Many thanks to everyone for their wonderful, thoughtful and altogether delightful ideas on what memories we should store for a post-apocalyptic world.
Now, in case you're some knuckle-dragging moron who can't follow links or scroll down the page, or worse, a freakin' newbie, let me explain:
I got a whole load of these books. They ain't your regular yawn splash science textbooks! These are some fine glossy coffee table books, containing stills and things from the Tim-Burton-produced Shane-Acker-created animated feature 9 starring Jennifer Connelly and also a bunch of other people I don't have a crush on. It has a foreword by Ray Kurzweil, who is smarter than you. You want this book, because you know it'll look good on you coffee table, even though you only drink Gold Blend. But you can't buy this book in a shop, like you do your malty weak freeze-dried coffee product. What's more, there are only 999 copies of this book in existence, and I have 10 of them.
(actually, come to think of it, I control 16 copies of this book. An entirely separate competition to win 5 copies is still ongoing.)
But it's OK, because I'm giving them away all these books freely.
Yesterday, I asked you what memories you would save for a post-human world. There were lots of fantastic answers, and by an entirely mysterious and arbitrary process, one was chosen as the best. It was written by Melanie, congratulations Melanie!
Now, for today's prize, I'm asking a related question:
Why are we saving these memories? Does it benefit us at all? What do we care about a world that we are no longer a part of?
What is the point of post-human technologies?
- Log in to post comments
What's the point of anything that we're no longer directly a part of? Why should I care if anything goes on in this world once I leave it? Whether people are still around or not, what benefit is there to me?
...of course, there are so many arguments related to the above that I could get buried under them. Pretty much, whether the society is the one I know, or a possibly very different one, the arguments can be adapted. Not that society ever stays the same, so even in a world still entirely populated by people, once I'm gone, society won't be anything like what I've known anyway.
There is no point really - aside from meeting the goal of bettering one's ability to comprehend and sense the natural world, if that is at all desirable.
Moving away from merely just surviving, post-human technologies will allow the "super-organism" that is ideas and memes and knowledge itself, to become more prolific.
Problems that are impossible to solve within our limits as humans may be reachable in a post-human state.
Memories are one of the most important things that humans possess. They teach us so much about our past, our follies, our achievements. Every human being strives to be remembered. They want to matter. If a human become famous, than they will be remembered for years, or even centuries. And if they are loved by even only one person, than they will be remembered. After humans die, they leave nothing behind but memories.
But at the end of all human life, there is no one left to remember. If our memories were allowed to just die out with us, than all would be lost. Nothing anyone had ever accomplished would matter at all. But by preserving the memories of humans, if those memories were ever found again by a future civilization, then our accomplishments would be remembered, and we would not be forgotten.
Basically, if our memories are not saved, it would be as though humans never existed, and everything we have ever done was worthless. And if our memories are saved, then our lives are still worthwhile. We can teach someone else about our past and be remembered.
Yes but only to preserve memories of the past to show it to future races.
We must remember that the Singularity is only a evolution of mankind. As Ray Kurzweil stated in his book, the human and the AI will be the same civilization. Did we try to forget the Classical Age? No! Without that period, we wouldn't be here today. The same thing will apply after the singularity.
In fact, it might be even more important. We will be the generation that gave birth to the new civilization. It will be a moment of history and every memory of that time will be cherished and remembered.
If humanity were ever to discover another (long past) sentient race (terrestrial or otherwise) we would have only what managed to survive the ravages of ages to uncover who they were and their fate.
If we could do it, it seems to me to be an imperative to preserve this information if nothing else than to satisfy the curiousity those that discover our remains but perhaps to help them avoid whatever mistakes we made that ended our existence.
More than that, there is the personal (perhaps) selfish consideration. The idea that one day we will be forgotten is kind of scary to some, terrifying to others - even if there are those who could not care less. What better hope can humanity realistically expect to obtain than the possibility that long after they are gone some thing might get a glimpse, just a speck of a glimmer of what it was to be human: What being alive meant to us, how we lived our short span, the strength of our passions and the depths of our violence.
In the beginning of Man, Man worked toward survival every day. The choices made and the actions taken were for the sole purpose of making sure he was there tomorrow.
Now, we don't have to work hard to survive every day. But the wanting to make sure we are here tomorrow is still present. And of growing importance is making your mark on the world; somehow letting the world know you were here. Our measure of success is largely based upon how well the world remembers you when you are gone.
We preserve our memories because our frail bodies are confined to a century. Our legacy, if great enough, however, is resident of a much longer timeline.
As humans we don't just exist, we live. We feel and think and make more of life than just surviving. I think that's the reason that passing on memories of human life after we disappear is important. Though humans would be gone, the shadow of us that exists through the memories we passed on would survive. Just as we now are inspired and made to think and wonder by the shadows left by ancients in the tombs in Egypt or the ruins in Greece, so might other races find that sense of inspiration and wonder by looking at what we would leave for them today. That is why the preservation of memories of what makes us human is important, because then even after disappearing it would give us the chance to live on.
I guess it depends on the memories were saving;.We could be warning future societies of our mistakes, in hope that they too wouldn't make them. We could be passing on our intellectual knowledge, so they wouldn't have to start from scratch. We could be sharing our culture and art, so they knew how we thought and felt about the world.
But I suppose the biggest reason would simply be to make it known that we were here. No-one wants to be forgotten. Who knows how many lost civilizations there are, that we'll never know of, because they couldn't pass on their knowledge?
Why do we have children? Why do we bother to see our knowledge, our thoughts, our memories, our stories, passed on to the future generation? Is the idea of passing on knowledge to a future race, species, a mechanical intelligence built perhaps with our own hands, really any different?
I figure it's like my funeral will be. It's supposed to be MY funeral, but it's for everyone BUT me. It's just for the people who survive (in this analogy it could be either any alien races that may discover us, or it could be the people creating the memories for possible future people). I suppose it makes the creators of the memory feel like they are important and part of something, not just insignificant specs that have no impact on the future at all.
Thanks for all your answers! I'm surprised that nobody suggested that planning for the far future makes us more aware of the impact of our current activities, although some of you were clearly heading in that direction.
In any event: today's winner is #6 Mod. Mod wins the prize!
Please email your name and address to winner@sciencepunk.com to claim your prize!