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Will Future Civilizations Bother to Excavate Our Remains?
anon_rama said in #3637 3w ago:
>>3635
I think the notorious BLT's strongest claim is the more or less Lindy principled one: almost no one else in history has done archaeology, so we should expect almost no one else in the future to do archaeology. But he also says the following surprisingly whiggish thing, which spiritually contradicts the Lindy principle reasoning:
>Some people tell me that archaeology is like industrial production or better forms of money, and it will persist because it provides material advantages. Unfortunately, archaeology does not come close to meeting this bar. The material technology we gain is mostly a matter of curiosities, since our own technology has advanced far beyond past civilizations, just as our successors will very likely have better technology than we do.
Which one is it? The future proceeds in the same way as the past, or we're on an escape trajectory and the future looks vastly different? In any case he then in a rather abrupt reversal says:
>It is possible, and in fact fairly common, to reverse-engineer social technology from the distant past and use it as inspiration for creating new functional institutions. However, every case I know of this happening drew almost entirely from studying ancient texts, and little or nothing from archaeology.
Yes, we definitely do reverse-engineer social technology from the distant past, as have many historical civilizations, and I'm curious to hear the evidence / steelman of his claim that this process does not draw on archaeology. I think he's wrong about that. One glaring contradiction is the Rosetta stone. Another is the Gilgamesh flood tablet. Another is the Vesuvius Challenge.
I think the notorious BLT's strongest claim is the more or less Lindy principled one: almost no one else in history has done archaeology, so we should expect almost no one else in the future to do archaeology. But he also says the following surprisingly whiggish thing, which spiritually contradicts the Lindy principle reasoning:
>Some people tell me that archaeology is like industrial production or better forms of money, and it will persist because it provides material advantages. Unfortunately, archaeology does not come close to meeting this bar. The material technology we gain is mostly a matter of curiosities, since our own technology has advanced far beyond past civilizations, just as our successors will very likely have better technology than we do.
Which one is it? The future proceeds in the same way as the past, or we're on an escape trajectory and the future looks vastly different? In any case he then in a rather abrupt reversal says:
>It is possible, and in fact fairly common, to reverse-engineer social technology from the distant past and use it as inspiration for creating new functional institutions. However, every case I know of this happening drew almost entirely from studying ancient texts, and little or nothing from archaeology.
Yes, we definitely do reverse-engineer social technology from the distant past, as have many historical civilizations, and I'm curious to hear the evidence / steelman of his claim that this process does not draw on archaeology. I think he's wrong about that. One glaring contradiction is the Rosetta stone. Another is the Gilgamesh flood tablet. Another is the Vesuvius Challenge.
referenced by: >>3639
I think the notoriou
anon_gysw said in #3639 3w ago:
>>3637
>One glaring contradiction is the Rosetta stone. Another is the Gilgamesh flood tablet. Another is the Vesuvius Challenge.
Those examples are all textual and also in the context of modern archeology, which as BLT says is transient. It's not that it doesn't draw on archeology for access to texts, it's that archeology as a whole field isn't sustained by that process, and the social engineering doesn't draw directly from artifacts.
As for the whiggishness of believing future societies will have better technology than us, yeah it's unknown how technology will change in the medium term. I would bet in the long term on higher tech though. There's a whiggishness baked in at the ground level of the universe, and life has been on an upward trajectory for 4 billion years. Yes there have been some setbacks, but overall there is a huge asymmetry between life and lack of life. Technology as a type of life should be expected to continue to grow in diversity and power.
>One glaring contradiction is the Rosetta stone. Another is the Gilgamesh flood tablet. Another is the Vesuvius Challenge.
Those examples are all textual and also in the context of modern archeology, which as BLT says is transient. It's not that it doesn't draw on archeology for access to texts, it's that archeology as a whole field isn't sustained by that process, and the social engineering doesn't draw directly from artifacts.
As for the whiggishness of believing future societies will have better technology than us, yeah it's unknown how technology will change in the medium term. I would bet in the long term on higher tech though. There's a whiggishness baked in at the ground level of the universe, and life has been on an upward trajectory for 4 billion years. Yes there have been some setbacks, but overall there is a huge asymmetry between life and lack of life. Technology as a type of life should be expected to continue to grow in diversity and power.
referenced by: >>3640
Those examples are a
anon_voby said in #3640 3w ago:
>>3639
Yes, the general pattern has been that civilizations rise and fall, but technology gets better over time. There are local tech regressions like the Bronze Age Collapse and the fall of Rome—but even the darkest of the post-Roman Dark Ages had much better technology than any Bronze Age society. At every point in recorded history, if you skip back 1000 years, you’ll find the technology is worse. This could conceivably change in the future, but the past record is very clear.
The whig mistake is to imagine the trend of technological progress carries over to the social and political realms, which tend to be more cyclical.
Yes, the general pattern has been that civilizations rise and fall, but technology gets better over time. There are local tech regressions like the Bronze Age Collapse and the fall of Rome—but even the darkest of the post-Roman Dark Ages had much better technology than any Bronze Age society. At every point in recorded history, if you skip back 1000 years, you’ll find the technology is worse. This could conceivably change in the future, but the past record is very clear.
The whig mistake is to imagine the trend of technological progress carries over to the social and political realms, which tend to be more cyclical.
Yes, the general pat