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There's so much to learn from our oceans and yet they're disappearing fast because of the need for food and for some really stupid/ignorant reasons. It would be great if more folks would see this as more reasons for onservation and the repeal of the "tragedy of the commons"... I know, in my fucking dreams.

some links explaining black smokers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_smokers
http://www.oceansonline.com/hydrothe.htm
http://www.ocean.udel.edu/kiosk/bsmoker.html

Abstraction from physical objects has allowed us to develop things like abstract mathematics and music.

Sure there are problems (environmental, societal, economic, political, spiritual) and things we could improve;

but now we have the material security and scientific knowledge to begin dealing with those issues, and what is to say that any other civilization would be any better at dealing with these issues, anyway?

I don't know if it's more responsible or not, but all the same, it's an intriguing point to ask what do they see that we don't.

The adored Chinese worldview appears to have produced a stagnant behemoth unable to compete with modernity, nor provide the standard of living to the masses that we all take for granted.

In addition, ancient China referred to itself as the 'middle kingdom', i.e. the center of the world (which is partly why it failed to keep up). That's pretty self-centered in my book.

Which brings us to the real point here:- the Chinese, as with the Indians, didn't need to explore the world as much as the then Europeans did. Renaissance-time exploration was actually an effort by the Europeans to take over the trade routes for spices; back then, they didn't have refrigeration, so they had to depend on spices to preserve their meat. Unfortunately for the Europeans, the Arab (this includes Muslim, Jewish AND Christian) middle-men had complete control over this trade, so they set out to find a sea route to the East to capture control over this trade (which they did very easily, mostly because the native rulers in Arabia, India and elsewhere were more experienced in trade negotiations than in political, that is, military, negotiations.)

In short, NOTHING to do with linguistics and everything to do with basic economics.

Finally, it is the development of modern science (in partciular astronomy) that has fundamentially changed our view of the Universe; we now know that we are but a small planet orbiting an average star in an average Galaxy etc etc. That's pretty humbling, and entirely the fruit of western thought.

Unfortunately, this one of those cultural artifacts that are beyond the reach of Google, so you probably won't know what I'm talking about, but let's put it this way:- it's one of the first references in world literature to the fact that the Earth is, as a matter of fact, revolving around the Sun, and not vice versa. This some 3000 years before Copernicus.

Probably not, but they had universities when the anglo-saxons were still living in grass huts.

Funny thing about Chinese civilization. The quickly reached their peak, then stayed there ossified for the next 1500 years.

Your single number is fucked up. "1500 years"? 1500 years ago is 500 CE. I hate to tell you this, but the dynasty of the Later Han collapsed in 220 CE. The Sui didn't reunite China until 589 CE, and China didn't really get going again until the Tang attained full control in 626 CE. Now, the universities grandparent was referring to were the imperial universities of the Han, already with 3,000 students in 8 BCE. We should consider that a peak -- and it doesn't correspond to your schedule.

So your date isn't a peak at all, but a trough in one of the many interregnums between Chinese dynasties.

You see, China's history is largely a story of the cyclic rise and fall of dynasties, one after the other. There has never been a time when Chinese civilization was allowed to ossify for such a long time as you posit -- dynasties collapsed much faster than that. And as far as "peak"s are concerned, China has had many peaks. The Han, the Tang, the Song, the Ming...

If you want objective evidence, instead of subjective cultural achievements, let me point you to Admiral Zheng He's 15th-century maritime voyages -- which the following article is referring to when it says "during the Song dynasty, China developed the world's largest and most technologically sophisticated merchant marine and navy". That article should be edifying as to why, despite its invention of gunpowder, printing, and the compass, China never conquered the world.

Well, this comment hasn't been flawless, but no, yuri benjamin, Brandybuck isn't right. Hope you enjoyed my theory, though.

[roughly, where can I learn more about chemosynthesis - based ecosystems?]

Try googling on "black smokers". Here's a quick overview: an introductory lecture about black smokers

Also unless the AI is good enough that the thing really can navigate itself around a changing environment (hey there wasn't a dog there last time) and make it's way back to the charger before dying every time, I imagine you'd find a dead Trilobyte fairly frequently.

Would it look like this?
-----

What exactly is the physical difference between living and dead snip
This is an excelent question, and center to many heated debates. When I was in highschool, I was taught that if it could breath (as in burn glucose to obtain energy), then it was alive. It seems that the scientific comunity conscents on at least seven traits of living orgainsims. The following articles go further into this subject:

• thinkquest site. Unfortunately the site is down for maintenance, nevertheless u can access it in the following google cache
• Characterisitcs of living matter

It would be a very interesting if we were to find some outer space entity which fulfilled only some of the listed requisits. I guess that would put a real test on to define what is alive, and what is dead.