Yesterday, despite my hangover, I went to the Museum of Evolution of Burgos. I always go there when I pass Burgos, and it never ceases to inspire and dazzle me. Every time I visit the museum I learn something new or I understand something better because I have more background to do so.

I’m especially drawn to the knowledge of human nature in its most primitive form. I used to think we would be violent to each other, a tribe in a neighboring valley would be our enemies, a tribe leader and his offspring assassinated to create a new lineage, a friend clubbed to death out of jealousy. But the fossil record does not have many clear examples of inter or intra community violence in the pre-history of humanity. It only becomes prevalent at the dawn of civilization, and from my own archaic understanding I can sense that when there is property there will be conflict. I can understand that, if I were a pre-history homo sapiens (let me imagine I’m well known as a stone knapper) within tribe, I’d be alarmed at unknown passerby’s, and we would probably spy on them before approaching them, but it would be in nobody’s interest to attempt to kill each other.

One could easily imagine a drought and the local tribe unwilling to share the local spring. They would surely be outnumbered by thirsty homo sapiens. It is more beneficial for them to share the property (probably gaining status in the process) and the interaction among tribes would increase their collective knowledge and become better suited for their biological task.

The distance between this homo sapiens and the one that exists today is an utter paradox: we’re supposed to have the same brain (or even smaller), and if reincarnation were true and at one point I was a tool make I’d be using my brain in a very different way. I’d argue that it’s possible to re-train this part of the primitive brain, but at this point in time I can only write in theory. If we were left locked up in a room with daily food and some good rocks but nothing else, and the only way out is to carve out yourself a stone handaxe without instructions, assuming a lifetime I’m pretty we would make it out.

From the descriptions I’ve read I get it, you look at the rock and you intuitively know where to hit so that it breaks in certain ways. There will be no dialogue “look at that nook, hit there” is modern thinking. Your sight, your hands and your movement and your mind/intention are one, you are preparing a core, removing everything that is unnecessary, to come at a pleasant result. Our ancestors liked doing this so much they left ridiculously sized handaxes that had no practical value.

Toolmaking once brought us together. Places rich in silex, like our imaginary oasis, would bring people together to mine and produce tools. I can imagine regular strikes would produce musically pleasant accidents that they would then attempt to replicate because it brought them joy.

I’m indulging too much in an utopian vision of primitive man, of course there was conflict and violence, but it’s possible that we were quite chill with strangers in our pre-history, especially if it was not a period of scarcity.

I observe humankind’s behavior and I notice more and more vectors symbols thoughts concepts the wisdom of the ancients is unfathomable, how could they know so much when so little was known? How could we start writing in such sophisticated terms as soon as we begun writing? Writing was invented all over about seven times in human history, we feel a need to store information.

The other day I asked Claude: are LLMs a discovery or an invention, and he said both, the LLMs act as a telescope that allows us to see something fundamental in this manipulation of symbols we do with them. Sapiens skeletons appear in the fossil record 200k years ago, but it’s only by 30K years ago that cave paintings become more prevalent. How did we start drawing those amazing animal figures with such artistry and so little technology? How many caves are collapsed and waiting to be discovered? The place where our symbols have gone is staggering and it’s staggering to think I could talk to an early artist and explain in plain terms: we have invented something that remixes the symbols and it talks back to us, and they would get a rough understanding at what we invented.

It took us an unfathomable amount of time to pass from primitive Oldowan stone technology to the Achulean one (what was it, 100K years?) and now I’ve seen personal computing take off, the early internet and its progression, mobile computing pervasiveness and persistent communication. And now of course, AI.

How, why? I’ve been thinking lately: the same pattern will play out in all of life. Peaceful self-domesticated species that establish networks of cooperation will have their “emergent network of symbols” that will initially be very crude, but self-domestication means aggressiveness is genetically castigated and cooperation is rewarded. When a species passes this threshold and is given a relatively stable environment and grow a critical mass (think villages of bonobos in very fertile land), this process is accelerated because they don’t need to be aggressive to survive.

My speculative theory is that some animals are in this process and we are accelerating it in some cases. We are breeding smarter and less aggressive raccoons because the stupid raccoon would die of hunger and the aggressive one will be put down (if he’s lucky). But, if dogs and cats are any indication, they will submit to the will of humans and then they would thrive. I’m most interested in wild cases, cetaceans and elephants are good candidates (if we do not consume their environment). Give them another million years and they will become smart. Do we have a million years? Ha! We have a billion years. Will another species become conscious? Likely, I would say. Could it cause conflict? Difficult to say, I’d say we’re going to have to pay reparations for the ocean if we would want to stay in good relations with the cetaceans.

I’m mesmerized by the long, silent past of human kind as well as this mind bending moment of our species. I believe that it is a great risk and a great opportunity. I’m an optimist so I lean toward opportunity, I think our pre-history is proof of our true nature, and we will eventually enter a much more peaceful era both between nations and people.

Then AI will put is in touch with aliens.