1) being mentally enhanced or programmed somehow by the monolith with information which allowed it to make the bone weapon.
2) sparked with inspiration by the sight of the monolith and made the bone weapon of its own accord.
If I remember correctly, the novel implied that #1 is the case.
shareYes, if I remember there were images being projected on the monolith's surface that were "teaching" them various things.
shareAnd the concept was established early in Clarke's material during the gestation of the film. The book The Lost Worlds of 2001 (Clarke 1972) contains material in which a humanoid alien actually interacts with and teaches the proto-humans.
So the idea of 1) being mentally enhanced or programmed and 2) sparked with inspiration by the sight of the monolith are not actually separate. The monolith was a teaching machine intended to spark latent faculties in the otherwise doomed man-apes.
Doomed is the wrong word
shareNo, I think even in the film, the implication is that the man-apes (Some variety of Australopithecines) are doomed. The environment has changed and is too arid and the critters are not able to kill the large protein sources that are still available. The band who are actually influenced are not even going to survive in the short term if they don't get the means to take back the water source. In Clarke's novel and the other earlier material the aliens are attempting to advance potential intelligence which would otherwise not make it.
shareBy altering a species they killed the unaltered species. What's the difference?
shareSpecies come and go. Without interference, the blind processes of evolution see countless species snuffed out or simply lost as new ones develop.
So, the difference depends on your point of view. The aliens in 2001 were conceived as being incredibly ancient and having discovered the universe to be without other intelligences. They conceived that intelligence was a precious thing to be fostered wherever it could be found. You might object that you conceive the human race to be too foul to be an improvement on non-aware creatures, but apparently, from the viewpoint of the aliens, we are a necessary step on the way to whatever Dave Bowman becomes. I can't help but agree. Self awareness and creative intellect are a remarkable and almost miraculous thing. We are the universe looking back at itself... whatever else we are.
The only time that there is a question in the novels about this is when the aliens destroy intelligences in the atmosphere of Jupiter during the creation of the "second sun" in 2010. These creatures are conceived by them to be unable to advance and not worth preserving. The Jupiter cloud creatures sound a bit like Earthly cetaceans and are clearly not a species you or I would consider dispensable... But the aliens destroy them for the sake of the proto-intelligences of Europa.
Seems like the aliens themselves are the doomed ones. Doomed to wander the stars and pass judgment to unsuspecting species. Besides, intelligence is just an emergence of a sufficiently complex system. Couldn't they just stick to playing with their PS∞?
shareYes, that's right. It's been a long time since I read the story, but I think I also remember that about the images.
share“Yes, if I remember there were images being projected on the monolith's surface that were "teaching" them various things.”
I am sure the monolith is black with no projections but I did see a video of Arthur c Clark saying they wanted to put a transparent screen on the monolith but decided against it as it was naive.
Yeah, the concept underwent a lot of changes. Originally Clarke had a humanoid alien actually interacting directly with the man-apes. Something a good deal less explicit was clearly a good idea.
That's why I don't like the concept of this film. Even though it's my favorite Sci-fi film it had some ridiculous ideas behind it. Old world apes did not need a monolith to come down and tell them how to use a bone to kill prey. They had already evolved through millions of years to be intelligent enough with manual dexterity to do so.
That said the monolith was an incredible image in film...even though the idea behind it was ridiculous.
That's why vaguer is better, and Kubrick seems to have understood this, perhaps not being decided himself how or if the monolith actually caused anything to happen or just observed. Intentional or not, his oblique style at least gives some cover for divergent interpretations.
share"Old world apes did not need a monolith to come down and tell them how to use a bone to kill prey. They had already evolved through millions of years to be intelligent enough with manual dexterity to do so."
Parsing what you said: You liked the movie... but didn't like the plot of the movie.
Because that is the very point of this story. Yes, in real life our ancestors developed intelligence, and the ability to use tools. But manual dexterity alone doesn't imply intelligence, or lead naturally to intelligence, or the advanced use of tools. (Otherwise this would be a planet ruled by damn, dirty apes!)
There are many ideas about HOW and WHY our particular ancestors developed intelligence, where other animals or related species did not. They are all just theories and ideas though. This movie exists as a fictional attempt to explain it in an entertaining and thought provoking way.
On a side note, one thing that many viewers don't give much consideration is the fact that the apes also learned to use these tools to kill each other. It's a sort of Garden of Eden thing... the aliens seeded the human race with intelligence, but whether it led to enlightenment or self-destruction they wouldn't know for thousands and thousands of millennia. So they left another calling card on the Moon as a beacon to alert them to the fact that humankind had successfully 'graduated' to the next level of maturity.
I didn't say manual dexterity alone implies intelligence. It's intelligence PLUS manual dexterity that allowed man to progress far beyond other species. As for what allowed intelligence, well obviously the universe has an intelligence/consciousness and all living things are imbued with that. That's my idea: universal consciousness, in the Eastern sense. As opposed to Clarke who was an atheist...i.e. a stupid universe devoid of consciousness produced intelligent conscious beings, complex ecosystems, laws of physics, etc. Talk about illogic!
But yes, a big theme of this film was that man is a creature of war, hence the jump shot from bone to military satellite.
Exactly, I loved the film, but didn't like the "plot". The film making was incredible, the style, effects, music, and cinematography. It was meant to be thought provoking, however the author Arthur C. Clark didn't put as much thought into it as many viewers. It just didn't make sense to me. I mean it did from an artistic sensibility, but not a logical one. That's why Rock Hudson at the premier understandably exclaimed, "what the hell was that movie about!"
