Any two things will look the same if you look at them from far enough away. Any two things will look different if you look at them from close enough in.
Where are you standing, from where all of recorded history seems an undifferentiated blob?
I think we have a very different concept of “object-level conditions—” I consider them more or less the same since the Roman Empire.
Would you be happy to live at any era of history between then and now? From your viewpoint, would you have more or less the same life at all these times?
If you are an immortal who has actually lived through them all, I can imagine it might eventually all seem like the same old same old. But that would be a fact about yourself, not the times. Some immortals wear their years more lightly.
Sure—a full-scale nuclear war that collapsed civilization and technology but didn’t actually kill every living human would count.
In terms of less grandiose things, if the actual lived experience of being a human changed dramatically with the the invention of important and novel emotions or social structures, I would consider that a fundamental change. Some argue that this actually happened during the medieval period and that romantic love didn’t exist before then, but I’m highly skeptical of this claim for multiple reasons.
What would you count as “fundamental” change?
Any two things will look the same if you look at them from far enough away.
Any two things will look different if you look at them from close enough in.
Where are you standing, from where all of recorded history seems an undifferentiated blob?
Would you be happy to live at any era of history between then and now? From your viewpoint, would you have more or less the same life at all these times?
If you are an immortal who has actually lived through them all, I can imagine it might eventually all seem like the same old same old. But that would be a fact about yourself, not the times. Some immortals wear their years more lightly.
Technological singularity, human extinction, etc.
Sure. I wouldn’t voluntarily transfer—I’m accustomed to modern norms—but I don’t think life now is much different from life anytime.
The same life? Certainly not. My profession would very likely be different, as would my beliefs. But a generally equivalent life? Certainly.
Could you expand on that ‘etc.’?
Those two items seem to me to completely fill their classes of comparables, so there is no ‘cetera’.
Sure—a full-scale nuclear war that collapsed civilization and technology but didn’t actually kill every living human would count.
In terms of less grandiose things, if the actual lived experience of being a human changed dramatically with the the invention of important and novel emotions or social structures, I would consider that a fundamental change. Some argue that this actually happened during the medieval period and that romantic love didn’t exist before then, but I’m highly skeptical of this claim for multiple reasons.