daria, squire: while you are right... and while this is a good point...
this is an excercise in logical thought designed to stimulate intellect and
discourse... not to mention it is fun... my engineering group and I are
fond of saying, let us assume condition x exists, consider the
ramifications...
AND... let us consider the following two postulates. 1) we create something
through genetic manipulation. This thing, unlike most biologic threats
crosses the species barrier in an unprecedented way and is anihilating the
planet. 2) or we discover something left behind in ancient aztec lands...
an alien device or ancient technology. we narrowly avoid our destruction,
but make the planet unlivable. As we have seen in the fossil records, the
planet can recover from this in a scarey fast time. (bikini atoll - place
of dozens of nuclear tests, has a thriving eco-system less than 20 years
later) Now... This scarey thing needs to be announced so that people DO NOT
DO IT AGAIN...
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
The need for destruction is allowed for by the basic fact that we are
animals... Look at nature. If an intelligent creature evolves on earth...
it will be violent in nature... the reason our violence is so massive is
due to the fact that we are smart enough to make weapons...
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
on a lighter note... the message could read "Kilroy was here."
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
Zero
Fanatic
Posts: 459 Registered: 15/2/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 18/7/2004 at 06:50 PM
i say the best thing we could leave behind is our complete history...but
the kind of message should be a peaceful one...maybe we could leave our
message behind with some kind of work of art...something that can never be
destroyed or something that even if it were to break our future inhabitants
would want rebuild or learn about and wonder about why it's there something
that would inspire all of mankind. (like egyptian pyramids and books
written hundreds of years ago have inspired writers and artists of our time
to create things that are now classics and new creations that will one day
be called classics)
then again they might just end up worshipping the damn thing.
[Edited on 19/7/2004 by Zero]
____________________ "It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak." ~
The Sandman, Dream Country
Bane
Occasional Poster
Posts: 28 Registered: 14/7/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 19/7/2004 at 03:20 AM
You suggested some interesting ways to preserve a message....
i would suggest to engrave a plate of titanium(size of 6x6 m) with
pictograms showing some bits of history or technology we
possessed(mathmetics should be included in basics).... but i guess in 10000
years the earth will be a dead planet devoid of more than insectoid life.
100 centuries is so far into the future that no one can imagine that...
Monolycus
Fanatic
Posts: 580 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/7/2004 at 03:34 AM
"100 centuries is so far into the future that no one can imagine
that... "
You underestimate many of our powers of imagination. I have it on good
authority that Rogue was bitten by a radioactive daydreamer which conferred
upon him the imaginative ability to mentally undress people weeks before he
actually meets them. Dolo makes his posts using his imagination alone,
Zero can manufacture a masturbation fantasy out of three screws and a yard
of twine and Iamsquid is nothing more than a projection of our cumulative
unconscious. Do not measure us as you would mere mortal Homo sapiens
... we are hyper Bi sapiens sapiens, and 100 centuries is a
drop in the bucket of the unmarketable crap we can dream up.
~M.
____________________ "I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."
Bane
Occasional Poster
Posts: 28 Registered: 14/7/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 19/7/2004 at 03:38 AM
Ok... i did use the wrong word...
i meant "predict"... not "imagine" because we all could imagine more
strange things than a normal citizen could cope with...
Bane: you would presume to know that in 10,000 years a plannet that has
existed for a couple billion will be devoid of life? your own statement is
flawed as insectoid life would require vegetation... AND... insects,
relatively speaking are much less haardy than fish... SOOO...
also... you did not read the entire fucking forum... which around here is
verbotten... you missed this IMPORTANT statement... "this is an excercise
in logical thought designed to stimulate intellect and discourse... not to
mention it is fun... my engineering group and I are fond of saying, let us
assume condition x exists, consider the ramifications..."
SECONDLY... pure titanium is a)brittle as oxidized shit, 2) oxidizes at the
drop of a hat, and q) all of it's alloys fall under the same problem with
oxidation... I daresay that it would require a great deal of maintenence to
last long enough... and we could just tell them when we meet them
then...
6x6... a square? 18 feet tall... seems... odd
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
shade... I think you have hit on something there...
Porcelinized steel... a pair of five sided polyhedrons... (cubes missing a
side... one fits snuggly inside the other... Heat one up, freeze the
other... when the reach a mean temperature, they are stuck together...
we have a medium of preservation... mineral oil and an alloy that can be
usefull (kinda a book frorm the mommy type affair...)
Where do we put it/how do we guarentee it is found?
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
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Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
Domkitten
Fanatic
Posts: 470 Registered: 23/9/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 19/7/2004 at 06:58 AM
Alright,
After having spent several well deserved minutes rereading all of this
again I think you have a real problem on your hands, but you already knew
that. Here is a thought, but of course it requires some amount of technical
knowledge or other ability to comprehend this on the other side. It also
assumes that something with at least the genetic framework of the
homosapien will exist at some point in the far distant future.
What about putting it in the genetic structure, or writing it in a an
interpretable binary bio-code. Think along the lines of the original
purpose of earth in Hitchhikers. Of course, we could only hope that at some
point it would not be horribly interfered with, but we couldn't guarantee
that.
I do however, like Shade's idea (metal or porcelainized metal) the best as
it is probably the most practical. Although, I would happily by into the
monolith just because I like to think that it could be very cool.
However for real longevity, I propose cave paintings. Those things take a
licking and keep on kicking. If we have reverted to more primitave culture
they will probably be found and our primitave breathern will thinks us gods
for figuring it out. If we remain advanced we could use glow in the dark
paint, or perhaps hundred foot sand carvings at high altitudes that are
arrows with sayings like "kilory is that way" I'm not sure about how to
get them discovered. But cave paintings. Yeah, that's it.
