Imagine for a moment that we are part of the past watch project and we are going to send someone back to the time of Columbus and radically alter the entire timeline from Columbus to the present.
Our job is to create a time capsule that will be sent back and hidden (hopeful to be discovered around the year 2000). This capsule needs to contain a record of the most important human works on our time line. Another team is preparing some high tech electronic media that can contain terra bytes of information but in case the technology to read that is never developed, our team has been assigned to assemble one suitcase full of stuff that could be read using technology known at the time of Columbus. We are limited to printed materials, literature, sheet music, pictures, diagrams etc. And since the space is very limited we must be very selective.
What should we put in the time capsule and why? Remember that space is of a premium so you will have to present very prepared to argue for anything you suggest.
My first suggestion is that we should include the score for Beethoven's ninth symphony.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
What a cool thread idea.
I promise I'll think about some actual items, but I'm gonna "cheat" and suggest... detailed instructions on creating a device to read the digital info. I assume we would create some sort of "proprietary" computer device design both to store the info and to read it.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Godric: What a cool thread idea.
I promise I'll think about some actual items, but I'm gonna "cheat" and suggest... detailed instructions on creating a device to read the digital info. I assume we would create some sort of "proprietary" computer device design both to store the info and to read it.
Presume that the group preparing the digital information is already doing that. Our job is to create a backup of select hard copies in case the digital project fails.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I'd also recommend that rather than including any existing history texts, our team should prepare a one or two volume history of the world from Columbus to the present to include in our time capsule. Unlike a regular history text, these would include the key important events and people that we would want the new time line to know about our time line.
My husband thought was we wouldn't want to tell them too much if anything about some of the worst parts of our history, genocides, arms races, slave trade etc for fear it might give people ideas to try. I think thats a bit too cynical but perhaps worthy of consideration. I certainly wouldn't want to include plans for an atomic bomb.
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
I'm going to go ahead and disagree with Beethovens 9th. The music of the late 15th century is vastly different than music of the 19th century, and to assume that people if an alternate 21st century would have developed a similar music aesthetic would be naive. This is particularly true if one considers the cultural influence of cultures that would be extant thanks to the other changes of the Pastwatch project.
Rather than selecting pieces, I would attempt to find a representative sample of musical innovations (forms, structures, harmonies, etc.) that allowed for compositions like Beethoven's to come to be. Assembling a list if these would, of course, be easier said than done.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I think the United States constitution is a magnificent document. I'd like to include it. I might make a few edits first, though. (But I'll keep quiet about those because I don't want to start a political argument.)
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: I think the United States constitution is a magnificent document. I'd like to include it. I might make a few edits first, though. (But I'll keep quiet about those because I don't want to start a political argument.)
I'll agree with this one. I'd include an outline of world events leading up to the genesis of the document. Whatever debates it has caused since it's birth, there is no doubt it is one of the most significant documents to come out of the last few centuries. It is the cornerstone of the (for better or worse), most influential nation in the current world.
I wouldn't edit it at all. Sure, there's plenty to disagree with in it, but ultimately, I think we should be transparent to our alternate timeline audience.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Well if you want transparency we'll have to include a transcript of one day's worth each of E!, VH1, and Comedy Central.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
I'd include a decent selection of high quality photographs as well. Things like a major city skyline (I'd suggest Chicago, but I'm biased in that regard), a large dam, planes in flight, trains, large modern ships of one sort or another, etc. Essentially, some things to help inspire and give vision to the text that's being included.
If nothing else, it would probably help get them to take the rest of the contents more seriously. And given that some things that might be included would seem extremely radical to people of that time (such as a modern declaration of human rights), it would be a good idea to help drive home the idea that we know what we're talking about.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
I'll pose a question (it's been quite a few years since I read Pastwatch, so I can't recall if this is addressed): Is there anything we could include that would verify this capsule's authenticity?
When first discovered, I would expect critics to treat it as a thorough, impressive work of fiction.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: Well if you want transparency we'll have to include a transcript of one day's worth each of E!, VH1, and Comedy Central.
I don't think "transparency" equates to giving equal time to every voice. Obviously, we have limited space, so much editing must be done to our contents. We can be transparent, or maybe I should say, authentic with them though.
But you were kidding, right? Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
It might be possible to rig up something that has the right combination of dating and technology level.
In pastwatch, the historical data was hidden inside the skull of the people who went back in time. Since they could verify the age of the remains using radiometric dating, and the techniques used to insert the data was far, far beyond anything that existed when they died, people were forced to accept the origin of the records.
In this scenario, it would be a lot harder to verify with this method, since we're talking about a freestanding capsule rather than plates embedded inside a skull.
As an alternative, you could set them up so that they'd likely be found before the society had caught up to our tech level.
For example, if you had it set up to broadcast a radio signal continuously and had a sufficiently large power supply, it might be discovered soon after radio is invented. Then you'd just have to include scientific discoveries that would take many years to discover after the invention of radio. Given time, the material in the capsule would be tested, and when it turns out to be accurate, it would be very hard to dismiss as a hoax.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by ricree101: I'd include a decent selection of high quality photographs as well. Things like a major city skyline (I'd suggest Chicago, but I'm biased in that regard), a large dam, planes in flight, trains, large modern ships of one sort or another, etc. Essentially, some things to help inspire and give vision to the text that's being included.
Excellent idea. Do we have printed photograph paper/ink that would stand the aging process for ~600 or more years? I guess we can assume we do if we have the capacity to pull off a Pastwatch-like project...
quote: If nothing else, it would probably help get them to take the rest of the contents more seriously. And given that some things that might be included would seem extremely radical to people of that time (such as a modern declaration of human rights), it would be a good idea to help drive home the idea that we know what we're talking about.
Yes, this touches on my question above. How will we ensure our briefcase contents are seen as authentic?
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Godric, half kidding. Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
I'll nominate the complete works of Shakespeare. Cliche, but I'd argue it's the most influential art collection from a single artist in the last few hundred centuries.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by BandoCommando: I'm going to go ahead and disagree with Beethovens 9th. The music of the late 15th century is vastly different than music of the 19th century, and to assume that people if an alternate 21st century would have developed a similar music aesthetic would be naive. This is particularly true if one considers the cultural influence of cultures that would be extant thanks to the other changes of the Pastwatch project.
Rather than selecting pieces, I would attempt to find a representative sample of musical innovations (forms, structures, harmonies, etc.) that allowed for compositions like Beethoven's to come to be. Assembling a list if these would, of course, be easier said than done.
I don't know... Granted, every sheet of paper that goes in would severely limit, at this point probably a million other pages vying for attention. But I think we could include a sample selection of most of our top, maybe 100-200 musical composers (including current pop music) without taking up too much space.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by Godric:
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: I think the United States constitution is a magnificent document. I'd like to include it. I might make a few edits first, though. (But I'll keep quiet about those because I don't want to start a political argument.)
I'll agree with this one. I'd include an outline of world events leading up to the genesis of the document. Whatever debates it has caused since it's birth, there is no doubt it is one of the most significant documents to come out of the last few centuries. It is the cornerstone of the (for better or worse), most influential nation in the current world.
If we include this, shall we also include Marx's Manifesto of the Communist Party?
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
On the one hand, I would argue for a large portion of our space to be filled with philosophical treatise. On the other, maybe this would be a waste of space - our alternate world would surely develop an, if not parallel, certainly equally rich philosophical record.
I like including the US Constitution and probably Marx's Manifesto of the Communist Party because, besides being documents heavily influenced by our own timeline's major philosophical thinkers, they would offer a glimpse into the application of those ideas.
Thoughts?
(Yeah, I'm hogging the thread at this point, but this thought experiment/thread has really captured my imagination. Sorry. And thanks Rabbit!)
