If we agree that gunpowder was discovered by chance, how does humanity progress if it's not discovered?

[Malone]

If the Chinese had not lucked out into discovering gun powder while searching for an immortality elixir, do we still enter into modernity? Do we still enter the enlightenment age, complex capitalism, large scale colonization, the industrial revolution? All of these occurred following gunpower's discovery but did they occur because of gunpower's discovery?

 

[Timmy811]

If the Chinese had not lucked out into discovering gun powder while searching for an immortality elixir, do we still enter into modernity? Do we still enter the enlightenment age, complex capitalism, large scale colonization, the industrial revolution? All of these occurred following gunpower's discovery but did they occur because of gunpower's discovery?

Gunpowder was discovered by chance, but I don't think the rest of the advances you listed occured becauee of gunpowder. If would eventually have been discovered with the development of modern chemistry in the 18th century.