The following is an article rich in TOK connections and an accompanying post, courtesy of David Masulis:
I was just poking around the Internet the other day, and I ran across
this article:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-forever3may03,0,6513414.story
It's about figuring out how to warn people 10,000 years in the future
about a buried nuclear waste disposal site.
The interesting and ToK-ish thing is that they are trying to figure out
whether there are ways to build something on top of it to communicate
the danger, even if people can't read any of the languages the warnings
are written in. This brings up the question of whether there is any way
to share knowledge between humans even if they don't speak the same
language or share any cultural elements. Is there some common way of
communicating without language? Are body language or facial expressions
possible ways to communicate without using language? I am reminded of a
story I heard once about an anthropologist. He found an island full of
people who had never been contacted before. He tried to learn their
language by pointing at things and saying their name in English, hoping
that they would name it in their language. He had some success the first
time he tried, so he tried pointing at something else and got the same
response. He tried pointing at several more objects, but got the same
response. After being puzzled for quite a while, he realized that he had
learned their word for "index finger". Turns out, that culture used
their chins to point at objects, rather than their fingers.
-David Masulis
In addition to David's questions and observations above, there are several quotes from the article that have significant TOK implications that you could choose to comment on. They include:
A) "No culture has ever tried, self-consciously and scientifically, to design a symbol that would last 10,000 years and still be intelligible," said David B. Givens, an anthropologist who helped plan the nuclear-site warnings. "And even if we succeed, would the message be believed?" [Why wouldn't it be believed? What would creating a believable message require of us? What does the first part of the quote imply about the development of language? Do you agree with that implication?]
B) "I understand those cave drawings and I don't speak Neanderthal…. He's killing a bison, 'bison — food!' I can do pictographs just as well," he said. [Consider the knowledge claim Roger Nelson, the chief scientist of WIPP, makes in this statement. If he doesn't "speak Neanderthal," how can he be so sure he understands the cave drawings? What is his basis for claiming to know this? How plausible do you find his knowledge claim?]
C) "Such views reflect WIPP's one certainty: No one knows what will happen far in the future." [Think about the paradox in that statement -- "one certainty" vs. "no one knows." Is the fact that the Energy Dept. and WIPP press ahead with the project consistent with this "one certainty?" If "no one knows what will happen...," how do the people on the WIPP project know how to proceed with their work?]
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20 comments:
I think that the symbol might not be believed in however many years because, looking back in time that far, the future will most likely consider us to be less knowlegable. The future will unquestionably have more inventions and more sophisticated technology. So this time period might seem less advanced and they might think we didn't know what we were talking about. Also, curiousity is a very strong emotion. If people are partial to believing we were wrong that it was dangerous and they are extrememly curious, that would most likely lead to the vault thing being open and then chaos would ensue and the world as we know it would COME TO AN END!!!!
OK, I can spell: knowledgeable. Not knowlegable.
why would people vacation in a new mexico desert? nvm
I think that the idea for thbe giant stone concrete block to sit on top of the danger zone is good idea. what if the "future inhabitants" assume that the stone monument holds the toxic waste? either way you might figure they would crack open this giant tomb before digging under it, so i say we should leave a museum under there. a museum of the world with imitation art and imitation political documents etc. so that before these "future inhabitants" could reach the warning sign, they would have several dosuments and stuff to use to decipher the languages. leave a dictionary down there too.
why do we care what happens to whatever is living on our earth 20000 years from now? in the past 2000 yeasrs we have killed off several species and endagered even more, nt to mention this article assumes that modern humans as we are now will cease to exist... so we will have evn killed ourselves!
DONT warn the "future inhabitants" how about that? that way humans from the year 0 BC - ????AD will be repreented by what we rally are, destructive poison hiding under your feet!
I don't believe that just because one sees cave drawings of a bison on a cave wall, that it is just because the Neanderthal eats it for food. I think that Roger Nelson just believes that bison drawings on the cave wall implies that Neanderthals ate them because they are so primitive compared to us. They are so primitive that they could not have though of bison in any other way, then as food. Although Neanderthals were primitive humans, it doesn't mean that they are not able to have higher thought and see bison in a different manner, then just for food. So in this way, I also agree with Emily that future human beings might believe us as primitive and so assume that the sign we created implies something that may be completely different. Who is it to say that they can understand the thought process of those in the past, if they were not there? They can only assume and so do not know. So this brings up the question, is it possible to create a sign that says "stay out" and have it understood forever, when it may be seen as primitive and thought to be as something other then what it is meant to mean?