[ September 25, 2009, 10:57 PM: Message edited by: Godric ]
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by ricree101: In pastwatch, the historical data was hidden inside the skull of the people who went back in time. Since they could verify the age of the remains using radiometric dating, and the techniques used to insert the data was far, far beyond anything that existed when they died, people were forced to accept the origin of the records.
Ah! Thanks for refreshing my memory!
quote: As an alternative, you could set them up so that they'd likely be found before the society had caught up to our tech level.
For example, if you had it set up to broadcast a radio signal continuously and had a sufficiently large power supply, it might be discovered soon after radio is invented. Then you'd just have to include scientific discoveries that would take many years to discover after the invention of radio. Given time, the material in the capsule would be tested, and when it turns out to be accurate, it would be very hard to dismiss as a hoax.
Possibly a good idea... But I would put this under Rabbit's restriction of a separate "tech branch" content. We're working on the backup content. What if technology hasn't advanced in the same direction? Or at all? Or if the tech we send back is broken or unusable? What "analog" contents would prove out authenticity?
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
quote:Originally posted by Godric: Possibly a good idea... But I would put this under Rabbit's restriction of a separate "tech branch" content. We're working on the backup content. What if technology hasn't advanced in the same direction? Or at all? Or if the tech we send back is broken or unusable? What "analog" contents would prove out authenticity?
I didn't really mean technology so much as raw scientific ideas on paper. Something like general relativity, quantum mechanics, or the fundamentals of integrated circuit design.
It might not be possible to confirm all of it right away, but it would enter the public record. And over time, bit by bit, it would stand up to tests. So once it was known to be true, the origins of the data would be strongly confirmed.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote: Sagan had originally asked for permission to include "Here Comes the Sun" from the Beatles' album Abbey Road. While the Beatles favoured it, EMI opposed it and the song was not included.
Seriously? Corporate executives withheld rights to a song to be placed on a possible communication to extraterrestial life? What possible purpose could this serve? Did they seriously want reimbursement?
Digital pirating apologists should be all over this...
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by ricree101:
quote:Originally posted by Godric: Possibly a good idea... But I would put this under Rabbit's restriction of a separate "tech branch" content. We're working on the backup content. What if technology hasn't advanced in the same direction? Or at all? Or if the tech we send back is broken or unusable? What "analog" contents would prove out authenticity?
I didn't really mean technology so much as raw scientific ideas on paper. Something like general relativity, quantum mechanics, or the fundamentals of integrated circuit design.
It might not be possible to confirm all of it right away, but it would enter the public record. And over time, bit by bit, it would stand up to tests. So once it was known to be true, the origins of the data would be strongly confirmed.
Let's assume the technology component fails for whatever reason. Including the "raw scientific ideas" on paper could still lead critics to charge that the "hoax perpetrators" just went about a very ingenious way of gaining notoriety immortal. I imagine they would wind up with an evolution/intelligent design debate over the authenticity of the "capsule."
I'm not saying your suggestions are bad ideas. They'd be fine. I'm just curious if we could come up with an irrefutable proof of authenticity through our limited means.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
quote:Originally posted by Godric: Including the "raw scientific ideas" on paper could still lead critics to charge that the "hoax perpetrators" just went about a very ingenious way of gaining notoriety immortal.
The "hoax perpetrators" would have to advance the body of scientific knowledge by decades or even centuries in order to pull that off. There's no way that they could keep it a secret, and moreover there's no way they would. Advancing the state of the art by that much would bring about that sort of immortality far, far better than the hoax ever could.
Posted by LisethMA (Member # 12162) on :
Some questions come to mind when I think about what I would put in to the capsule. For instance, one would be, to perhaps put medical records of disease outbreaks to come. Only, if Columbus were to have strengthened the ties with Europe and North America, would there have been a higher spread of diseases? I’m not sure if that would be too helpful, for I would think that generations would have a higher immunity if our relationship strongly intertwined together with Columbus’ help. For the doubt of it, I would send a Medical book and perhaps give them recipes for vaccinations to help diseases of today.
Another thing I would put is a recording of Martin Luther King and perhaps Gandhi. Supposing that Columbus had started a better relationship with other cultures, I would send it to show them the struggles and perseverance of cultures that were treated unfairly and how such racism could break a country, and to teach a lesson of why the acceptance they had then would be so vital.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
quote:Sagan had originally asked for permission to include "Here Comes the Sun" from the Beatles' album Abbey Road. While the Beatles favoured it, EMI opposed it and the song was not included.
Wow, this makes me genuinely angry.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by ricree101: As an alternative, you could set them up so that they'd likely be found before the society had caught up to our tech level.
Sounds very dangerous. I mean, there is no way to guarantee that even with only images, equations, or photographs of upcoming technology, they would not be inspired to accelerate the pace of development. And frankly, the thought of imperialist Europeans running around with machine guns, poison gas, or even nukes decades or even centuries ahead of schedule is somewhat of a nightmare. Even if you could spread out the technology around the world, it could be pretty horrific. Alternatively, people might even start a war over acquiring the capsule if it did prove valuable.
quote:Originally posted by Godric: But I think we could include a sample selection of most of our top, maybe 100-200 musical composers (including current pop music) without taking up too much space.
That could be like shooting them in the foot though. Imagine if you were told tomorrow that the greatest thing that you would ever create is just given to you, that you would never do better. That could seriously mess with a person, cause them not to even try to start.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by BandoCommando: I'm going to go ahead and disagree with Beethovens 9th. The music of the late 15th century is vastly different than music of the 19th century, and to assume that people if an alternate 21st century would have developed a similar music aesthetic would be naive. This is particularly true if one considers the cultural influence of cultures that would be extant thanks to the other changes of the Pastwatch project.
This is exactly why I would want to include the score for Beethoven's 9th symphony. Its something that would almost certainly never be written on the alternative time line and it is something that should be preserved.
I think the goal of this project (and this is certainly open for debate) should be to preserve the greatest contributions made by the people on our timeline. We run a risk that peoples tastes on the new timeline will be so different that they can't appreciated us, but I think if we select classics that have stood the test of time that risk will be low. These people will still be human and they will still share much of our history.
Musical tastes in the 21st century are quite different from those of the 19th century, but there are pieces, like Beethoven's 9th symphony, that have stood the test of time. I believe there would be people who would appreciate their greatness in any culture on any time line.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:That could be like shooting them in the foot though. Imagine if you were told tomorrow that the greatest thing that you would ever create is just given to you, that you would never do better. That could seriously mess with a person, cause them not to even try to start.
Why would that happen? This time capsule is to be hidden so that it won't be found for centuries. After that length of time chances that the artists on our time line even exist on the new timeline are exceedingly low even if the capsule is found before 2000.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Why is Beethoven's 9th less likely to develop in an alternate timeline? It seems like the emphasis should be on things that happened in the New World.
I mean, there's the argument Beethoven's father might not have had syphilis or however that was involved with his life.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:That could be like shooting them in the foot though. Imagine if you were told tomorrow that the greatest thing that you would ever create is just given to you, that you would never do better. That could seriously mess with a person, cause them not to even try to start.
Why would that happen? This time capsule is to be hidden so that it won't be found for centuries. After that length of time chances that the artists on our time line even exist on the new timeline are exceedingly low even if the capsule is found before 2000.
Agreed. And besides, all of these great works already exist, yet there is no lack of people creating new music and other forms of art. Why would the people who find the capsule be that much different?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
First off consider that Beethoven was born nearly 300 years after Columbus discovered the Americas. That's about 10 generations, which amounts to over 2046 ancestors or 1023 couples who are required for Beethoven to even be born.
Next, consider the enormous impact that the discovery of the Americas had on Europe. Without the wealth that came form the Americas, Spain and the Hapsburg family would not have become a dominant force in Europe. This would in term have had a major impact on the wars of religion and the treaties that established the political boundaries in central and western Europe. Changes in the trade patterns would have changed the route and impact of the plague.
