......preserve the knowledge we have attained today in the event of a potential Earth catastrophe as some predict in 2012?

Some things to consider:

1) There will be very few people around after a global catastrophe.

2) Civilisation as we know it will be gone and reset back to fairly primitive times.

3) Accumulated Knowledge in every field of human activity will be more or less lost.

4) Language will be lost and will change (in every continent).

5) Writing will be lost and changed (in every continent).

6) Calander systems the world over will be lost and forgotten.

7) Religions will be lost and forgotten the world over.

Given all of the above, and with the knowledge that such a global catastrophe is imminent, what would you consider the most important things of our current civilisation worth preserving and how would you ensure that future civilisations could (eventually) benefit from it?

In short, what would you place in your 'Time Capsule', where would you place the capsule and how woud you ensure that future civilisations would discover it and make sense of it? Also, how would you ensure that no casual "tomb raiders" in the future accidentally stumbled across your "time capsule" and, in their complete ignorance, destroyed everything you had so carefully stored?

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this question.

Best wishes,

Scott Creighton

Sounds like a question desgined to find a time-capsule already built by the ancients.

I´d probably carve information about our society onto a rock. And then I´d carve another rock that acts as a rosetta-stone, offering different languages and hints to decipher the original stone. I´d make 5 copies of all this and place

one at the bottom of the ocean
one in a cave
one buried deeply underground
one out in the open (such as the Nazca lines or Pyramids)
and one that is only detectable by advanced technological means


[edit on 28-7-2009 by Skyfloating]

For whatever clan I was in, I'd do just like my ancestors did. I'd describe our histories and people in legends, myths, fables, and folklore.

Eventually, someone like Homer or Herodotus would get them down in writing.

And then eventually, some of these "myths" would actually be discovered.

Legends, myths, fables, and folklore.

When everything is gone, that's all you have left to work with.

I would think a multitude of methods would have to be employed since it would be very difficult to determine what the circumstances would be after a disaster. For instance, leave a disk, as well as a hard copy of whatever document. The more methods used, the better the chances of information being passed on.

-E-

I am wondering who would be left after all is said and done to open up the time capsule? Would they be primative or technologically advanced? Maybe they would be from another world... We have the technology today to place a capsule out of reach of earthly disasters such as on the moon. Maybe a monolith to be discovered a million years from now by our distant offspring. If it's left here on earth, stone seems to be the best way. But I wonder what could be done with crystals.. do we have the ability yet to store data on crystals? Or micro-inscribe physically words on diamonds? Ciao 4 now -RDDS

Originally posted by Scott Creighton

2) Civilisation as we know it will be gone and reset back to fairly primitive times.
...

7) Religions will be lost and forgotten the world over.

Hm.... Lets see, a primitive llifestyle, perhaps in contact and harmony with nature... And no more wars and persecution over religious beliefs...

Doesn't seem too bad to me, to be honest.

The first question to ask should be whether we really have all that much that is worthwhile to remember. The next question is whether any of that is relevant in a post-catastrophe world, where survival will rely more on basics than on advanced technology.

Writing and language will continue to exist, wherever it already exists. People don't need any technology to speak; it's built in. Writing requires some sort of surface and something to make marks. Figuring out how to make paper might be important. Groups can survive without writing, but it's still very important. Otherwise, knowledge is stored in the minds of the elders, passed along word of mouth.

Depending on what's left and how many people survive, we'll have to farm, hunt, or raise various cattle in a nomadic lifestyle. Different regions are likely to have different solutions, according to their terrain and population.

Most of what we know is irrelevant for survival. History, literature, music, art, biology, chemistry, physics, math - not necessary. Much of that - especially the sciences - has caused more trouble than it was worth. If we lose it, it might not be such a heavy loss after all. Maybe we could make a new start, and avoid some of the mistakes we made previously.

What I'd place in a time capsule is information that could enhance survival, period. That would include agriculture, hunting, and so on; it might even include some of the public sanitation knowledge. I'm not altogether certain I'd include medicine, because there is some evidence that medicine is the #1 cause of death, at least in the US. It seems that learning to drain a swamp, or to avoid such areas, is more important than trying to preserve a cure for malaria - especially when the technology to produce such drugs will remain beyond us for many long years.

Definitely I'd get anything I wanted into "hard copy", and not on a hard drive. Anything on a hard drive would, of course, be inaccessible. Metallurgy, tool making, the properties of materials (especially alloys); how to make glass, soap, other useful stuff.