As the years move on, so does knowledge. This is obvious since humans today contain more knowledge then they have in the past, especially 10,000 years ago. The reading questions if we can send a message to warn people 10,000 years from now and they would be able to understand it. Would anyone today be able to understand a message someone could have written 10,000 years ago? With knowledge continually growing, it would only become increasingly harder as time moves on to try to warn someone, regardless of whether it is through words or symbols.
10,000 years later, the world as we know it will be pretty much gone anyway. Maybe the world as they know it will come to an end.
:-)
I think that we could come up with something that would show danger... but people are so curious anyway that they probably wouldn't take it seriously because we crave knowledge. I doubt that we could really leave something behind that would explain exactly what's there and why it's dangerous, so people will go looking themselves. I also think that no matter what, we're going to look less knowledgeable. (I don't believe that this is neccessarily true though.) Things change and we don't always take steps forward...
Hey kuk-TOK Menace: The issue is not why people vacation where they do. The central issue is...how do we communicate across a different kind of cultural barrier, one that most of us never think about. Keep your eye on the ball, Ace! (I mean, Menace.)(Nice handle, btw!)
I think if we were to put up a sign with picture symbols to warn the people of the future they would be able to understand the general idea that we were trying to communicate. Just like with the Neanderthal cave drawings...we might not understand all the details to the pictures but we can understand that he is killing a animal for food to survive. Yes the people of the future might not think we are that knowledgeable, but if their that smart then I am sure they will beable to understand our warning and take the proper actions needed.
It might not be as hard as one might think. We can't just assume that people 10000 years from now are going to be complete idiots. Most of us can go to another country and figure out what most road signs are trying to convey(i hope). If we were to walk deep in the jungle and stumble across a gate of skulls, i dont know about you, but i am turning around and walking as fast as i can the other way. I have to assume that people 10000 years from now will still have some intelligence to figure out what our (warning) sign means.
Plus, archaeologists(<--correct spelling :) are able to uncover and decipher things that have been buried for thousands, even millions of years old. We figured out loads about dinosaurs, and they were alive millions upon millions of years ago, and buried under tons of dirt. If we can figure things out like that, im sure people 10000 years from now can figure out a warning. The question should be, will they listen?
I think that by creating the warning signs it could save many people from unknown trouble. But I think that we can not use a spoken language to communicate to people who will not speak any language even close to ours. For instance the english language from the time that the english came over to start the 13 colonies has changed drastically. Think even farther back then that. Latin, is the root of most european langage but it has no connection what so ever to asian languages, or the languages of the pacific. In 24000 million bagillion years people could some how not even speak any more but think really hard to one another.
But if we look at what Roger nelsson said, that even he can understand the cave paintings, and how other people have understood different symbols as well. I think by using symbols that connect to death to show how bad things are there can easly show how its not a good idea to be in this area. If we made a field of 200 foot tall satues of dead people with different diseases on them it may show the ppl of the future, Hmm well huge statues of ppl that look really unconforatble and theres a couple that are decapitated. im going to guess this was not a very happy place in the past.
But then if the people of the furture do get our message and their "robots" go crazy and start diggin there then we are held at fault...right? well lets give the ppl of the furture the bennifit of the doubt to not lose control of their own creations and if they do then its their problem not ours.
Also the idea of the huge pyrimid over the area is a good idea. People would excavate the pyrimid and find info in it before they started diging under neith it. I mean how many ppl have thought of diggin thousands of feet underneith the egyptian pyrimids? last time i checked NO ONE. so either way we can see that language, at least spoken is not the way to go, symbols are. But that leads to the question of whats the difference between language and symbols?
Reply to Jessica P.:
I think it's possible that if they see the pictures of people being hurt, they might just think we were afraid of whatever it was at the time. They might even think this is where we sent people who were hurt, or any one of a million other things. They may read it as us saying something about ourselves, rather than to them. We think the cavemen put that there to document a specific hunt, but what if they really meant to say "This is the best way to kill a bison.", instead? What if it was really about the strategies to use to kill one? Pictoral messages can easily be misinterpreted.
On a side note, they pointed out in another article that the problem would be somewhat self-solving even if a few people did go in. The first person there would get sick and die, the next person who visits will too, and eventually people will decide to stay away from there, since everyone goes there gets sick and dies. It's not like it's going to kill everyone within 100 miles if the thing is opened.
