Evolution of droids - Part 1

In the beginning, there was nothing...or was there?

(Warning: This is a lengthy article. You have been lured here with the promise of Android stuff, but it will give you a bit...just a little... bit more. And it is a multipart.)

Well, everything starts somewhere, they say. Of course, smartphones didn't just started off as Smartphones. They started off as tamtam, smoke signals, the most dire of all communication methods over time and space: piles of rocks.....but I am guessing you aren't interested in that....still, I think it makes something clear in the whole of changes and non-changing things in communication.

Primitive technology

Technology ("science of craft", from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -λογία, -logia^[3]) - From wikipedia

Since the beginning of humanity, communication has been the base on which it (Humanity) has trived. An individual human will not survive if there is not another of his species to mate, hunt, care, teach to/for/with. For all these things, you would expect that communication is not a 'requirement', but alas, it is beyond requirement, it is simply part of it. Why? Because of the nature of communication. We tend to (in our modern society) only talk about communication, when there is deliberate information exchanged. However, communication starts with the very first interaction between two 'worlds'. Be it the organism and its environment, or the organism's parts interconnecting. I would even go so far, as that every force in the universe could, in some elaborate way, be called 'communicating'. Though of course there is no 'deliberate' part in this communication, other than the laws of physics. So, planets communicate through weak force with stars, but well...that would expand the article beyond limits. Just something to keep in mind.

So, when mammals became primates and primates had more and more need to deliberately exchange information, like birds seek out mates, the possibilities caused the intellectual evolution to speed up.

Where do we start with 'technology', which would be primitive, but not...let say, so obviously part of the not deliberate actions (instincts).

How about close to home. We could talk about smoke and light, but how about the first thing that humans and other animals have at their disposal: Sound. Not immediate talking, but grunting and howling makes sure your 'opponent' or 'friend' understands some things. 

Evolution of talk

Evolution is change in the heritable traits of biological populations over successive generations.^[1] Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms, and molecules.

Pointing at things was a good start, but eventually language would require more 'precision'. Talking about rocks, trees and animals, is fine, if you have differentated between them by discriminating them by word. Fixed or loose rocks. Trees with eatable or poisonous fruit. Prey or Predator animals. Animals with a lot of meat or very little. Etc. A simple grunt or growl won't work anymore. Proto-language evolved.

Of course, language in close proximity is useful and very 'intimate'. It requires both participants to understand the language and teaching it to new generations is easier if all participants of the group know the same parts. We see in our current age, that new generations quickly add new words, but these words are often 'contaminations' from other languages. We only need about 10 new words per country for new concepts, for the whole society (not talking about jargon specific words). While 'sick' was first a word for 'being ill', now it means 'awesome'. Imagine a time where hardly anything had a name yet, or a word for. Each generation would create new layers of information, but this would also mean that each generation would have be influenced by the already existing words.

To cut it short, by evolutionary path, language eventually required recording, in either a 'pictionary' way, or as later, more abstract way to make it 'reusable' in its core (basically how we have found reality to be build up as well, with molecules, atoms, electrons and quarks): characters (alphabet).

Yes, yes, I hear you. All this talk about language, when do you come to droids?! Star Wars...Androids....Samsung, LG and iPhones?!
 Patience! Patience! Maaaannn....

Talk the talk, walk the walk

Now you have come to understand some of the different types of evolution in the human world. In this case the one of communication in speech, we can continue to the transferal of information over longer time and longer periods.

Remember, we all have been children (well most stay that way...especially us males) and had to learn either from our parents, or from 'teachers'. Well, of course, when the Earth was scarcely scattered with humans, things were taught by parents. Or relatives who had time...grand parents often. Later when the communities grew, specific people were pressed with the task. Imagine, men going to hunt or work the land and women stayed with the newborn and older children. Basically like with many other species. But the children also had to learn about things they needed to know before the age of 12. That didn't work by taking them TO the task, because it would be a pretty spartan thing: 'uh uh' (Look predator)...oops too late son, now I have to make another child. This is a bit of a elusive one, but this goes in many parts where the child had to take over information, to survive. Nowadays you need information to live, but not directly to survive. Our homes have evolved too. Rules within communities have evolved. Our ways of providing for ourselves and our offspring has evolved. From gatherers, to hunters, to agriculture, to monetary exchange. Walls surround us, at home and on the way to work, to market and anywhere we walk. We wear clothes and distantiated faces. We only like to talk to who we know and fear who we don't.

After several (likely tens to hundreds) generations, society became more and more efficient. Less effort into more effect. Thus first church clerges taught the children, after they were old enough to listen (hence the first parts of language were taught by mother). Eventually governments grew and about 200 years ago, societies had schools where first the clerges still taught, but the mothers were also growing into such jobs. In all, society evolved, industrialisation caused societies to grow and cities to become the size of small counties (remember, we are still talking Europe here). Humanity grew with size that fit the European landscape. Warm weather, enough food due to the location on the northern hemisphere (8000 years after the last ice age) and a landscape that gave posibility to grow enough locations to create several countries on a size of North America. Communication in this time, now extended to people within cities, but whether in war or peace time, between cities as well. Since the first days of 'societies' we know fall within the 'written records' of history, people were used to make news on paper travel from city to city. The speed was, that a message, would take approximately a day to a week to arrive at the receiver (If he/she didn't move to another city in the mean time). Over the silk route, one of the few possible trails to Asia, messages would take months, if not longer to reach a destination. So eventually when electricity was 'invented' and used to extend technological advancements. Telegraphs were coming up, where the electricity was merely used to break sound or create sound. We call them beeps (a word that most likely didn't exist before telegraphs.) or ticks. 

Imagine, that now, people could send a message from here to one hundred kilometers (first it was shorter, but to find the extend, you have to find the limit...or visa versa) in seconds. It speeded stuff up. Did this alter only the communication? No, it changed much more. It changed society.

Part 2 upcoming.