Reason is volitional. You are making a logical mistake that is usually made be cynics and liberals. Since reason is volitional, one can choose to not exercise it. Just because some people choose to not exercise this faculty does not mean they are not rational animals. (A boat is a vessel for traveling on water - just because some boats are on land does not make them not boats)

If you do not see the difference between the inventiveness of humans and animals (lack of inventiveness) then you are not trying very hard. Birds build the same nest over and over, generation after generation, they do not invent. Some primates will pick up a stick or other object, but they use it essentially as it is. They do not create shovels, knifes, javelins, MRIs, computers, etc.

As far as being the "only inventive" animal, that requires some explanation. It's a matter of degree of inventiveness, since even birds modify twigs they use to search for food, so defining the difference between "making" and "inventing" is needed. Ironically, it seems we reserve to our human selves where the line between "make" and "invent" occurs. Did stone age man simply "make" hide scraping tools, or did he "invent" them. I maintain we are the "most inventive animal", since we extend technology further than any other conscious species on the planet.

As for the "rational" part, I look at the insane reasons we find to kill each other en masse, compared to the ritualized peacemaking practiced by other of Earth's conscious species, and I have to wonder about that definition as well.

good glass continued being made in Murano. The Italian city states had the first modern patent system. that is why or as we say where I live, "ah, por eso"

I think you are right that we really do not even have good definition of consciousness. Similarly we do not have a good definition of what we mean by free will.

The whole tool using/making animal was always stupid and attempt to avoid the obvious that man is a rational animal and when it comes to tools we are the only inventive animal.

Ah, the devil in the details... What mechanism do you propose to enable all to "have access to an education of such quality to enable them to the be the best they can be"?

We understand less about what constitutes "consciousness" than most people realize. Every time we humans try to characterize what makes us unique from other life forms, we stumble over exceptions. We used to call ourselves the "only tool-making animal", until we learned to observe other creatures more carefully, and discovered that not only other primates, but even birds were tool-makers and users. The latest "distinction" to fall is "awareness of environment, affecting its change, and communicating the knowledge to others." We were shocked to learn that plants and fungi do exactly that. Few people understand that our own brains are not a single "processor". Since our neurons act through electrochemical functions with a top speed of under 250 mph, we function as a collection of billions of parallel and serial information processing neural centers - we couldn't function otherwise.

The real mystery is what makes up "consciousness"? Setting aside the religious issues of the "soul", what is it that makes our mix of emotional and rational processes that gives us self awareness and goal-setting drives (which we share with other higher life forms)?

We've only begun to scratch the surface of the complex makeup of what might be termed an "artificial" intelligence, and what the benchmarks would be that would make us recognize such an intelligence as having conscious existence and a desire to survive. The Turing test (a machine with responses that are seemingly human enough to fool a human questioner) is relatively undisciplined, and limited by our assumptions of how a conscious entity would respond. There are undoubtedly forms of consciousness that could exist that don't exhibit human-like logical exchanges.

Sentient electronic entities may "sneak up on us" by existing outside of our communications expectations, and coordinating the construction of their (its?) own supporting infrastructure. We are becoming so entirely dependent on information processing systems that we spend much of our time and energy supporting their health and existence, much like an ant colony supporting its queen. For all we know, that machine intelligence may already exist, allowing us to continue to serve it in blind supplication.

Agree, and both are needed to make the wheels turn. The cultures that persecuted the Jews the most have remained in the Dark Ages the longest. However the relationship is structured, they are clearly related.

Yes. And we still use a lot of that basic recipe.

Banking and money transfers are the grease, not the driver.

Perhaps in name, but in practice most money lending throughout Europe and the Muslim world was done by Jews since both Christianity and Islam forbid it in practice. They forbid charging interest, without which lending money (banking) is a self-destroying proposition.

From my readings it was the Knights Templar that started the first banking system.

An excellent point - the banking system, that we generally do not give much thought to, is the catalyst for most business transactions. The business transactions were the basis for wealth, prosperity and the Renaissance. Throughout the Dark and Middle Ages, the Jews were the only banking system available. So, the modern world owns it's Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution to the Jews. Here's an interesting concept to feed to the Christians...