The chances that Beethoven would even be born on the alternative time line are very remote. Even if he was born, the chances that all the other musicians and composers and writers who influenced his work were also born is vanishingly small. The chances that all the instruments he composed for would have been developed, that Vienna would have become a center for music, that Beethoven would have learned to play piano, that Friedrich Shiller would have written the Ode to Joy, and so on are each quite small and all of them would have to have happened for Beethoven to compose the 9th symphony we know.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I'd say we should include a copy of Feynman's Lectures on Physics. It's weird but I have 3 copies now. One that I bought for myself, one that was my dad's and one that was my aunt's. If anyone wants one, btw, just email me and pay for shipping and it's yours.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I want one Tatiana. I need to decide where to have it shipped but I definitely want one.
I love Feynman's lectures but the complete set is pretty big and I'm not sure they warrant that large a percentage of our time capsule. If we could only include one or two of the lectures, which would you pick.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Godric: I'll nominate the complete works of Shakespeare. Cliche, but I'd argue it's the most influential art collection from a single artist in the last few hundred centuries.
The complete works of Shakespeare was the first thing that came to my mind. But then I started to waffle because Shakespeare was born only 70 years after Columbus's first voyage so chance are still fairly good that Shakespeare would have lived. Of course chance are slimmer that he would have written all the same plays and that they would have survived. And I wondered if we would want to give that much space to something that might exist in the new time line any way. I've gone back and forth on this several times and I think we should send a list of Shakespeares complete works along with selected plays and Sonnets. The question is, which plays should we send.
I think there are some obvious ones that we could cross out. We should leave out all the histories with the possible exception of Richard III. But if we were to limit it to say 12 plays, which twelve would you choose?
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
the sonnets (I know, not a play, but they should be there) Othello Hamlet Winter's Tale Taming of the Shrew King Lear MacBeth Julius Caesar As You Like It The Tempest Midsummer's Night Dream Romeo and Juliet (I waffled on it, it's not one of my favs but it's so iconic)
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:the sonnets (I know, not a play, but they should be there)
All of them?
I'd also like to argue that Richard III is a better play than Julius Ceasar or King Lear even if its not as iconic. And I far prefer Tweleth Night to Taming of the Shew.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I love Richard III, but I thought we weren't putting in the histories. I see you made an exception for Richard III so if you want to go ahead and replace one with it, that's cool. I'll fight for Lear though...I love it.
As for the comedies, feel free to add and subtract at will. I'm much more of a fan of the tragedies, so most of the comedies I've only read once. They just don't make as big an impact on me.
Maybe not all the sonnets...but at least the top ten, huh? Then of course we have to narrow down the top ten.
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
My suggestion to send examples of the musical innovations rather than specific 'masterworks' was intended to allow the alternate society to create their own successes based on our acquired knowledge rather than emulate our specific works.
Also, one must consider that the even-temperament tonal system of the day's of Beethoven is VERY different from that of the late 1400s. There's no reason to assume that the even-temperament tuning system would develop again in the alternate timeline.
Also, there were technological innovations in regards to the construction of musical instruments in the intervening centuries. Instruments of the 1800s project sound far better than the instruments of the 1400s. The piano didn't even exist in Colombus' time; just the harpsichord, which didn't have nearly as much sustain and allowed for no change in dynamics (volume).
Simply providing the sheet music for music that is deemed arbitrarily 'great' (would Beethoven's 9th be fully appreciated without also taking into consideration the body of work that preceded it?) would not be effective.
I can't remember my music history well enough to even remember when the musical staff and notation as we know it was standardized across Europe. Certainly by the 1600s. Notation for hundred of years prior to that was a very subjective series of squiggles (Neumes) that relied on word-of-mouth (song-of -mouth?) to be interpreted.
Edit to include other examples of musical innovation that I think should be included, even if they came after Beethoven's 9th:
-valved brass instruments (as opposed to natural trumpets, etc.) -Boehm-style key systems that allow for increased complexity of parts for woodwind instruments
Maybe I'll think of more later.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: But if we were to limit it to say 12 plays, which twelve would you choose?
While Shakespeare's influence is undeniable, we're talking about trying to preserve a recording of as much of our society, culture, history, etc as possible in what is presumably a fairly limited space.
In light of that, would 12 plays be justifiable, even for so acclaimed an author as Shakespeare?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:My suggestion to send examples of the musical innovations rather than specific 'masterworks' was intended to allow the alternate society to create their own successes based on our acquired knowledge rather than emulate our specific works.
I have every reason to believe that the alternate society will have a rich musical history of their own. They won't need our aquired knowledge to create successful masterpieces of their own, they will be already doing that. I suspect they will have created masterpieces in all the arts and sciences, many of which may exceed what we've done. I don't think the small space we have is best use trying to teach them how to do what we've done.
Our think our goal should be to preserve the very best of what we have achieved. While what we send will likely alter that future, I don't see that as the primary motivation for doing it. Changing the timeline will wipe out us. Everything we and our progenitors have done will be erased unless its included in this time capsule. Some of what we have done should be saved and I think saving those master works should be our top priority.
Although I will concede that it doesn't make much sense to send musical scores unless we include some description of how to properly read them as well as the instruments on which the music is played. But we don't need a comprehensive history of musical innovation to do that. We need to identify what pieces of music from which genres are the greatest examples of the music we have produced and then add in the explanation on how to read the scores and detailed drawings for the instruments that were used.
I think alot of what I'm suggesting would accomplish the goal you suggest. A description of how to read our music, a score from Beethoven's 32nd piano sonata and a detailed drawing of piano would likely inspire people to build a piano or invent related key board instruments and compose new music for them. Some of the same ends are achieved but the focus is different and will make a big difference in how decide what to include. If we want to teach the alternative timeline about how music developed on our time line, we will need to identify what are the key musical innovations so we can include them all, and then we might include a few example pieces to illustrate how those innovations were employed. If we want to preserve the greatest contributions of our musicians, we would focus on selecting pieces to be preserved and then decide what supplementary material was necessary to preserve those great pieces.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Okay, let me know what address you want me to send it to. If you're going to Utah over Christmas, that would leave plenty of time for it to arrive there, if you want. Or I can send it internationally to your island home, if you feel it would be safe that way.
I can't pick individual lectures. The reason I picked the whole of the Lectures is that it covers all of physics in a very readable, easily accessible way. To me that seems of huge importance.
My next thought is the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. How horrible if that ever were to get lost in a fold of spacetime!
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by ricree101:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: But if we were to limit it to say 12 plays, which twelve would you choose?
While Shakespeare's influence is undeniable, we're talking about trying to preserve a recording of as much of our society, culture, history, etc as possible in what is presumably a fairly limited space.
In light of that, would 12 plays be justifiable, even for so acclaimed an author as Shakespeare?
That really depends on what else is competing for the space doesn't it. So perhaps we should start by compiling a big list and then we can look at pairing it down.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Honestly, as great as Shakespeare is, I have to imagine there's plenty of other works from around the world that are worth preserving. I've also noticed so far we're focusing a lot on people from Europe. Granted, I'm not particularly familiar with the rest of the world and I suppose other people here probably aren't either, so I don't know what we might be wanting to include instead.
And I also suppose it's a reasonable argument that large portions of Africa and Asia wouldn't be as dramatically affected by our changes, at least not at first. I'm not a big enough history buff to know which portions of the world were effected by Europe at which times.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Well the impact of the triagular trade on Africa was enormous so I anticipate that the impact on Africa would be huge. I expect the impact would be a lot smaller on Asia, at least over the first century unless the non-discovery of the Americas lead to big chances in trade between Europe and Asia, which is certainly possible.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
If nothing else, I imagine that Asian history would be quite different if not for the spread of communism.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I'm going to propose the following.
Faust One hundred years of Solitude A House for Mr. Biswas Crime and Punishment Heart of Darkness The Prophet Huckleberry Finn
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by ricree101: If nothing else, I imagine that Asian history would be quite different if not for the spread of communism.