The best way to phisically store the information would be on something similar to a rock, however that would be a lot of work and yeild pretty low results. I believe the only reason the rossetta stone worked previously was because most of the egyptians' recorded history was so well preserved already in or on rock, wich ours is currently not. With the collapse of civilization we would also see the collapse of electric grids and thus, computers. This would make storring any sort of mass information on CD/SD cards/removable hard drives usless. Books would be good, but their downside is that they are bulky, and paper stains, ages, and turns to dust. There is a reason we find little recorded history from past civilizations on anything other than rock. Nothing is permenant. but it tends to stand the test of time fairly well. The ancients understood this.

i'd chisel "OBAMA IS LORD" on everything harder than cotton candy. what else do they need to know?

i dunno i doubt i'd leave anything. i'd probably consider it for a long while but seriously, why bother?

Great subject OP

Makes me wonder how many time this has be done before in history. Scrolls found in caves, paint on walls in caves and hieroglyphics on stone.

Now if we leave all our present information on stone and generations after find our stashes and find the language different then we are right back at the beginning. They can only assume the information is from a scholar and not some "dude" who wrote "Obama is Lord". I can see it now the future Bibles will have Obama instead of Jesus.

Things that make me say hmmmmm.

I would store it all on a 3.5 floppy disk. Those guys are screwed!

After that, I think I'd write a novel about my life declaring that I was a supreme ruler and that someday I'm going to comeback in my flying object and rescue all the mate-worthy females.

Sorry, I just had to have a quick laugh. Unfortunately it was at the OPs expense. But hey, i stayed on topic!

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I think at first it would be better to use various forms of metals and stone. Instead of using a "written" language it would be best to use a form of pictograph type writing instead. Like you said in the event there was a huge disaster that wiped out most of humanity they would more than likely develop a different form of language over time.

Also would be best to leave them in easier to find areas some just right out in the open maybe a huge structure. Then some smaller structures and finally some that are hidden in places that would be beneficial to the materials surviving for long periods of time.

By smaller in size I mean ones that can be hidden under ground or tablets etc made of various materials. Leaving markers above ground would be of great benefit, but who knows if they would survive after long periods of time.

You never know the environment its self may change after a huge disaster making it impossible to know what will survive. So using many materials with the same thing on them would be best.

I would create large glass/marbel/or anyhardcore transparent material slates that will never damage from water. About say 25'x25'x10' thk. basically with all the current knowledge we have laser tagged in very small text multi languaged and symboled with warnings and signs of a culture becomming ignorant with power and pics of all we know I stress all we know. And place these transparent slates in the deepest parts of the oceans and caves globally, and on the moon-mars and in orbit of the earth.

It would be simple to use nonreactive materials such as ceramic or glass to create monolithic blocks with directions in all major human languages that will be used to direct people to the time capsule or capsules.
These blocks or guidestones could be placed at already existing sites such as the pyramids in the middle east and south and central America. The great wall, Anchor Wat, Taj Mahal, Coliseum, Hoover dam, Seven Gorges Dam and so forth. The actual time capsules can be self contained teaching centers that are based on the languages around the area where they are located and may be placed in protected locations that can be reached from the guidestones. Places like Cheyenne Mountain come to mind.

Sounds like a good premise for a novel.

In two hundred years, we'll be seen the way we view the 18th century.

In a thousand years or so, we'll be the ancients.



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Did people in the year 900 ever say to each around the fire;

"I wonder what the world will be like in the year 2009?"

I don't think it would've been too common a question since to ask it presumes, for example, that the end of the world wasn't at hand which may have contradicted religious teachings.

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A question I've wondered about:

Say you put an absolute top quality switched-on laptop computer in an airless, temperature-stable safe.

The energy supply to the computer is perfect, steady, and independent.

How long would the screen stay on for?


The heat generated by electrical resistance of certain components would very slowly begin to impact their own performance.

I would suggest maybe 45 years before the screen went blank.

But it would vary, possibly by a large amount, depending on the composition and heat-sink efficiency of the components.

And if it wasn't switched on, but had a solar power booster incorperated as one of the components?

The simpler the components, the less complex their contruction, and I would also suggest the largher the components, the longer they would last.

Thick glass, platinum, titanium, gold and special moulded plastic encased in Argon-infused stone and layered with platinum, titanium and stone.

I'm guessing. Maybe 3000 years?

On the other hand I'm thinking they wouldn't be able to resist after... 100 years?