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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 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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…
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…
I would be interested to read the book you're talking about, if you have the title!
(Your math example reminds me a bit of Lambda Calculus, but I guess you'd have a hard time making a real language out of it.)
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…
The other useful feature is that clay tablets are mostly fireproof, infact a good fire (like one that destroyed alexandra) makes tablets waterproof
- Some civilizations wrote on clay but built with wood/straw. We know a lot about their writing but almost nothing about their structures.
- Some civilizations wrote on papyrus but built with stone. We know a lot about their structures but not a lot about their writing (unless it was written on a building). The ancient Egyptians are the classic example here.
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…
Diamond would be even better. Maybe we are wearing the messages of an ancient civilization in the form of diamonds?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
There is an excellent short story from the 50s, "Omnilingual" by H. Beam Piper, that explores deciphering a literally alien language. It is mercifully in the public domain because it was written before copyright became infinite in the 1970s. You can read it here: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/19445 I would be interested to read the book you're talking about, if you have the title! (Your math example reminds me a bit o…