So this is pretty funny. they got together scientists, futurists and historians and apparently, thousands of years from now the world will only be man-eating feminists who think men are scum. I just though that this was funny. Anyways, couldn't we just keep a warning out and update it every hundred years or something? It would travel along generations and everyone would get it. Either this or all of the nuclear sludge and radioactivity will replenish the earth magically and all cancer will be cured. So either we will be ignorant feminists who are too proud to listen, we are smart enought to create a readable warning or the world saves itself using our own disgusting war waste.....
You Decide!!! :)
The question as to whether the message will be believable suggests that language is not enough to convince people that something is true. Is there a way to communicate across cultures and languages? I think that emotion is a common thread that ties all human together. The pictures of faces with horror and fear are emotins that transcend laguage and symbol barriers. There is no way that we can be sure about any other source of communication. Today we try to make assumptions and interpret symbols and languages based on our cultural and societal knowledge. We have no way to see if these interpretations are correct. In the future we will never know if our warnings are effective, but that should not prohibit us from trying.
I think that in terms of this specific example, some form of language is preferrable because if all we use are symbols of skulls or other menacing figures, curiosity is bound to get the best of the future population. There are plenty of instances where archaeologists came across some cave with all kinds of encryptions that they didn't understand and blazed on ahead. I think that the scientists of the future will be just as curious about what our strange "temple" and "markings" might be.
However, aside from the example of how to hide nuclear weapons, I do think it is very possible to communicate with people of a different culture or language. We may not understand their customs or words, but there are some fundamentals of the human race in general that I don't believe will change with time. For instance, a smile will always convey a similar idea. Even babies understand this. I think that any country you go to, they will understand that your smile is non-threatening. True, I don't know much at all about some tribal African culture, but I think that I would be able to connect with them in some form if they smiled at me.
How do we know that in 10,000 years humans, or our relatives will even have eyes to see the warning sign. The issues with looking that far into the future are much heavier than weather or not we'll still be speaking english. The scientists could come up with anything they want for their eternal warning sign and call it good because we have no way of telling what will happen in 10,000 years. The idea Molly had seems to be the most reliable. If every generation knew of the radioactive waste or the warning sign then it would ensure we would be able to understand it.
yeah i agree with... whoever says that the people 10000 will be able to decipher our messages. if we just write BAD DONT TOUCH and some skulls or maybe a sad face on it they can figure it out. plus if they have any intelligence whatsoever they will be fine. if not then who cares if they kill themselves. also they should have records of the english language and such.
10,000 years from this problem will no longer stand because Earth will be gone. I think that people are smart, i think that if we were to leave a message in english, spanish, or any language we choose, over the years it will get translated into the languages that are used during that time. If we leave a simple message and picture it will continue to be passed on and translated as needed for people of the future to figure out, just as people have with history book that came to us in different languages, we translated them into something we can understand, just as people will 10,000 years from now.
Wow! Good article David! I think this is a very tricky one, but remember we are able to decipher the hieroglyphics from the Ancient Egyptians. And since we were more technologically advanced, the people in the future will be much more advanced (most likely), and so will probably find a way to decipher our messages. I also think, about ten thousand years from now, they would have already found it by then and the little pieces of them floating around won't be able to do anything but float in space forever. If they don't find it, they may have already created a time machine that can send them back to our time and learn our language. We can always use drawings like the cavemen did. With an arrow pointing to a landmark near the deadly site and then another picture where a stick person pokes it and the next picture shows them blowing up. I hope by then the future people get the message, if not...oh well.
"Communicating danger may seem relatively straightforward, but countless human efforts to bridge the ages have failed as societies fall, languages die and words once poetic or portentous become the indecipherable marks of a long-forgotten scribbler." I think this excerpt from the article clearly demonstrates that what was once important can lose it's significance. Thus, I think that this goes back to the characteristic of language. It is clear that what was once important and understood can be later seen as a basic scribble. As a result, a symbols of today's society wouldn't meet the criteria as a proper warning. i believe that it is possible to warn the future. I think that we must, as a society abd world, must come to an agreement of what symbol would represent knowledge. Having said this, What about a toxic symbol put in the form of a big statue...I dunno this is hard to determine becaus ewith time this universal could soon change leaving it to mean nothing.
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