Yes, but that is only the last 60 years which isn't that big a fraction of the 500+ years since Columbus.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by LisethMA: Some questions come to mind when I think about what I would put in to the capsule. For instance, one would be, to perhaps put medical records of disease outbreaks to come. Only, if Columbus were to have strengthened the ties with Europe and North America, would there have been a higher spread of diseases? I’m not sure if that would be too helpful, for I would think that generations would have a higher immunity if our relationship strongly intertwined together with Columbus’ help. For the doubt of it, I would send a Medical book and perhaps give them recipes for vaccinations to help diseases of today.
In the book Pastwatch, the people who go back in time take with them live vaccines for the major diseases that wiped out most of the population of the Americas so that immunity to the major diseases was spread passively through the population. When trade did open up between Europe and the American continent, that immunity would have spread through Europe as well. As a result, I think we can presume that the medical history on the new time line will be so dramatically different from our medical history that our medical knowledge in the year 2000 would not be particularly useful in their year 2000. Remember that our goal is to hide this time capsule so that it is not discovered for many centuries. The contents of the capsule are not intended to alter the time line but rather to preserve a knowledge of us and our time line in the altered time line.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I also think we need to include a brief write up on space exploration and photos from the Apollo missions. Putting a man on the moon qualifies as a master work in my mind.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by ricree101: I'd include a decent selection of high quality photographs as well. Things like a major city skyline (I'd suggest Chicago, but I'm biased in that regard), a large dam, planes in flight, trains, large modern ships of one sort or another, etc. Essentially, some things to help inspire and give vision to the text that's being included.
If nothing else, it would probably help get them to take the rest of the contents more seriously. And given that some things that might be included would seem extremely radical to people of that time (such as a modern declaration of human rights), it would be a good idea to help drive home the idea that we know what we're talking about.
Once again, I'd like emphasize that this time capsule is not intended for the people of Columbus' time. The idea is that it will be hidden well enough that it will not be discovered for centuries. I suppose we can't completely illiminate the possibility that it might be discovered much sooner. I don't remember exactly how this was done in Past Watch. Maybe the time capsule could be fitted with some sort of timed lock that would prevent it from being opened until 2000 even if it is discovered earlier than that. Maybe it should also be equipped with some sort of alarm that would ensure its discovery in 2000 in case it wasn't uncovered earlier.
The question of what we might include that prove the validity of the materials is very fascinating.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
If we could ensure that the capsule was discovered by a particular date, say 1990, we could include with the capsule a list of astronomical and geological events which happened between 1990 and 2010 on our timeline. Things like solar flares, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and storms on Jupiter that would not be affected by changes in Earth's history. Unless the new timeline finds a way to predict these things that we haven't, a list of predictions that are all fulfilled might serve as potent evidence that this wasn't a hoax.
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
quote: As a result, I think we can presume that the medical history on the new time line will be so dramatically different from our medical history that our medical knowledge in the year 2000 would not be particularly useful in their year 2000.
This is the reasoning behind my initial arguments regarding how to communicate music.
In your argument, it would be more useful to communicate the nature of medical sciences that allowed us to develop our own medical innovations, rather than to provide them with copies of the vaccines or instructions about how to create specific vaccines.
Likewise, I contend that the development of music would be so different in the alternate timeline that Beethoven's 9th would be as enjoyable to the alternate timeline is as, say, selections of Japanese Kabuki music would be to the typical Western ear. That is, interesting, but certainly not to one's typical taste.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Likewise, I contend that the development of music would be so different in the alternate timeline that Beethoven's 9th would be as enjoyable to the alternate timeline is as, say, selections of Japanese Kabuki music would be to the typical Western ear. That is, interesting, but certainly not to one's typical taste.
Art is fundamentally different than medicine. Medicine is intended to solve particular problems, outside the context of those problems it is not of value. Art is not aimed at solving particular problems. Really great art transcends the circumstances under which it is written. Hence we still read and enjoy Homer, we still marvel at the sculptures of ancient greece and the beauty of Ming vases. We still appreciate the mastery of Bach and Beethoven centuries after those works were written.
I think if Beethoven has come to be appreciated in Japan (and it has), it would be appreciated in an alternative time line as well.
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
quote: Really great art transcends the circumstances under which it is written.
I disagree with this premise. I think great art is appreciated in large part BECAUSE of the context.
It's difficult for me to agree with the assumption that Beethoven's 9th is objectively a great piece of music without taking into consideration the body of classical work that preceded Beethoven's dabbling into romanticism and his own compositions leading up to it. Also a factor in the consideration of the 'greatness' of Beethoven's final symphony is the human interest element of his deafness.
You won't find me arguing with the argument that art and medicine are vastly different.
Any appreciation Japanese people have for Beethoven's music almost certainly takes many other aspects of Western culture into consideration.
My comment earlier about 'romanticism' brings up another topic. Romantic music was a response to the clean and definable stylings of the Classical era, which was itself a reaction to the heavily ornamented music of the Baroque era. All of these eras came AFTER 1492, which means that, without sufficient context, Beethoven's 9th would be incredibly difficult to appreciate.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I think you've got to put something from Bach in there. I vote for the Bm Mass and Cantata 29.
I think you have the right idea about the proof. We should include lists of comets, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, Shoemaker-Levy 9, stuff like that for the entire timeperiod. This will show that we know whereof we speak.
I'm totally good with Crime and Punishment but we need something from Tolstoy too, I think. Anna Karenina seems like the best pick. You also need a recording of Jimi Hendrix playing Little Wing. Do we get to have actual recordings? Because sheet music won't get it for that.
I feel like we need some sort of compendium of how our technology works, too. Most people don't notice that stuff but without it our lives would be hugely, HUGELY, different. There was a 2 volume book called "How Things Work" published in maybe the 60s? It had a one or two page description of just about all our technology, like drilling for oil, refining metals, plastics, bottling liquids like milk, air conditioning, flush toilets, engines, really just all technology. It would be enough for someone to get the idea and work it out even if they didn't have specific designs. That's what we need. There's a much later book called "How Things Work" that was just a toy thing, a coffee table book. The one I mean was all geeky and technical. I think we also needs a Marks Handbook of Mechanical Engineering in there too. I hope this is a fairly roomy suitcase. Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:It's difficult for me to agree with the assumption that Beethoven's 9th is objectively a great piece of music without taking into consideration the body of classical work that preceded Beethoven's dabbling into romanticism and his own compositions leading up to it. Also a factor in the consideration of the 'greatness' of Beethoven's final symphony is the human interest element of his deafness.
I think you have been a music educator for so long that you have forgotten what originally attracted you to music. I know only the tiniest bit about the body of classical work that preceded Beethoven. I know he bridged the classical and romantic eras, but I couldn't point to a single aspect of the 9th symphony that was either classical or romantic. If you were to play for me a piece from the classical era and one from the romantic era that I didn't already know, I couldn't tell you which was from which era. To me, the power of Beethoven's music is in its emotional impact and that impact is virtually unaffected by any intellectual understanding of the music itself.
I'm currently learning to play classical guitar. One of the pieces I'm working on is a transcription of the Ode to Joy. There is a section I've been struggling with and in studying it I realized that for two measures it shifts from a major key to a minor key and that that shift corresponds well with the words in Schiller's poem at that point. It was kind of an aha moment. But the point is, I just figured that out last week. I've been listening to that piece for over 30 years and being emotionally moved by it without ever knowing or thinking about why. And in truth, even though I called that an "aha" moment, I am no more moved by that segment today than I was two weeks ago before I understood what made it work.
I have no doubt that if I had studied music the way you have, I would have all kinds of insight into Beethoven's 9th symphony that would allow me to appreciate its greatness from different perspectives. But the simple fact is that even without any of that perspective, I can hear and feel the greatness of the music. It is accessible to me without knowing anything about the traditions its part of. I found it magnificent even as a child. I have no doubt that at least some human beings in any culture the world has ever produced or might ever produce would be able to hear the greatness of this piece.
