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The messages that survived civilisation's collapse

bbc.com

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Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse

#11

Post by noneeeed »

KaiserPro wrote: post #6
KaiserPro wrote: post #5

The other useful feature is that clay tablets are mostly fireproof, infact a good fire (like one that destroyed alexandra) makes tablets waterproof

Also, you should also listen to "The Ark Before Noah" by Irving Finkel the reason why you should listen to him read his own book, is because he is a one of a kind academic that _lives_ his craft. its infectious as it is informative. it gives a background about how Sumerian and Akkadian was decoded.

Thankyou for the reminder of that book. I've been a big fan of Finkel's for a long time, for exactly the reason you describe and his playful humour. I've been trying to find something on Audible to listen to and this sounds right up my street.

Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse

#12

Post by peoplefromibiza »

farseer wrote: post #9
verisimi wrote: post #8

The clay tablets survived, but the mobile phones they (the Sumerians) seem to be holding didn't. Let that be a lesson to us all!

You can't talk live to someone 4000 miles away using clay tablets.

OTOH you can't send a message 4000 years in the future with your phone, while clay tablets pulled it off.

Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse

#13

Post by andrewstuart »

I love the fictional idea that I have that some billionaire will create multiple underground caverns around the world in geologically stable places, each containing the knowledge of the world - engraved onto aluminum plates. A vast cavern of tunnels and chambers and catacombs built only to preserve the worlds knowledge.

I imagine in 10,000 years some future explorers making their way into such a cavern and finding all of the knowledge of the present time like some sort of treasure.

Perhaps with a big engraving of the God Jeff Bezos engraved in the stone wall for eternity.

Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse

#14

Post by lloeki »

andrewstuart wrote: post #13

I love the fictional idea that I have that some billionaire will create multiple underground caverns around the world in geologically stable places, each containing the knowledge of the world - engraved onto aluminum plates. A vast cavern of tunnels and chambers and catacombs built only to preserve the worlds knowledge. I imagine in 10,000 years some future explorers making their way into such a cavern and finding al…

Cue AWA, which is where GHACV is stored (IIUC on film, not aluminium though)

> For greater data density and integrity, most data was stored QR-encoded, and compressed. A human-readable index and guide found on every reel explains how to recover the data.The 02/02/2020 snapshot, consisting of 21TB of data, was archived to 186 reels of film by our archive partners Piql and then transported to the Arctic Code Vault, where it resides today.

https://archiveprogram.github.com/arctic-vault/

https://arcticworldarchive.org/

Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse

#15

Post by musingsole »

andrewstuart wrote: post #13

I love the fictional idea that I have that some billionaire will create multiple underground caverns around the world in geologically stable places, each containing the knowledge of the world - engraved onto aluminum plates. A vast cavern of tunnels and chambers and catacombs built only to preserve the worlds knowledge. I imagine in 10,000 years some future explorers making their way into such a cavern and finding al…

That is surprisingly close to some plot points of the Mistborn Trilogy from Brandon Sanderson: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistborn

Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse

#16

Post by [deleted] »

andrewstuart wrote: post #13

I love the fictional idea that I have that some billionaire will create multiple underground caverns around the world in geologically stable places, each containing the knowledge of the world - engraved onto aluminum plates. A vast cavern of tunnels and chambers and catacombs built only to preserve the worlds knowledge. I imagine in 10,000 years some future explorers making their way into such a cavern and finding al…

[deleted]

Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse

#17

Post by Aachen »

namaria wrote: post #7

All examples of how ancient script can be understood nowadays are due to some connection to modern living languages or side-by-side translations which are connected to some currently used language somehow. Kinda defeats it's own argument. No script survives complete collapse of the culture around it.

I'm reading a book, fictional but using a lot of real-world concepts, where they send messages to aliens at first in a self-encoding scheme or something (it's been a while since they needed it, I might misremember the name). I figured this can be real by starting like

1 |

2 ||

3 |||

1+2=3

1+1=2

And building up the language further from there. Draw triangles and label the sides for Pythagoras theorem, repeat a couple times to generalize the concept for the word theorem, etc.

Nobody did that in ancient times as far as I know, so you're right, but couldn't we make this work without needing context of our culture to survive?

Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse

#18

Post by Cthulhu_ »

andrewstuart wrote: post #13

I love the fictional idea that I have that some billionaire will create multiple underground caverns around the world in geologically stable places, each containing the knowledge of the world - engraved onto aluminum plates. A vast cavern of tunnels and chambers and catacombs built only to preserve the worlds knowledge. I imagine in 10,000 years some future explorers making their way into such a cavern and finding al…

There's a few projects like that already happening, like Github's code repository on Svalbard.

That said, I think one big reason why the artifacts mentioned - Sumerians, Mayans, Egyptians, or even Vesuvius - were preserved was because they were lost; buried in the desert, overgrown in dense jungles, buried under volcanic rock and ash, etc.

For something to stand the test of time, it has to be lost. Al-Quaeda and ISIS have destroyed visible historic monuments and documents, for example, and some people in the US are advocating for the removal and burning of certain books as well.

So yeah, underground caves and hidden monuments would probably be best, although the collapse of society may take care of that as well.

Another option: Time capsules of data sent out into space in containers that can survive re-entry in thousands of years. Ideally with a lot of flashy light effects and a persistent smoke trail on re-entry.

Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse

#19

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Aachen wrote: post #17
namaria wrote: post #7

All examples of how ancient script can be understood nowadays are due to some connection to modern living languages or side-by-side translations which are connected to some currently used language somehow. Kinda defeats it's own argument. No script survives complete collapse of the culture around it.

I'm reading a book, fictional but using a lot of real-world concepts, where they send messages to aliens at first in a self-encoding scheme or something (it's been a while since they needed it, I might misremember the name). I figured this can be real by starting like 1 | 2 || 3 ||| 1+2=3 1+1=2 And building up the language further from there. Draw triangles and label the sides for Pythagoras theorem, repeat a couple…

One real one I can think of is the Arecibo Message (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message), which starts with an encoding for the numbers one through ten, followed by the atomic number (in that encoding) of the atoms that make up DNA, then the formulas of the chemical compounds in DNA, etc.

Re: The messages that survived civilisation's collapse

#20

Post by Cthulhu_ »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #12
farseer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't talk live to someone 4000 miles away using clay tablets.

OTOH you can't send a message 4000 years in the future with your phone, while clay tablets pulled it off.

@RemindMe 4000 years

Who knows, some bots or digital calendars might stand the test of time.

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