____________________ It's like kegel exercises for your throat.~Monolycus
callei
Extreme Fanatic
Posts: 759 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/7/2004 at 07:10 AM
maybe repeating a similar message in like 4000 caves per continent with
monolithic carns with sealed chambers in side holding metal/pocelaine
"books" inside? If we arent counting cost we could go for lots of
locations, with part of a complete message in each, a bit like how email is
sent.
____________________ Real goths wear silver and crosses to keep the werewolves and vampires
away.
Shade
Fanatic
Posts: 289 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/7/2004 at 08:20 AM
Nice ideas all, and the cave painting concept is pretty good. I like the
idea of the ceramic/steel plates for delivering detail, but as a possibile
just send a message at all idea, cave paintings would rock since they do
last. I realized one other thing that should go into the packet of more
detailed info; a star chart of today's night sky. That way (assuming a
level of technological detail and mathematical skill that we have had since
before the darkages) the recipients could tell from whence came said
missive.
On a side note: Why? Because we can, because we work so hard to get any
drop of meaning out of our past when we find documents and the like today,
because it would be funny, and because it would have been nice had the
Atlaneans done it for us.
____________________ It is only through the lack of sex that humanity derives the need for an
all encompassing blind love. And in that moment of extreme horniness with
no relief in sight, in that moment can be found the birth of religion.
-Me
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
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Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
dead-cell
Fanatic
Posts: 344 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 19/7/2004 at 10:28 AM
Well we could do the same as Ikea and use pictographs. Of course that is to
mean only use pictographs for the really basic ideas, then move on to
universal mathmatics, and eventually language. Perhaps we should leave a
note to say "Sorry for being so redundant."
____________________ co-worker: "Your gay!?"
myself: "Didn't you see my rainbow pin?"
co-worker: "I just thought you liked skettles."
-(yes, it actually happened to me)
babylonians dis that... and we still don't understand a fuckin thing they
wrote
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
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Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
Anonymous
Posts: 116 Registered: 14/4/2002 Status: Offline
posted on 20/7/2004 at 11:17 AM
History is not viable to represent here, people. This idea is bunk. There
is no Rosetta stone, as has been brought up before. We can't use
pictographs. Write the word TREE next to a picture of a tree, sure, but who
know whether such organismswill exist 10,000 years from now. And what good
is that. I agree with Dom, in that the structure of DNA should be
represented, and by that token, our complex understanding of an age old
concept, the golden ration, i.e. spirals, helixes, and of course chaos
theory. They can be represented very simply. The spiral has been a
spiritual symbol for hundreds of thousands of years, oddly enough, in so
far as it is essentially the pictoral form of a mathematic function that
drives the galaxy, the growth of a tree, the structure of our brain and
dna, and of course, conch shells and black holes.
Furthermore, steel is a bad, bad thing. Porcelainized or not. I am a
staunch suporter of gold aloys, and if it's going to be porcelainized, it's
maleability shouldn't be a problem. The galactic satelite we shamefully
puttered out in the late 70's had a golden record with sounds on it, from
earth. If gold, and whatever minor aditions they added for strength, etc,
is good enough to support needle grooves, I say it can hand a double helix
and two dots plus 2 dots equals 4. Complexity is fun, for mystery sake, and
it would make future people curious, as we are of our own ancestors, but
honestly, if we're trying to give them an idea of our most idyllic
qualities, and a good example of our knowledge, then Ourselves (DNA) the
universe (Chaos, spirals) and the building blocks of each (math) should be
all that matters.
Squire-of-Gothos
Fanatic
Posts: 206 Registered: 1/1/2003 Status: Offline
posted on 20/7/2004 at 11:19 AM
Nope, wasn't me. Wasn't me at all.....hehe.
____________________ “The only thing that can alter the good writer is death.”
“You know that if I were reincarnated, I’d want to come back a buzzard.
Nothing hates him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat
anything.”
Faulkner
Alugarde
Member
Posts: 185 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 20/7/2004 at 02:13 PM
quote:Write the word TREE next
to a picture of a tree, sure, but who know whether such organismswill exist
10,000 years from now.
Squire, would you prefer to write the word RED-BOTTOMED ZUBRAMUNKARAT next
to some sketch of a creature that is yet to exist? We're trying to get our
descendants to understand us, right? A tree is a pretty basic concept of
living. I've seen perhaps eight or ten trees in the two hours I've been
awake today. I can't recall any spirals in that time.
Feral, how thourough were the Babylonians? What if we included a large book
containing a picture of every tangible entry in the dictionary, with it's
name next to the picture? The only thing I think that might not effectively
communicate is words like "I" or "you", but then those are some of the
first words I try to figure out when learning a language...perhaps we could
also include a list of the words we couldn't come up with a picture for.
That way, when they're trying to figure out our language, we could change
the gaps from fill in the blank to multiple choice.
[Edited on 7/20/2004 by Alugarde]
____________________ l33t is the bastard cousin of contractions.
malleability is a BIGGER problem if it is to be porcailined... cause if it
not strong enough, then it will litterally collapse uunder the weight of
the ceramic...
I agree... a trtee is pretty basic... but... pictograms leave sooooo much
to be desired... I am not sure how thorough they were, but keep in mind,
for it to be a written language, it has to be complete enough to
communicate thier everyday life...
I personally like the math idea... while life may change... the circle...
will not...
____________________ The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
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Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
Psychopixi
Fanatic
Posts: 376 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 20/7/2004 at 03:14 PM
Why do the pictures have to be pictograms? Surely there could be actual
pictures - either photographs, or on some form of disk that could show far
more detail than a pictogram. Even a video sequence could be edited so the
things in it are named, right?
____________________ Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.