I am a person who loves art but whose art education is very limited. I have found that I prefer to experience art "Tabula Rosa". Reading reviews and commentaries about a painting, book, play, movie or piece of music before I experience it myself reduces rather than enhances the experience for me. I find myself looking for what others have seen rather than simply immersing myself in the discovery. I like to wander through art museums ignorantly looking for something that grabs my attention. Then I may stand in front of that work for an hour studying it, musing over it, looking at from different distances and angles and trying to understand it. After that, I'm interested in hearing and reading what others have to say about it, but not until after I have had a chance to discover the work on my own. Nothing compares to that wonderful sense of discovery that comes when experiencing a great work of art for the first time as a blank slate.
I think it is a pity that so many people who dedicate their lives to the arts loose the ability to do that.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I think you've got to put something from Bach in there. I vote for the Bm Mass and Cantata 29.
Rather than Cantata 29, I'd include his Toccata and Fugue in D minor. I know this piece has almost become a cliche but I heard this piece played superbly on a cathedral organ this summer and it was if I had never heard it before. It literally (and I do mean literally) took left me breathless. That famous chord progression that comes about 40 seconds into the Toccata set up a vibration in my chest that made me realize I'd been holding my breath since the piece began and that I couldn't sustain that through the full 9 - 10 minutes of the piece. Wow!!
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I also think we must include Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man".
I have a friend who is trumpet player. He once said to me "I have only one comment on this piece, Damn I wish I'd written it".
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:You also need a recording of Jimi Hendrix playing Little Wing. Do we get to have actual recordings? Because sheet music won't get it for that.
I'm sorry. Actual recordings can be included in the digital time capsule, but our task is to select things that can be communicated in print only media. There is a reason why I want to restrict the task that way. It means that we will have to make hard choices. The high tech solution allows us to preserve so much that we don't really need to debate what to include. Having to fight for limited space requires us to think about what is really important. Its like the debate I'm having with Bando about the basic philosophy of including music. The high tech solution would allow us to do both. But the low tech option requires we make a choice about which is more important.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by ricree101:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: But if we were to limit it to say 12 plays, which twelve would you choose?
While Shakespeare's influence is undeniable, we're talking about trying to preserve a recording of as much of our society, culture, history, etc as possible in what is presumably a fairly limited space.
In light of that, would 12 plays be justifiable, even for so acclaimed an author as Shakespeare?
I think so. Besides the constant worldwide performances of his original works over the last few hundred years, speaking of only his influence in art, how many thousands of adaptations, tributes and "sequels" or derivative works has his original plays and sonnets spawned in literature, film, music and visual art?
I'm not familiar with nearly as much Eastern culture (and I think we should certainly include the most important works from that source - I'll leave those more knowledgeable of it to debate), but in Western culture, I can't think of ANY other artist who has been so influential.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Godric, I've looked into it a little and I agree. I started off thinking that every language must have their own Shakespeare and went looking to find them. But to the best of my knowledge, Shakespeare is unrivaled not just in English but in every language.
Posted by Traceria (Member # 11820) on :
Has anyone considered something that could work as a Rosetta Stone in case languages shift drastrically different due to altered events?
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
quote: To me, the power of Beethoven's music is in its emotional impact
I haven't lost the ability to understand the impact of Beethoven's music, nor have I lost the ability to enjoy music from a 'tabula rasa' standpoint. My point is that, prior to Beethoven, music was not ABOUT experiencing things emotionally. This was the POINT of the Romantic musical movement. If one were to play Beethoven's music back in 1492, it would be regarded with a great deal of confusion. Imagine how the parents of the 50's reacted to Rock and Roll and you have an idea what I'm talking about.
Now I know that the time capsule is NOT intended for the people of 1492, but rather the alternate 20th or 21st century that will be created. But I won't assume that the people of the alternate future will have the same progression of musical styles and eras that we had, mostly because the intended joining of European and Mexica cultures is bound to have a profound impact on musical tastes and developments, skewing musical perception beyond prediction.
Hence why I am advocating a 'music history in brief' be included that explains what we do in our music. In the book, the Pastwatch folks explained scientific advancements in terms that people of the 15th century could understand, even if the archive wasn't intended to be discovered until the distant future, because they couldn't predict how language would change. As so, with music.
I think of it like an "ethnomusicology" class that I would teach, with my audience being that of a 15th century crowd. Even though the archive isn't intended for the 15th century, it IS the common frame of reference both versions of the 21st century would have.
I'm not saying that Beethoven's 9th isn't a great piece of music. But Rabbit, you have to understand that your gut emotional reaction to Beethoven's 9th is based on your entire collective experiences with Western Music. You KNOW how a major scale is supposed to sound, even if you couldn't identify it as such. Well a major scale today sounds FAR different than it did in the late 1400s, and were you to listen to one as it had been played, it would sound simply out of tune. You might not recognize it as out of tune (depending on the level of your musical experience), but at the very least, you would likely have a visceral response because it goes against what a lifetime of experience with modern Western intonation has taught you music should sound like.
I assume that you didn't mean to offend me, but I hear the assumption from non-musicians all the time that we who study/teach music have forgotten why we got into music in the first place. It may be true for some musicians (snooty, academic professors and cutthroat, competitive performers), but it's not true for all and certainly not true for me.
All I'm saying with my arguments is that you have to know your audience. We can't know what the audience of the hypothetical 21st Century would be like post-intervention, but we do know what the musical aesthetic of the 15th Century was. Or at least, I do. I can say with certainty that, without the proper context, Beethoven's 9th would be so radical, so coarsely emotional, and so different that it might provoke a similar reaction to that provoked by the premiere performance of "The Rite of Spring"!
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I also think we must include Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man".
I have a friend who is trumpet player. He once said to me "I have only one comment on this piece, Damn I wish I'd written it".
Again, a great piece of music. Unfortunately, it is impossible to play on brass instruments created before the mid 1800s. If you were to include this composition (which, again, isn't a bad idea), you would also need to include a description/drawing of the modern valved trumpet.
Posted by willthesane (Member # 11754) on :
as far as a rosetta stone goes, the best rosetta stone would simply be a large amount of works. languages tend to live on, we still have people who are fluent in latin. a language like english would live on pretty much no matter what happened. at least for a small time period like 600 years.
what i'd include in the copy would be more of the 20th century things. there have been many more people who lived in the 20th century as have lived in any century previous. the point isn't to give them things to help them as much as to give us something so the world we create will know "they were here, these are their stories."
things like tolkien, short biographies of the artists we put their works in, and short biographies of famous people we have in our culture. these are the things we should include.
before i run to class, the way to verify they are real is include in a small text how to find them. put the text inside the skulls of the people who travel back in time. carbon dating would work.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by Traceria: Has anyone considered something that could work as a Rosetta Stone in case languages shift drastrically different due to altered events?
I briefly thought about this, but I don't think we'd need to do much in this regard. Spanish, French, English, Greek, Chinese, etc. were all in existence at that time (if in relatively slight different forms).
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
You know, I haven't come to any solid conclusions about what reproductions of various works of art I'd want to include, but this thread has been a great launching pad for my spending my free moments at work today looking at photos of various pieces of breathtaking 19th century/early 20th century sculpture.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
You know, I'm not sure I'd want to send a time capsule at all.
We're meddling, unasked, in the lifes of billions of people, and then sending them a note showing them what their lives could have been had we not meddled.
Sure, maybe we can stuff the time capsule full of all the scientific discoveries we can think of -- to slightly make up for the remote possibility that we're setting back their civilization hundreds of years -- but what if they crack it open and they realized they've advanced farther than we have? Or, while it's useful, it would have been even more useful before half their population died of smallpox or something?