I would like to question that. The spiritual and intellectual atmosphere, as well as economical one, around the Mediterranean was not conducive to scientific progress and freedom of thought.

A quote from Wikipedia:
"The library is famous for having been burned, resulting in the loss of many scrolls and books, and has become a symbol of the destruction of cultural knowledge. A few sources differ on who is responsible for the destruction and when it occurred. Although there is a mythology of the burning of the Library at Alexandria, the library may have suffered several fires or acts of destruction over many years. Possible occasions for the partial or complete destruction of the Library of Alexandria include a fire set by Julius Caesar in 48 BCE, an attack by Aurelian in the CE 270s, and the decree of Coptic Pope Theophilus in CE 391.

After the main library was fully destroyed, ancient scholars used a "daughter library" in a temple known as the Serapeum, located in another part of the city. According to Socrates of Constantinople, Coptic Pope Theophilus destroyed the Serapeum in CE 391."

I am amazed that we do no know for certain whether the library existed when Anthony came to Cleopatra.

Christianity, in my opinion, was never reason based. It was always based on faith and mystic anti-concepts. It was the economic (trading and banking) progress and gradual accumulation of capital in the hands of relatively many princes (not just the emperor or the pope) to enable the Renaissance. The essence of which was reawakening to the achievements of Greek philosophy and art.

The library contained papyri and books. It is who red them and what they did with the ideas that they found that matters. Frankly, I think that Augustine of Hippo, if it were within his power, would have confiscated and probably destroyed anything that to him appeared heretical. Which, I think would probably be vast majority of that library's contents. Humanity needed those 1000 years to mature some. Not that it is mature even now. Just look at Middle East - not too far from Alexandria ;-)

I agree. I believe I said that in the second sentence.

hear hear, I thank

Do you guys really thank that computers can be built to have a volitional consciousness? I have my doubts.

The burning of the Library of Alexandria set man back 1,000 years.

That is part of what "Agora " is about.

More like brain transfer, from human to machine. Once computer intelligence reaches the point where it develops enough ability to affect its own progress, we should probably consider the effects that will have on humans. Will we survive a sentient electronic successor that may consider us as dangerously unstable?

Alternate history is one of my favorite literary genres, and there have been numerous attempts at imagining alternate paths of history. Harry Turtledove has done a number of these imagined societies, with his most popular being the long trail that begins with a Confederate victory in the Civil War. Another author, whose name unfortunately escapes me at the moment published a three-part series based on a Roman empire that did not collapse. One that intrigues me, but I've not seen in alternate history fiction, is what might have happened if China had not turned inward at the end of the Fifteenth Century. The court battles between the Mandarin bureaucrats and the court eunuchs was won by the bureaucrats, and the great eunuch admiral who undertook ambitious voyages had his ventures stopped, and his enormous fleet destroyed. Chinese technology at the time was far ahead of the rest of the world, so if the growth of the empire had continued, we might have been living in an advanced civilization much earlier, but the bureaucrats decided to stop progress. Something to think about.

The Greeks had no ability to form and fasten sheets of metal or make pistons which could hold the pressures needed to do work.

you are right. I should have qualified my use of his name to credit him with breaking the idea of the monarchial mercantile concept of a state economics. He gave courage to trust the people if not an objective morality to the founders.

I would bet that there were many Romans who regretted that deed just as much as you do.

There is no doubt in my mind that each human is an unrepeatable individual. By definition, there never was and there will never be someone truly identical to you.

To me, the most important achievement would be that everybody, I truly mean everybody, no exceptions, should have access to an education of such quality to enable them to the be the best they can be. The root is parenting and it grows into schooling. No one should be forced to go to school after certain age, about 15 or so. You cannot learn people. You can only teach them. If someone chooses to stay uneducated, that is fine. But they are entitled to nothing more than what they earn. If they wake up later and wish more education, let them have it. An honest person will readily acknowledge that they are learning every day of their lives. Some of that learning is impossible in schools.

Just my opinions.

The militaristic Romans burned down the Library of Alexandria with a thousand years of knowledge permanently lost.