Much of the 2 millenium babylonian science and literature is inherited from the Sumerians. They ruled in southern Iraq for nearly 2 millenium from roughly 4kbc to roughly 2kbc. Abraham the father of three religions...left Ur —one of the main cities of Sumer —at the time of the their final collapse in roughly 2k bc. the subsequent civilizations in the region merely copied the work of the sumerians in the same way that the romans copied the work of the greeks. Stories in Genesis have their echos in stories told by the sumerians—as does do the calendars of the ancient hebrews.
To this day Moslems tend to believe that adam and eve came from space. Why? The story of adam and eve has its echoes in ancient sumerian myths. The tales told by the sumerians seem to suggest that people came from space. It really reads like science fiction. This space origin of higher beings is given as an explanation for the invention of all the things that made the sumerian civilzation work for so long. However, it also suggests that there was a creative period early on that produced all the maths and sciences that enabled all the inventions of the period. But that period ended and a 1000 years later people were doing things by rote. That is, they did things because their fathers, grandfathers great grandfathers and beyond had done them that way. They had no idea how or why they came by the inventions that barbaric peoples marveled. So they said the inventions came from space beings.
I’m on online facebook threads where fans of elon musk will say the same thing of musk. He came from space. no mere human could perform his miracles. I saw a utube of Musk giving an interview in one of the gulf countries 5 years ago. The interviewer asked Musk about aliens coming to earth. Musk said that in about 20 years the civilization of earth will appear to be an alien civilization.
There was a roughly 600 year period from 500 BC to 100 AD where the greco roman world experienced high creativity and then high creativity ended. High creative activity restarted again roughly around 1500 AD and continues through to this day.
But an earlier high creative period of probably the same length likely happened in Sumeria back in the 4th millenium BC. Then that period ended. That creative period sustained Sumeria for a millenium or more —or long after the Sumerians no longer understood how or why they came by the tools and inventions they came by.
An interesting thing to note about Musk is that he has a sense that the high creative period of western civilation is coming to an end. Therefor he says that people must do everything they can do to shorten the period of the coming dark age.
Or far more likely than “space aliens” is a previous Earth civilization or several previous ones, all of whom left Earth for their own reasons, returning once in a while. 4.5 billion years is a long time and much could have/did happened.
Where is Hari Selden now when we need him?
Where is Hari Selden now when we need him?
Dr. Ed Dutton (The Jolly Heretic) on YouTube penned a book called “At Our Wit’s End” where his thesis as that humanity is currently on a genetic downward spiral.
However, it also suggests that there was a creative period early on that produced all the maths and sciences that enabled all the inventions of the period. But that period ended and a 1000 years later people were doing things by rote. That is, they did things because their fathers, grandfathers great grandfathers and beyond had done them that way.
Without integrated circuits we are 1940s, without vacuum tubes we are 1910s, without steam we are 1800s. Once the machines of our creative period wear out we are not much better than subsistence level farmers