I see the Project as primarily addressing those who may have lost a grasp of civilization's core technologies, associated concepts and vocabulary, and/or its cultural traditions.
To be successful, this Memeplex must appeal at each link in the chain of its transmission, from its society of origin, through generations exposed to a range of difficulties and risk, to eventual persons with opportunity and interest to further the investigation of their world.
The first audience is ourselves.
This project must appeal to contemporaries at least to the extent that it comes together in some transmissible form or forms. To succeed, it must be distributed as widely as possible, preferably in many languages. At its best, it would be captivating, of interest and useful for educational purposes, and as an intellectual stimulus for those familiar with the fields involved.
The second audience is drawn from those surviving global collapse through the ensuing Dark Age.
In this phase, the project must appeal to persons with a lot on their minds, primarily survival. It may well be that much of the background information we now possess will become rare to lost. To succeed, it should carry information which is appealing, accessible and useful to persons far removed from technology, and be of practical use to folk living in near-feral conditions (and upward).
The end-target audience is comprised of those who have regained the leisure for contemplation and investigation.
By this point, the pursuit of science and technologies beyond day to day existence will needs be supported by more stable living conditions. To succeed, this memeplex should attempt to set inquiring minds firmly onto paths which bypass the centuries of trial, error and some of the hard work which led to our present understandings.
Only by appealing to all three groups and satisfying a number of their basic needs will this project be successful. Exploring avenues of appeal is no small part of this blog's purpose.
(Part 1 of 2)
ReplyDeleteI agree with the assessment in the original post. That leaves the sizeable question of methodology.
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My assessment at this point is that there exists an inherent, potentially unsolvable contradiction. Namely, everything we know at this point would be useful to the final intended recipients, whereas relatively nothing we know at this point would be of use to the initial intended recipients; the couriers along the way. Assuming a protracted neo-primitive period (centuries to millennia), the long string of couriers will likely have neither the luxury nor later the capability to make use of information beyond that necessary for basic survival and primitive agrarian life. So, at least in the first half of the courier era, what possible motivation could be conceived of for them to transport and transmit anything at all?
Figuratively speaking, would they drag around and serially bequeath a large permanently locked trunk of mysterious contents – forever unknowable to themselves – just because onto the lid was engraved the instructions for a sundial and the recipe for flatbread? The obvious conclusion is that they would not.
A potential solution is to avoid trying to determine how to get them to do something that is clearly not probable nor in their best interest to do, and instead, design a method that does not rely on their willingness to courier time capsules (for lack of a better term) at all.
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One feasible method would seem to have two mandatory components and one optional component:
1) Time capsules: The information payloads could be stashed in permanently secure locations, such as underground vaults, awaiting eventual discovery by those capable of using the contents. The type of storage locations and the type and contents of the time capsules would exist along a spectrum of increasing sophistication.
2) Pointers: A system for indicating the locations of time capsules, and one that could be couriered either very easily or without the knowledge of the courier.
3) (Optional) Nesting: A system of incremental information release of gradually increasing complexity, such that any intermediary society along the way could make use of whatever level of information that they were capable of releasing, but not yet have access to subsequent time capsules. This feature would necessitate separate storage locations for each level of information, such that discovering and deciphering the first level would yield the intended information payload and a pointer to the next level of information. Pointers could be designed to be successfully possessed at each current level of sophistication, but only decipherable upon achievement of a higher level of technical sophistication.
The storage format of the incremental information payloads must be carefully considered. Two contrasting approaches would be either 1) a format not yet usable to challenge the discoverers to advance to unlock its contents, or 2) a format already accessible to ensure that format alone would not be an obstacle.
The type of storage locations and methods should not be the same for each incremental level of information. One benefit is that by creating them at increasing levels of sophistication, successful use of the “Easter Egg” hunting method is prevented. That is, once you discover that eggs are hidden at ground level and behind a bush, just look behind each bush. This recommendation is based on the assumption that, for reasons only intuitive at this point, the discovery and possession of all known information at one premature time would somehow be detrimental or risk being disregarded or lost before usable.
(continued below)
(Part 2 of 2)
ReplyDeleteThat leaves the subset of methodology related to pointers.
First, this seems to be a place where memes can be of use. In short, the pointer should be a meme, and one willingly shared. That could be done on a limited basis within a guild framework or on a widespread basis within the general population.
It has been wisely suggested that the answers to all of life’s important questions can be found in Star Trek. Sadly, in this case, the unlikely vessel seems to be Kevin Costner.
In one of his best-known, sprawling, cinematic efforts – Waterworld – the widely desirable though seemingly impossible goal was to find the mythic “dry land”. It turns out that the pointer of choice was a tattoo on a little girl’s back, that when combined with simple maps, indicated the way to the destination.
Though somewhat incomprehensible, tattoos are highly successful memes, ancient and modern. It is plausible that a tattoo could be used as the initial pointer, and possibly limited subsequent pointers. Once the first tattoo is deciphered, it would lead to the first information payload, a blueprint for the second tattoo, and instructions for disseminating that second tattoo as a meme to ensure its longevity and eventual usefulness.