One of my favorite quotes from Iain M. banks’ Culture series, paraphrased here since I don’t recall which book it’s in, is that technological progress is more like scaling a rock face than climbing a ladder. There is so much room for surprise and incomprehension. I sometimes think about how vast the parameter space of our physical universe is, and if that vastness means we wouldn’t be able to recognize ancient advanc…
Why do you think that an old civilization with deeply held beliefs of gods, magic, seers, oracles ... etc find it hard to believe that a library worth of books has been shrunk down. There is only a small window where magic/gods was being supplanted by monotheistic dogma that is plausible. On the other hand you tell me this dot contains the total sum of knowledge and I’d be nice ... or a drop of this liquid would dest…
I might be wrong about the emperor’s belief. I chose an SD card particularly because it looks insignificant. Getting an emperor to say “this is a sacred relic” is still a long way off from getting an emperor to say “let us endeavor to unlock the secrets of this relic.”