Re: Talking to the future


"James Nicoll" <jdnicoll@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ev0cu1$e4f$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The problem of the day is "Methods proposed by SF writers to
convey a message to the people who will exist in a thousand years."
Whatever method you use cannot depend on details of culture continuity:
it could be that English will be as handy to talk to these people as
Latin is for the Romans to speak to us or it could be that a situation
more akin to modern day Europeans trying to decipher Etruscan writing.

I only see a few basic approaches:

1: Send words

Example: Vault of Ages by Poul Anderson.

You construct a repository of useful information that can stand
up to ten centuries of time. This probably means hiding it somehow,
because patrons can be very hard on books. You could try making the method
of preserving the information very durable, in which case you might be
able to leave the information out in plain view.

Use special books, made of special materials, durable plastics, composite
fibers, etc. and microprinting.

Language may be a real problem.

Simplified language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English#Word_List

It seems to me that a variation of this involved flinging the
library into an orbit that does not encounter the Earth again for one
thousand years (Good luck making a machine that will still work after
ten centuries).


2: Send an ambassador

Example: Looking Backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy

Some method is used to slow a human's metabolic rate to nearly zero
and they are kept in storage until the designated date. The method used
could simply exploit relativity: the lead character in A World Out of
Time ended up millions of years out of his home time thanks to a close
encounter with the ergosphere of a large black hole.

Would said ambassador stand up to new diseases? Would the future be able to
handle ancient diseases? And then you have the problem of language.

3: Leave instructions

Example: The Karma Affair by Arsen Darnay

If what you're really after is to preserve a set of behaviors,
not convey actual information, you could set up an organization whose
members encourage the behaviors through some form of moral suasion. Are
there any long term examples of this kind of organization that aren't
religions of one sort or another?

No. Governments change with different rulers. Whatever institution you use,
be it corporate, governmental, educational, bureaucratic, etc. would have to
maintain a religious-like devotion to tradition, to the Cause.

Am I missing any obvious options?
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

Robots.

Robots could be programmed to keep up-to-date on modern language and an
updated 21st century to 31st century dictionary. Being self-programmed, they
would maintain their conditioning and effect repairs on each other as
needed.

-- Ken from Chicago


.

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