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Arguments
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: New Earth    Jesus Christ   New Heaven   conclusion of Messiah Yeshua  
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: Opposable thumbs    lot   mammal   primate  
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  Considerate: 84%  
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: biggest thing    indication of evolutionary intelligence   hind legs   species  
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The main thing are cortexes though... Opposable thumbs, standing up, etc, although great enablers for certain activities, won't be of much help in giving birth to "new civilization" if one doesn't have a developed cortex, so we can safely assume that in the absence of humans, another mammal would take it's place as the dominant specie on this planet...
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: human intelligence    developed corrtex   lineage   primates  
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: human intelligence    random mutation   evolution of neural neo-cortices   language  
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Sure, disagree with Science and Reality if you like, not my problem...
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: human intelligence    genetic accident   entire lineage   humans  
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Every single human realizations (tangible and abstract) you can think of, since the advent of homo erectus, stems from evolution of the neo-cortices in our brain... it is what defines us really, what sets us apart from others mammals and the sole reason we were able to grow and dominate this planet...
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: abstract cognition    single human realizations   neo-cortex   sole reason  
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: man    abstract cognition   evolution of the cortex   humans  
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The when and where of the advent of neo-cortices doesn't matter with regards to your original question : What would replace humans as creators of civilizations if they were to disappear....
What I'm saying is that whatever specie that would be, it will need cortices and mammals already have a huge advance on every other specie, at least they have basic cortex, reptile don't, fish don't, etc... Also, when I talk about abstract cognition, I mean "the ability to mentally form representations of unseen underlying causes or forces.".
Now, there is evidence that some animals are able to reason abstractly under some circumstances (some other examples regarding nonhuman primates can be found here; data are available, too, for animals as diverse as dolphins and pigs). And the thing to notice here, is that everyone of those species that are capable of "some" abstractions are all mammals with developed cortices...
So whatever specie would replace humans as the dominant specie able to create what humans did, will need a cortex minimally as developed as humans to do so...
Thus, two things will be required by our eventual successor: 1) A neo-cortex at least as developed as ours. 2) Opposable thumbs... Any specie with those 2 characteristics could potentially achieve something similar as humans did, given a few hundred thousand years...
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  Entity Sentiment Detection: opposable thumbs    people   point   species  
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