measuring oxytocin in dog brains (which doesn't actually tell you anything about the subjective experience the dog feels.) 'Qualia' refers specifically to the subjective conscious experience, which is something science is presently ill-equipped to answer questions about. The word 'qualities' does not have the same rhetorical effect.
As an aside, what's the point of complaining about uncommon words? Dictionaries have never been more convenient to use. If you didn't know the word before, then in about 5 seconds you can learn what it means and your personal vocabulary will be enriched.
Precise language is useful for discussing complex ideas precisely.
If HN is to be a place for gratifying intellectual curiousity [1], then dismisisng dismissing accurate terminology as pretentious purely because it is unfamiliar is counter-productive.
“qualia” are the internal experiences of sensory perceptions of the subject, “qualities” are the attributes of the subject. They look a bit similar, and are etymologically connected, but their denotations are about as far apart as is possible for words that are the same part of speech.
Qualia are not limited to sensory perceptions. We have conscious experiences of things internal to our minds too, such as emotions and thoughts and memories and these too have qualia.
Qualia is your subjective experience of your senses - how can we discuss whether we see the color red the same way, or whether we smell a rose the same way? The core concept we would discuss is qualia.
Qualia is not plural qualities so I’m afraid I don’t see the connection, or the downside to using an expanded vocabulary for that matter.
Yeah we shouldn't say we "know" that advanced civilizations existed, but there's nothing wrong with hypothesizing that they did. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
“Let me begin by observing, first of all, that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between all those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and those who dwelt within them: this war I am now to describe.
Of the combatants on the one side the city of Athens was reported to have been the ruler, and to have directed the contest; the combatants on the other side were led by the kings of the islands of Atlantis,”
