Does man need fire to survive?

Does man need fire to survive? Could we live without it?


Without it's benefits, we are left to worship the sun for warmth.


Nights are cold and dark...
FOREVER!!!


It helps keep away things that go bump in the night, like grandma and drunk roommates using the toilet.


How would we forge glass, metal and plastic without high heat? How would we protect ourselves with only sticks and stones from powerful threats? Updating your status means carving it into a rock and hoping somebody you know walks by.


We may even witness electricity before fire, unless Mother Nature ignites a nearby tree or field, revealing her glory for the first time. Without fire, we cannot forge a means to contain or utilize electricity in any way. We would be left in the dark ages.


If you're an early bird and get up before the sun, you still stimulate the senses with some form of artificial light. Would you still get up early if you had to operate in the dark?


Without the moon, it could be pretty tough unless you trained your eyesight to work in the dark. Melatonin production increases as less light is absorbed by the eye. Without artificial light or coffee to slow that process down it might be impossible to stay awake. We would be forced to follow our natural circadian rhythm and probably be healthier for it.


Anyways, what would life be like without fire and all of it's benefits? How would you survive and thrive as a species?

According to the current trend of Vegetarian threads lately, humans couldn't have formed complex brains without meat, & since we must cook meat, I would say humans couldn't survive without fire.

In one word, yes. Fire is nothing more than a quick oxidation reaction - a chemical process. It is rust on steroids. Both the respiration and digestive processes in our bodies need oxidation reactions. So, in fact, a fire does truly burn within us.

Just came here to say

originally posted by: Eunuchorn
According to the current trend of Vegetarian threads lately, humans couldn't have formed complex brains without meat, & since we must cook meat, I would say humans couldn't survive without fire.

I'd love to see some information on that. Complex doesn't always mean intelligent and intuition would have helped us find other ways to stay alive. That's if we had any back then.

The point is to reproduce and thrive. If your saying that a complex mind is necessary to achieve that goal then we might not have made it very far unless we stumbled upon a warmer climate.

Lighting a fire and keeping it burning still requires a lot of forward planning. You need to arrange twigs, leaves, and small branches to burn first and generate enough heat to burn larger branches logs. As a rough measure, every inch of radius is about 10 minutes of burning. A large log would burn for a whole night. Cutting all of those requires suitable instruments as well knowledge of how to dry out wood so that it burns well. Humans would have needed fire to do metalwork as well as cooking food.

Having a fire provides heat, some light. Going by the behaviour of our pets, even animals know this. Our dog gets desperate if we don't put logs in the firebox. She runs back and forth between whoever is around and the log basket. Our cats prefer sleeping next to a PC with glowing blue LED's than anywhere else in the room.

Learning how to handle and make fire would have (in all likelyhood) led to strengthening different parts of the brain, which would lead to other things (maybe language or greater tool use, I can not really say).

Cooking meat leads to changes as well... news.harvard.edu

Though ancestral humans were eating meat as least 2.5 million years ago, without the ability to control fire, any meat in their diet was raw, though possibly pounded using primitive stone tools. Approximately 1.9 million years ago, however, a dramatic change began to occur. The bodies of early humans grew larger. Their brains increased in size and complexity. Adaptations for long-distance running appeared.

SO I imagine we could have survived without fire, but would we have evolved into the humans we know today? My answer is a resounding no...

If you live in Hawaii, no. Antarctica, yes. It depends on the environment and food sources around you. I'm unaware of any human civilizations that don't use fire so it would appear to be a basic necessity.

originally posted by: StoutBroux

If you live in Hawaii, no. Antarctica, yes. It depends on the environment and food sources around you. I'm unaware of any human civilizations that don't use fire so it would appear to be a basic necessity.

So a human could never adapt to live in a cold environment without fire?

originally posted by: eisegesis


So a human could never adapt to live in a cold environment without fire?

Do I think that civilization could come up with alternatives to fire to do the same things as fire given enough time and perfect conditions, maybe.

But when you ask if man needs fire to survive, I take that as do we need a form of intense heat for warmth and cooking and keeping wild critters and insects at bay. If you throw a dozen men in the Antarctic with no means of heat or cooking, i.e. fire, they will and have died. Now if they can whip out their fancy generator, they could use a microwave for cooking and all sleep in the same bag but let's be realistic. It wouldn't be a long term solution. Could they use solar, sure but it has it's drawbacks as well. If you don't have fire, you need something to replace it. Fire is after all one of the 4 basic elements.

As far as humans adapting and growing special hair and fat on our bodies to survive in cold climates, doesn't seem likely and Eskimos don't even grow their own. They take from other life forms that do. Eating raw meats, possible for some types of meat but it's not something many do. There are ways to preserve meats without cooking but most of them take weeks and months.

I'll have to resort to my initial answer, it depends on your environment and food sources because we can't as yet change our bodies or resistance to bacteria, germs, virus, and worm infestations in raw meats, and floral isn't abundant everywhere.

I seem to remember hearing that cooking our meat is lime having an extra stomach to break down proteins that we wouldn't have access to eating raw meats.

You have to eat meat if you are going to rule the planet. Otherwise YOUR going to get eating by something that does, taking your place at the top.