[reverius42]

> A caveman from 200K years ago would have been just as intelligent as any of us here today, despite not having language or technology, or any knowledge.

Source? This does not sound possibly true to me (by any common way we might measure intelligence).

[mxkopy]

The phrase you’re looking for is “anatomically modern human”, which has been around for 200,000 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_human

[reverius42]

I'm not disagreeing that humans 200,000 years ago were approximately anatomically equivalent to humans today; I'm disagreeing that they would be just as intelligent without today's language, technology, or knowledge. I don't think you can define or measure intelligence in a way that ignores those things.

[mxkopy]

Eh I don’t think it’s something we can ever discount. Some cavewoman could’ve daydreamed the entire theory of general relativity in her own private language while weaving a basket and we would never know because she never felt the need to talk about it. On the other hand there are people today who will emit novels of profound nothingness.

Technology and language is sort of like speaking in this sense, it’s evidence of mind but it’s not mind. And the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence and all that