By leaving a note behind, we would be declaring our status as negligent, abusive gods.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Are you arguing that we would be perceived as negligent, abusive gods, or that that is effectively what we would be?
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: By leaving a note behind, we would be declaring our status as negligent, abusive gods.
Hasn't that argument made against the Bible?
Actually, this line of thought originally spurred my "how do we prove our authenticity?" question. But I skipped past the should-we-or-shouldn't-we question because I think this is a cool thought experiment and because, looking at our own timeline, isn't most of our history doing exactly what you say here? Most of our texts are nothing if not notes from our ancestors declaring themselves as negligent and abusive, no?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Tom, You have excellent arguments for never doing the Time Watch project in the first place. But if we are choosing to change history, arguing we shouldn't leave any record that we've done it, in case it turns out badly, is just chicken.
The contention in the book is that humanity has caused an environmental catastrophe that is so severe that humanity faces certain extinction unless they can change history. It wasn't a decision made lightly or for frivolous reasons. If we are going to do this at all, we have to take responsibility for what we are doing. If we would be ashamed to have the alternative time line no what we did, we shouldn't do it at all.
quote:By leaving a note behind, we would be declaring our status as negligent, abusive gods.
Unwarranted hyperbole. We are neither omniscient nor omnipotent so comparing us to a negligent God is absurd. We are humans making the best decisions we can with the limited knowledge and power we possess.
Even outside this fantasy, in the real life we all live, every choice we make affects other people -- possibly billions of other people. We are constantly meddling in others lives unasked. Even choosing not to act is every bit as much a choice as choosing to act.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by BandoCommando:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I also think we must include Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man".
I have a friend who is trumpet player. He once said to me "I have only one comment on this piece, Damn I wish I'd written it".
Again, a great piece of music. Unfortunately, it is impossible to play on brass instruments created before the mid 1800s. If you were to include this composition (which, again, isn't a bad idea), you would also need to include a description/drawing of the modern valved trumpet.
I already noted that. Certainly that will limit how much music and the kinds of music we can include.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:But if we are choosing to change history, arguing we shouldn't leave any record that we've done it, in case it turns out badly, is just chicken.
No, you don't understand. We shouldn't leave any record regardless of how it goes.
All leaving a record does is say "this is what your lives would have been, before we stole them from you."
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:All leaving a record does is say "this is what your lives would have been, before we stole them from you."
No it doesn't. After the first couple of generations, none of the people on the new time line would even have existed if we hadn't intervened. If they choose to understand it as if we had stolen from them a different life, then they are idiots. They would never have lived at all. Their entire existence wouldn't have happened. Its not their lives we are stealing, it is the lives of the people on our timeline we are stealing Those are the people who will never exist because of our actions. Leaving a record says "these are the lives we destroyed in order to make your life possible". These are the people, the events, the great works that we eliminated in the hope that you would avoid our most catastrophic mistakes.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: But to the best of my knowledge, Shakespeare is unrivaled not just in English but in every language.
I think Shakespeare is actually pretty culturally sensitive. Even growing up in North America, although I haven't done polls, I do see a decent separation between my second generation Asian friends (that do not see what the big fuss about Shakespeare is about) and my white friends.
It seems to me that music like the Beatles or Michael Jackson does a decent job of crossing cultural lines. But plays do not seem to to me, like movies in the modern world really.
Classical music can be iffy because there are interactions between colonialism and cultural imperialism/mimicry that factor into its popularity.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: After the first couple of generations, none of the people on the new time line would even have existed if we hadn't intervened.
This was a bit of a stumbling block for me too at the beginning of the thread until I refreshed my memory on the Pastwatch book (I kinda repressed the last quarter or so due to my extreme skepticism towards its events).
The issue is that in many stories on time travel, individuals will remain "sticky" for lack of a better word even across centuries of time travel.
A humourous example would be the Simpsons where Homer's stumbling creates bizarre alternate versions of known Simpson's characters.
Another one would be the Star Trek universe, where a divergence in the 21st century at the start of the Mirror Universe still results in a Kirk and Spock on the Enterprise (albeit with a beard) and a Sisko and Kira on DS9 despite the huge changes.
There are less humourous examples, but I think the general gist is clear. In these "sticky" time travel stories, some form of "destiny" or "fate" is keeping things (and more importantly characters) somewhat similar despite the disruption.
However, Pastwatch clearly does not subscribe to this theme, so this is just a fun tangent that I will not continue.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:They would never have lived at all. Their entire existence wouldn't have happened.
But, of course, we're nothing like gods in that scenario...
Seriously, the problem with sending our greatest works forward to a world that never produced them is enormous. Can you imagine if someone revealed that Shakespeare's best sonnets are merely ahadows of even greater sonnets that would have been produced (by, say, Ben Jonson), and are now made available by a race of imaginary people to whom you now owe your entire life? That Pasteur may have been the first to pasteurize things here, but that Newton would have done it had the Reformation been a little less bloody? That anti-gravity is really just a matter of recognizing that Einstein got it completely wrong, something that our precursors knew in the early 18th century as a direct result of their greatest artist's experiments with light -- which, incidentally, created the work of art considered that world's masterpiece, a six-story water and laser sculpture in the center of Paris that, sadly, they could only photograph for us?
I would hate to learn that my life is someone else's do-over.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Classical music can be iffy because there are interactions between colonialism and cultural imperialism/mimicry that factor into its popularity.
And you don't think cultural imperialism factors into the popularity of the Beatles and Michael Jackson?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
No, not really.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: ... the general gist is clear. In these "sticky" time travel stories, some form of "destiny" or "fate" is keeping things (and more importantly characters) somewhat similar despite the disruption.
Whether "sticky" or not, the lives are separate. I think the new timeline lives would be a bit silly if they really got caught up with "what could have been." I mean, we can do this to ourselves only knowing our current timeline.
"What if I had asked that girl out in 11th grade?"
"What if I had studied history instead of communications?"
"What if I had taken x job instead of y?"
But if we discovered a similar box today, I really can't see myself spending a great deal of time worrying about my possible "other" life. It has absolutely no bearing on my life today. It would certainly pose many philosophical and theological questions. But I don't think it would fundamentally alter the basic ones. And it wouldn't cause me any sleepless nights thinking about my other self - I've got enough "what if's" in my own, thank you very much.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Seriously, the problem with sending our greatest works forward to a world that never produced them is enormous. Can you imagine if someone revealed that Shakespeare's best sonnets are merely ahadows of even greater sonnets that would have been produced (by, say, Ben Jonson), and are now made available by a race of imaginary people to whom you now owe your entire life?
I think I'd be thrilled to read sonnets better than those written by Shakespeare. If a better poet than Shakespeare publishes his first work tomorrow, I will be ecstatic. If that better poetry arrives tomorrow on a space ship or is discovered in a time capsule hidden by people from an alternate timeline, I will be equally ecstatic. I've never yet found that discovering a new (to me) great piece of art diminishes my love of those I came to know earlier.
quote:That Pasteur may have been the first to pasteurize things here, but that Newton would have done it had the Reformation been a little less bloody?
I imagine a lot of things would have been better if the reformation had been a little less bloody. I can't see how knowing that actually happened on an alternate timeline would significantly change anything. I know that our history is the result of choices people have made. Had people made different choices, somethings would certainly have been better. I don't see how that is made any different by knowing the identity of the people who made the choices or even knowing the choices were on an alternate timeline.
quote:That anti-gravity is really just a matter of recognizing that Einstein got it completely wrong, something that our precursors knew in the early 18th century as a direct result of their greatest artist's experiments with light -- which, incidentally, created the work of art considered that world's masterpiece, a six-story water and laser sculpture in the center of Paris that, sadly, they could only photograph for us?