I know what you're thinking: if I'm so critical why don't I write my own sci-fi story. I just might do that little thing!
I'd also point out that other animals do have their own intelligence, and more than a few can make & use simple tools, such a birds not only using but shaping sticks to get food.
I sometimes wonder if the aliens actually kickstarted human intelligence in the film, or was it simply that the presence of the monolith was enough to spark the innate curiosity of the hominids to greater wonder?
"I'd also point out that other animals do have their own intelligence, and more than a few can make & use simple tools, such a birds not only using but shaping sticks to get food."
That's an interesting discussion. Your comment is a good summary of how we define intelligence... the ability to consciously adjust our environment for our purposes which usually -- but not always -- implies the use of tools.
When we search for intelligent life out there, we are assuming that it will be more or less like us. So we're limiting our search for intelligence to lifeforms that do the same things we do.
But, as you point out, intelligence can take forms that we might not recognize. Nor does intelligence imply a need to explore space or otherwise broadcast its existence through things such electromagnetic transmission.
We could land on a planet and not realize that the intelligent life on the planet is the lichen that we are walking on. Or the mysterious gas bags that float by in the sky.
There's been much speculation about The Great Silence. Does it imply there is no intelligent civilizations out there? Or does it imply that our definition of intelligence needs to be tweaked?
As far as the movie goes, I think it's splitting hairs as to whether the monolith actively kickstarts human intelligence (it does in the book iirc), or merely inspires it. In the movie, it emits this signal that draws the apes to it in equal measures of fear and awe. I think either interpretation leads to the same result regardless.
Such a fascinating & thoughtful discussion! This in itself is a testament to the continuing power & beauty of this film, isn't it?
The question of intelligence ... yes, is our definition the sole definition, or only one of many possibilities?
And in a similar vein, when science speaks of advanced alien civilizations, it's taken for granted that "advanced" = "technologically advanced" by everyone. But what if that's not the measure of the word by a truly advanced civilization? What if it's empathy, or harmony, or simplicity? What if the technological phase of a civilization is simply its adolescent phase, one to be lived through & learned from, but not the truly mature stage? Technology might even turn out to be an evolutionary dead end in the long run, who knows? What if the stars are littered with civilizations that destroyed themselves in their technological adolescence, and that it's the most dangerous period in the lifespan of an intelligent species?
A film like 2001 makes me wonder about such things.
"This in itself is a testament to the continuing power & beauty of this film, isn't it?"
Agreed.
"Technology might even turn out to be an evolutionary dead end in the long run, who knows?"
While the odds suggest that there are millions of alien civilizations, the odds that one is nearby and we are close in terms of technology, and hence, detectability, are remote. On a cosmic scale, one second is approximately 62000 years... far longer than all of recorded human history. So if they are just a few seconds ahead of us on the cosmic clock, that translates to hundreds of thousands of years in human terms. We wouldn't recognize their technology for what it is, assuming that it even followed a similar path of development like ours in the first place. (As you say, "hard" technology might not be a thing for many intelligences...)
So, while The Great Silence seems to have depressing or ominous implications -- "We're truly alone in the universe! -- it's not such a surprise.
The more depressing thought -- I mentioned in another post -- is that these millions of civilizations wink in and out of existence, missing each other by mere minutes or seconds on a cosmic scale.
"So they left another calling card on the Moon as a beacon to alert them to the fact that humankind had successfully 'graduated' to the next level of maturity."
Exactly.
"Old world apes did not need a monolith to come down and tell them how to use a bone to kill prey. They had already evolved through millions of years to be intelligent enough with manual dexterity to do so."
Adam, you're saying that apes developed purposeful dexterity because they had millions of years to do it. But they might very well have learned it overnight, so to speak, through the intervention of some outside agency; in this case, the Monoliths. In either case, they developed it.
To argue that evolution was solely responsible for humans acquiring manual dexterity, simply because humans went through evolution, is begging the question.
You missed my elaboration: see above.
shareBut you're still saying that it was evolution that eventually gave them intelligence, and that intelligence alone allowed them to acquire manual dexterity. That may or may not be. After all, they had acquired opposable thumbs and jointed fingers for quite some time before they began to use them to manipulate weapons.
(Or did they?)
What evolution did was to modify their bodies to make them more effective at staying alive. Until they learned weapons, those hands did little more than grasp food and take it to their mouths. They also served as feet for a while..
I noticed that the monolith did this:
Influenced the hominid to examine a bone and see it as a TOOL for the first time, and then a WEAPON, where it smashed the skulls and bones of the animal skeletons laying around.
Then the hominids discover how they can kill live animals and eat their meat, which is what caused our brains to grow in size over millenia, and result in our increased intelligence.
That the hominids could also murder their rivals, which results in our killing of each other up until the point where a sort of Cold War exists between the nations of Earth, resulting in the tension between Floyd and the Russian on board the space station, and later elaborated upon in the sequel 2010.
Influenced the hominid to examine a bone and see it as a TOOL for the first time, and then a WEAPON, where it smashed the skulls and bones of the animal skeletons laying around.
You're probably right, and I think the book explicitly states that this is the case. Kubrick himself may have even confirmed this in interviews. However, the movie is framed in such a way that it at least leaves it open to interpretation as to what motivates the hominid to make this leap of logic.
OMG, this thread is stupid! Clarke knew nothing about primates.
All apes use rocks and sticks as tools. Perhaps all monkeys.
Chimps use brute force to kill monkeys, and even other chimps.
Homo habilis created tools by breaking rocks, which is a sign of intelligence.
What caused this particular species to use the bone as a weapon? Do chimps typically use weapons to kill other chimps? That's the question.
share