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In passing, the article reveals that in the Netherlands, there is a place called "Monster", and Willy is a woman's name. But the archaeology is fascinating, to
by krylon 5y ago
In passing, the article reveals that in the Netherlands, there is a place called "Monster", and Willy is a woman's name.
But the archaeology is fascinating, too, of course. It is both sad and exciting to think about how much human culture and history has been lost to time, and how there still is out there, waiting to be discovered.
There is an episode of Star Trek TNG where Captain Picard gets neurally linked to an alien probe and gets to experience the life of a person in a civilization that has long since ceased to exist. It is frustrating sometimes how Sci-fi can implant such appealing ideas in our minds that are - AFAIK - scientifically impossible. But how amazing would it be to live for just one day among the mammoth hunters of Doggerland.
Also, this makes me think about what we leave behind for some future explorer to unearth. Maybe we should start creating time capsules, so future archaeologists won't have such a hard time figuring out what life was like back in the 21st century.
- doovd 5y agoWith climate change etc there probably won't be future archaeologists so :shrug:
- steve_adams_86 5y agoMaybe they'd be from another solar system.
- medstrom 5y agoThis is not a chatroom, think twice. Climate change won't kill literally everyone.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- koheripbal 5y agoThe AI that evolves from us within the next hundred(s) years, will likely have a good memory persistence. Then again, I suppose if it is destroyed by an AI from a neighboring region/galaxy, that too might be lost. I wonder how many civilizations have been obliterated and forgotten by the AIs they created.
- brobdingnagians 5y agoI'm betting more on the odds of living in the stone age after WWIII than a general AI anytime soon.
- Retric 5y agoI don’t see why it’s assumed AI would be overly antagonist. For example without biological needs they might prefer Mercury, Moons, or even Pluto depending on constraints over earth. Similarly computers have great memory persistence, but AI may sacrifice that for increased flexibility.
- kbenson 5y agoResource constraints of the universe are rarely at the forefront of the reasoning of entities that live a hundred years or so on the upper end, but if the entity was expected to possibly survive in perpetuity and additional resources could always be used, then everything is a competitor. That said, I'm not sure the optimal solution arrived at would be to wipe out humanity in that case. Possibly a "wait and see and keep them from getting too big for their britches" strategy might be more rational for an AI, as long as it secures its superiority first. As for why there's an assumption that AI will be hostile, I think the argument is more along the lines of that we can't know how a super-intelligent AI will think, so there's a chance it will be hostile, and if there's a chance something is world or species ending, it's best to tread carefully. I.e. the safest way to not have problems with the outcome of summoning a demon is to not summon the demon. Or for a more contemporary take, even if you're unsure about whether global climate change is real, the fact that it could be real means the sane thing to do is try to prevent it, because the consequences of being wrong are dire.
- Retric 5y ago> then everything is a competitor. Assuming a time horizon of hundreds of millions of years, efficient fusion, bandwidth limited sub FTL communication, and optimum computing substrate being extremely cryogenic then … Space near stars starts to look toxic. Rather than seeding the universe the goal is to construct an ever larger mega structure in the void as there is no efficient way to transfer the truly enormous amounts of data between structures at least assuming no AI wants to effectively be alone. Granted start looking hundreds of billions of years into the future and stars look wasteful so destroying them to conserve hydrogen starts to be relevant.
- saiya-jin 5y agoAh, The Inner Light, s05e25, by many regarded as the best TNG episode ever. I re-watched it recently, still a powerful message. And there is plenty of other quality to choose from...
- gibolt 5y agoWe are closing in on enough storage and cheap cameras to easily store a lifetime from at least one vantage point.
- BMorearty 5y agoI had never seen that episode of Star Trek TNG. Thanks so much for mentioning it. I watched it just now and loved it.
- samplatt 5y agoIt's generally considered one of the best episodes in all of TNG. I've seen a few people mention how Picard was awkward around children prior to this episode but afterwards he wasn't, and it was never elaborated upon, but I'm not sure how true that is.
- stevenhuang 5y ago> neurally linked to an alien probe and gets to experience the life of a person in a civilization that has long since ceased to exist What exactly about this do you find to be "scientifically impossible"?
- krylon 5y agoWell, I said "AFAIK". ;-)
- ekster 5y agoWilly can be short for the older style name Willemijn, much like Freddy can be short for the older style name Winnefred in the US.
- antiterra 5y agoWilhelmina and Willamina appear to have some resurgence in popularity as baby names in the US, though both are still uncommon. Willie/Willy has been an intuitive nickname for them.
- RalfWausE 5y agoRegarding the time capsules: I think the best time capsules are the things that are stored somewhere and then simply forgotten. My wife and i we are converting an old barn at the moment to become our new home and just yesterday we discovered in a far off corner of the barn some interesting things: A few prayer books with comments from ancestors of our neighbours (some dates suggest they are from around 1820), a field box of some soldier from WW 1 with some personal belongings... just things you store on your attic and forget about. These are not things somebody thought could be interesting for future generations... but they give a unique glimpse into the lives of people long gone.