You mention only the things they have done better than we have. That isn't realistic. It is as though you presume that everything on the alternative time line would be better than anything on our time line. But that is not only highly improbable, it ignores the basic premise. The alternative time line wouldn't choose to go back and change history unless something had gone catastrophically wrong on their time line. So along with the amazing work of art that we would only learn of in a photograph, we would learn these people had also doomed the human race to certain destruction. These are people whose future was so bleak that they chose to eradicate their entire existence, their art, their science and all those lives with the hope we might do better. I would be honored to know of their existence and delighted they had found a way to preserve their greatest achievements for us.
quote:I would hate to learn that my life is someone else's do-over.
Why? Are you ashamed of your life or is it something else? The lives that all of us lead are the result of choices made by our predecessors. Would it bother you to learn that your mother sacrificed some great opportunity for you? Would it bother you to know your great grandparents sacrificed everything to come to America so you could have the life you lead? Why would this be different than learning about all the other people in our history who have made our lives possible?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: But to the best of my knowledge, Shakespeare is unrivaled not just in English but in every language.
I think Shakespeare is actually pretty culturally sensitive. Even growing up in North America, although I haven't done polls, I do see a decent separation between my second generation Asian friends (that do not see what the big fuss about Shakespeare is about) and my white friends.
I have no idea to what degree your friends are representative. There are plenty of white North Americans who don't get Shakespeare. I couldn't find any statistics to either refute or prove your point but I did find this discussion of extensive influence Shakespeare's plays have had on Chinese drama, which pretty well refutes the idea that appreciation of Shakespeare is limited to one culture.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: No, not really.
Funny, because most scholars I've read are pretty well in agreement that American cultural imperialism has had a much larger impact on popular culture around the world today, than any earlier forms of imperialism.
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: No, not really.
Funny, because most scholars I've read are pretty well in agreement that American cultural imperialism has had a much larger impact on popular culture around the world today, than any earlier forms of imperialism.
I agree with you here. I would add that our own imperialism was effected by colonial imperialism from our early days. Take classical music (in the layperson's sense of classical, as opposed to the specific Classical period of the late 18th/early 19th Centuries): Early Americans (and colonials) looked up to the music of the great European composers and strived to imitate them. They became absorbed into our culture. As American cultural imperialism took hold, these things that had been absorbed got passed on.
For instance, a Japanese exchange student we once had recognized Beethoven's 5th, but only from U.S. television and movies, and did not know that the piece was written by a European.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by willthesane: what i'd include in the copy would be more of the 20th century things. there have been many more people who lived in the 20th century as have lived in any century previous. the point isn't to give them things to help them as much as to give us something so the world we create will know "they were here, these are their stories."
An excellent point and I agree with your assessment of the "point" of this project.
But this also raises a difficult question. How do we tell which recent works of art are timeless works that are most likely to be appreciated in a very different culture? Works that have stood the test of time have already proved that they have a seed of greatness that is recognizable outside the narrow period and culture in which they were made.
I grew up in the 70s, and I can testify that most of the songs which were big hits at the time are never ever listened to any more while many of the 70s "classics" that get played over and over again today did not stand out particularly at the time.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: But this also raises a difficult question. How do we tell which recent works of art are timeless works that are most likely to be appreciated in a very different culture? Works that have stood the test of time have already proved that they have a seed of greatness that is recognizable outside the narrow period and culture in which they were made.
I'll nominate we include a healthy dose of Dylan.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: ... refutes the idea that appreciation of Shakespeare is limited to one culture.
Then its a good thing that I never said that. Pretty culturally sensitive != 100% limited
It is also a good thing that I don't put much faith in CCP propaganda. That history is whitewashing one rather obvious period for example for a very obvious reason.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: ... American cultural imperialism has had a much larger impact on popular culture around the world today, than any earlier forms of imperialism.
I totally don't follow. What does American cultural imperialism have to do with the Beatles and what does it have to do with my point about plays (or literature) versus popular music?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I totally don't follow. What does American cultural imperialism have to do with the Beatles
It's really hard for me to believe you are seriously asking that question. Do you really need a lesson on the relationship between American and British imperialism in the post WW II era? Are you really ignorant of the influence of American Rock and Jazz on Englsh Rock? Or were you just trying to make a clever barb about the fact that Beatles weren't Americans?
Canadians
quote:and what does it have to do with my point about plays (or literature) versus popular music?
You said
quote:It seems to me that music like the Beatles or Michael Jackson does a decent job of crossing cultural lines. But plays do not seem to to me, like movies in the modern world really.
Classical music can be iffy because there are interactions between colonialism and cultural imperialism/mimicry that factor into its popularity.
By which I thought you meant that the Beatles and Michael Jackson were popular across cultural lines because of some sort of underlying universal human appeal, whereas the popularity of western classical music in Asia could not be separated from the influence of western colonialism and cultural imperialsim.
If that was not your intent, please clarify what in the world you were talking about.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I haven't lost the ability to understand the impact of Beethoven's music, nor have I lost the ability to enjoy music from a 'tabula rasa' standpoint. My point is that, prior to Beethoven, music was not ABOUT experiencing things emotionally. This was the POINT of the Romantic musical movement. If one were to play Beethoven's music back in 1492, it would be regarded with a great deal of confusion. Imagine how the parents of the 50's reacted to Rock and Roll and you have an idea what I'm talking about.
I simply don't agree. Every human culture has had music in some form or other and that music has always had the ability to move humans emotionally, whether that was a conscious intent of the musicians or not. Humans do music because we like it, it serves no other purpose and "liking it" necessarily implies an emotional response. This isn't something that was invented by the Romantic movement. I would have made the same comments about Bach's toccata and fugue in B minor or Vivali's the four seasons, renaissance choral works or medieval dance music.
The romantic era didn't invent the idea that art should appeal to human emotion, the classic era tried to deny it (and I'm speaking here more in terms of literature and philosophy than music with which I am less familiar). The classic era was very strongly influenced by the success of cold objectivism in the physical sciences and tried to extend that unfeeling objectivism into art and the humanities and even their personal lives. Romanticism was a backlash against that. The romantic obsession with emotion was in many ways a return to the normal human condition from which the classic ideal of unemotional objectivism was the aberration.
One of the strangest aspects of modern western thought is this divide between the rational and emotional. We see them as incompatible alternatives we must choose between. We wage a constant war over which is our better nature. When in truth both are inseparable parts of what it means to be human. That war climaxed in the classic and romantic era, but it is still evident everywhere from Star Trek and Rock Music to esoteric philosophy texts.
Perhaps this explains why I've never really been captivated by any of the great classical composers even though I adore composers from both before and after that time.
Anyway, I think music is far more accessible, far more universal than you imply. Maybe I'm highly unusual but I find renaissance and medieval music very accessible. I enjoy Asian, Hindi and African music even thought the scales and harmonies are somewhat foreign to me. My personal music collection includes virtually everything from Bach to Reggae to yes Japanese Kabuki.
I know not everyone in the alternative time line is going get Beethoven's 9th symphony or Copland's Fanfare for the common man. Not everyone in 21st century western culture gets them. But I'm fairly confident that these pieces have an appeal which transcends culture and context so there will be some, probably many, people who are able to appreciate the greatness of these works without any historical context.
There is a line in the movie Pretty Woman.
quote:eople's reactions to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic. They either love it or they hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don't, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul.
I disagree with the first line. I think peoples initial reaction to any work of art can fall all over the spectrum, its not a simple love/hate dichotomy. But I think the last part is very true. If you don't have a strong emotional reaction to a piece of art, you can learn to appreciate it but it will never become part of your soul.
If we had enough space to include a music history lesson, I'd be all for it. But our space is very limited. If its a choice between including a book on music history and a masterwork of art, I think we should include the art.
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
quote: Anyway, I think music is far more accessible, far more universal than you imply. Maybe I'm highly unusual but I find renaissance and medieval music very accessible. I enjoy Asian, Hindi and African music even thought the scales and harmonies are somewhat foreign to me. My personal music collection includes virtually everything from Bach to Reggae to yes Japanese Kabuki.
