Here we see an early scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Moonwatcher has finally killed the leopard that hunted his tribe with the tools that the black stone put in his mind. Now taking on the mantle of the apex predator, life is no longer just about survival and he has time for leisure and rumination. This is the dawn of mankind. Many ages from now this scene will play out again between a man called Dave Bowman and an on-board computer called HAL. That may look and feel like a different story but, on closer inspection, it is the same.