Preserving science through a future dark age

[Tom Byers]

I am involved with the Perenno Project, which seeks to develop a means to preserve knowledge in the unlikely event of a collapse of civilization. Please share any ideas you can contribute toward developing the means to achieve this goal.

[Schrödinger's hat]

I am involved with the Perenno Project, which seeks to develop a means to preserve knowledge in the unlikely event of a collapse of civilization. Please share any ideas you can contribute toward developing the means to achieve this goal.

 

I say rather than large facilities which will get looted if anything really bad happens, the most durable approach is redundancy. Similar to the rosetta project. http://blog.longnow.org/category/rosetta/

Why not lobby governments to store information in/on coins. I know some coins use diffraction to add colour, so small scale features are not out of the question. This would double as an anti-counterfeit measure.

Instructions for building a microscope and the necessary lenses could be included in a visible font size with the rest of the information at a smaller scale.

Further details could be etched on the inner surfaces of two or more disks which could then be joined together to protect from wear and oxidisation.

 

Another approach would be to attempt to get high durability archives of the most important knowledge (archival quality paper? or possibly some other material) into people's homes. This could have educational benifits as well.

 

A similar technique of large scale features for simple information and smaller for more detailed.

 

This approach is limited in the amount of information that can be stored in each home, (even a font size of 50 micron would limit you to gigabytes -- I think this is very much on the smaller limit of what would be possible, and would require etching on glass or metal) but numerous editions could be released, possibly with the same large scale educational and instructional content.

[lemur]

I am involved with the Perenno Project, which seeks to develop a means to preserve knowledge in the unlikely event of a collapse of civilization. Please share any ideas you can contribute toward developing the means to achieve this goal.

I would think it would depend on the details of what "collapse of civilization" precisely entails. If you knew what level of potentiality would remain to continue constructive cultural dialogue, it would make it easier to communicate with the agents of that dialogue.

[Schrödinger's hat]

One problem I see in a near-total collapse (where raiding and fighting is prevalent) is that any such facility will be valuable.

You could arm yourselves to defend it, but presumably there will be other groups equally well armed.

Fortifying such a facility would only increase its value attracting more raiders/looters.

If you were then powerful enough to fend/scare off anyone who wanted what was inside then you would be powerful enough to start enforcing laws and laying down civilisation immediately.

[Marat]

Real problems would arise if the collapse of civilization were so complete that people ceased to be able to read or no longer even cared about knowledge, because then any information storage systems would be either unusable or functionally irrelevant. Keep in mind that the Great Library of Alexandria, which had stored a copy of almost all the literature of the Ancient World, was finally burned down by wandering barbarians who regarded its numerous manuscripts as so many dried leaves providing a ready source of combustible material to keep people warn at night when burned. I don't know how you ensure that people will still retain the required mindset to value what is preserved despite the collapse of civilization.

 

As has been suggested, the best strategy for preserving at least the material basis of a future renaissance would be duplicating the records of what we have discovered and created. But it would be important to include with that a key to instruct future people in how to read what has been stored and in why it would be worth learning how to access it. This might involve some highly imaginative pictograms to communicate with people who would not only not know our language, but who might not even know what reading was. The pictogram left by the astronauts on the Moon provides a model of how this basic bridge to communication might be established.

[michel123456]

Real problems would arise if the collapse of civilization were so complete that people ceased to be able to read or no longer even cared about knowledge, because then any information storage systems would be either unusable or functionally irrelevant. Keep in mind that the Great Library of Alexandria, which had stored a copy of almost all the literature of the Ancient World, was finally burned down by wandering barbarians who regarded its numerous manuscripts as so many dried leaves providing a ready source of combustible material to keep people warn at night when burned. (...)

 

It is not an accurate description. It is worth reading the wikipedia article about the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.

 

 

IMHO the real problem is not that of an event like armagedon, but more probably like the destruction of knowledge by humans themselves.

It will come a time when scientific progress will be seen as evil and will be destroyed by people who admire the vertues of simplicity and ignorance. That is a very dangerous threat, and very difficult to avoid. Nothing can resist the demolishing power of humans. If you want to protect knowledge by hiding it, how will you manage to hide it from people who want to destroy it and simultaneously show it to other people who will ressurect it in the future? That is not evident at all.

Edited January 27, 2011 by michel123456

[Marat]

The Great Library at Alexandria experienced a serious of phases of destruction, from the first in association with fires arising during the invasion of Caesar Augustus to the last in association with barbarian hordes eventually descending on what was left of it.

 

Edit: Or was it Julius Caesar?

Edited January 28, 2011 by Marat

[dragonstar57]

etch the data on titanium plates?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_Wikimedia_project_XML_dumps

 

Regularly updated copies of Wikipedia would be helpful. They are absolutely huge files, but if you get the equipment to store and read the files stored safely, they can be used for generations.

[Schrödinger's hat]

Ooooh! I know! An array of really really big mirrors.

Put them 100 lightyears away, and fire giant lasers at them so they play videos describing important knowledge (like how to read) in a loop.

 

On a more serious note, the main problem lies in making your medium of storage not worth looting/burning etc.

If stones are quarried people will build something out of them.

In that case it seems metal is right out, it'll always be useful.

Paper isn't durable enough, and can be burned.

Glass...hmmm

 

Glass is non-reactive, worthless if you crush/rearrange it, and not shiny enough that people will smash it for jewellery.

The only problem I foresee is people polishing the writing off of it to use it as windows. Perhaps the information could be impregnated deeper than the surface? (Ie. 2 layers with the inner edge etched, then welded, I'm sure a process exists which would maintain the information.)

 

A second option would be a series of tunnels with information carved into the walls. It could be placed somewhere that would not be likely to become strategic in military conflict, away from valuable resources.

With the right placement, it could be both not worth attacking, and difficult for attackers to take. Modelled after the possibly apocryphal monasteries in Asia/Tibet.

 

Taking that idea about jewellery, and my previous thought about coins leads to a thought. Synthetic gemstones with holograms imprinted would be a possible storage medium. People would covet them, but be unlikely to do anything destructive. This would increase the likelihood that their locations are known and that they are intact when someone learns their true nature.

 

In terms of learning how to read, I suppose this could be part of the larger scale base information.

Edited January 29, 2011 by Schrödinger's hat

[dragonstar57]

It is not an accurate description. It is worth reading the wikipedia article about the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.

 

 

IMHO the real problem is not that of an event like armagedon, but more probably like the destruction of knowledge by humans themselves.

It will come a time when scientific progress will be seen as evil and will be destroyed by people who admire the vertues of simplicity and ignorance. That is a very dangerous threat, and very difficult to avoid. Nothing can resist the demolishing power of humans. If you want to protect knowledge by hiding it, how will you manage to hide it from people who want to destroy it and simultaneously show it to other people who will ressurect it in the future? That is not evident at all.

that will need no precaution, there will be people that will defend technology/science.

Try to destroy a teenagers Ipod and you will learn the definition of war (lol).

People wont let civilization slip without a fight. The only way that all science and technology could be lost is if those who would want it destroy it in their conflict over it.

Even in some kind of post-Apocalyptic world there would be some kind of stronghold where technology would still remain (such as a small town with solar power and basic computers).

and if civilization was really at risk i know many people that would begin to carry flash-drives of important data(like combustion engines, electricity, irrigation, radio, etc) on necklaces or in place of other jewelry

just the people that I know would carry at least 500gb.

i could see it becoming some kind of movement (the more commonly thought important data would have thousands of copies) where it would be almost impossible to destroy not only all the saved data but the knowledge of people that would pass reading and such to their children.