I suspect you are correct that you have a broader taste than the average listener. Not many Western ears, in my experience, truly enjoy Eastern music. On the other hand, a lot of Indian, Asian, and African music has been finding its way into popular culture through its inclusion in film scores...
To change the topic slightly, I would love to include some examples of jazz music. Jazz music is something that would almost certainly NOT come to be if the Interveners were successful in creating a persistent culture that abhorred slavery. While it's hard to define the origins of jazz exactly, it's pretty clear that it contains elements of 'slave' music, southern church music, French music (New Orleans, after all), and many others besides. This confluence of styles is an indirect result of the forced emigration of many Africans during the days of the slave trade.
As with my suggestions for Beethoven, et al, I'd say that a fair amount of context would need to be included to encourage people to 'get jazz'. In fact, so much would likely need to be included to bridge the gap between the 15th Century and the development of jazz that it would probably need to be only included in the digital/electronic storage medium.
I'd be very curious (of course there's no way to know) to find out what kind of music would result from the combination of European and South American cultures. I don't even know how much is known about Aztec music, let alone the cultures that preceded the Aztec, whether it was a big part of their culture, whether we have archeological examples of the instruments, whether they had a notational system... It could be cool to experiment with different musical fusions of European and South American music of the time...
Posted by willthesane (Member # 11754) on :
histories?
just thinking a good history of ourselves, particularly our mistakes would be something i'd most want to see.
there must be a reason we are sending this back, more than letting them know "don't forget us." which is the reason people keep suggesting us sending them our best and brightest. we should send back something that will tell not our successes, but our failures. these are our mistakes. these are the consequences.
if you had the ability to show the world the consequences of some of the events that have happened to us in our history wouldn't that ultimately be more effective than a listing of our successes.
i was once told we learn more from failure than from success.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Rabbit, I'd have to with Banjo here. The idea of music itself is universal, and certain elements of it are probably universal, but people have musical tastes that are heavily dependent on their culture.
In my own personal experience, I have a hard time initially appreciating music that is radically different from what I already listen to. The appreciation comes either after I've simply been forced to listen to it a lot, or until I've heard it mixed with other music I'm more familiar with. Even then it takes a while to get used to different sets of melodies.
When I first watched Lion King, I heard the African rhythms and lyrics and thought "oh, African music sounds pretty cool." Then I saw the Broadway production, which had actual African music instead of the Disnified versions, and the music sounded somewhat alien and not nearly as good to my ears. My taste in music is still fairly limited, and I have a much broader range of musical tastes than most of my friends.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Are you really ignorant of the influence of American Rock and Jazz on Englsh Rock?
Actually, I don't know much about interactions between Western countries in the arts. My observations in this regard are mostly focused on how I see other Chinese people relate to the arts at hand.
For me, the Beatles are British, Michael Jackson is American, but I never mentioned it because I don't really care.
Thus your rant on differences between American and European(?) imperialism seemed to totally come out of no where and didn't seem to relate to my post, hence my confusion.
quote:By which I thought you meant that the Beatles and Michael Jackson were popular across cultural lines because of some sort of underlying universal human appeal, whereas the popularity of western classical music in Asia could not be separated from the influence of western colonialism and cultural imperialsim.
If that was not your intent, please clarify what in the world you were talking about.
No. Not really.
My point was that for historical reasons, it seems to me that Chinese people have evolved very different perceptions on Western pop music and classical music.
In a sense, generations of Chinese parents have perceived classical music as the best way to get their children to assimilate into Western society. i.e. If you can "out-white" them by being better at their own art, then your place in this society is unassailable. This may be related to the Japanese perception of Ballroom Dancing after their unequal treaties, where they took to ballroom dancing as a way of trying to get Europeans to accept them as equals. But classical music is still often seen as "foreign."
I do not detect a similar dynamic with pop music. If anything, I think the development of Cantopop and its Mandarin equivalent has progressed to the point where Chinese people have essentially appropriated pop from the West. So the Beatles and Michael Jackson are not enjoyed because they are a way to become more British or more American, but simply because they led to the development of "our" music and are enjoyable. Maybe this dynamic was different in the past, but not now.
So no, I don't think the differences aren't due to anything inherent in the music itself, but due to how cultural influences have affected their perception, probably permanently making a statistical comparison "iffy" as I put it.
Otherwise, like your following post, I think that music is fairly universal and accessible, as opposed to something like Shakespeare, which was really supposed to be my main point (sigh).
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Thus your rant on differences between American and European(?) imperialism seemed to totally come out of no where and didn't seem to relate to my post, hence my confusion.
When did I rant about differences between American and European imperialism?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:To change the topic slightly, I would love to include some examples of jazz music. Jazz music is something that would almost certainly NOT come to be if the Interveners were successful in creating a persistent culture that abhorred slavery. While it's hard to define the origins of jazz exactly, it's pretty clear that it contains elements of 'slave' music, southern church music, French music (New Orleans, after all), and many others besides. This confluence of styles is an indirect result of the forced emigration of many Africans during the days of the slave trade.
As with my suggestions for Beethoven, et al, I'd say that a fair amount of context would need to be included to encourage people to 'get jazz'. In fact, so much would likely need to be included to bridge the gap between the 15th Century and the development of jazz that it would probably need to be only included in the digital/electronic storage medium.
I agree that we should definitely send some Jazz but I don't have enough expertise in that area to know where to begin and what to recommend. There are so many different kinds of Jazz and some of it is so much more accessible to the untrained ear than others.
The very first thing that popped into my head was Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald singing "Better call the whole thing off". Some year ago I was at a talent show where an Asian duo was singing this song. And their singing was great, but both singers pronounced all the words the same way. It was tragically funny. That is definitely a piece that doesn't transcend cultural barriers easily.
I had a lot of the same thoughts you express about Jazz when I recommended sending Huckleberry Finn and A House for Mr. Biswas. These are two great novels that would never have happened without colonialism and the slave trade. But I have some serious questions about whether they could be understood in a world where the African slave trade to the New World never happened. The language barrier in reading Huck Finn would be a problem in and of itself and I question whether people could relate to the Huck's moral dilemmas in a world where slavery and racism had never got enough of a foot hold to even become abhorrent ideas.
[ September 30, 2009, 06:53 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I'm not a Jazz enthusiast but I know lots who are. The sheet music isn't where it lives, though, so I would recommend Coltrane and Miles Davis if we got to include recordings. I'd leave Jazz out altogether since we don't.
I'd include the top 50 books since 1500, I think. Definitely need "Godel, Escher, Bach", the novel "Tom Jones", probably "Pride and Prejudice", "The Last Temptation of Christ", maybe Faulkner's "Light in August", Goethe's "Faustus"... what else? "Madame Bovary", of course the Russians we've already mentioned. I think "The Brothers Karamazov" needs to be in there if we left that out so far.
They've got everything before 1492, right? So no need to include the Art of War or Homer or the Tao Te Ching.
I'd put in "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" by Thornton Wilder, and the play "Our Town". Probably other plays too like "The Importance of Being Earnest" which is really all anyone needs to read by Oscar Wilde. We probably need some Chekovs as well. I've got no favorites there.
Definitely include poetry. Robert Browning, Keats, some Frost, Shelley, Byron, Emily Dickenson, these are so short there's no reason not to include them. The complete works of A.E. Housman is a must.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
Okay, I think I've decided the official master plan is synchronize as many posts at 100 replies as possible at the same time, which gives me a little more leeway as to timing in the immediate future. I feel like something exciting should happen after that but I don't know what.
In the meantime I feel a little lame just bumping things repeatedly without saying anything useful so...
Any thought given to comic books? Watchmen is generally considered the "masterpiece" but it would probably also confuse the hell out of people, not to mention provide "suggestions" as to directions to take warfare, and be somewhat meaningless without the context of actual superhero stories.
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