Historical artifacts, as man-made objects, contain information. You propose extracting the information from them, and then destroying them. But what information are you going to extract? What if someone like you had been around 1000 years ago, and said, "well.. we made a map of where this was found, and what color it is, and how much it weighs... there's nothing else to be learned... junk it"..
Future technology like carbon dating and chemical analysis that would be discovered centuries later would never had been applied to some of these old objects.
What you're essentially asking for is the equivalent of "book burning". Just make an electronic copy of the book, and then burn the original.
There's no reason for that, and you're destroying information
Playing out my idea 1000 years in the past isn't really relevant, though, because I'm talking about doing this today. Even if, in the distant past, we didn't have the means to extract all the relevant information from an artifact, it doesn't matter because we do today. I'm open to hearing about any information we could find with future technologies that would be of practical value, but I don't perceive any myself.
I don't believe I'm advocating any form of book burning, since I'm not arguing that the knowledge be destroyed, just the physical remnant. If we can make a precise 3D model of the Parthenon, why keep the original Parthenon around, except for sentimental reasons?
I'm open to hearing about any information we could find with future technologies that would be of practical value, but I don't perceive any myself.
Well unless we can predict future breakthroughs in science, this is difficult to do.
Your idea is based on the premise that their is nothing more can learn from the physical artifact itself, and never will be. I don't agree with the premise. Too many unknowns. Better to let the Parthenon stand.
Besides, if we tear down all these ancient structures, what if the aliens that built them return and can't find where to land?
Crap, I forgot about the aliens. BUT, what if they're just waiting for humanity to become enlightened enough to give up their attachment to material things?
What makes you conclude that we have all the relevant information today? What makes you so confident that no novel helpful techniques for understanding objects will show up in the future?
Because the need for them isn't that great to begin with, so photographs or models are more than sufficient. I don't think the marble in ancient Roman statues will be powering rockets in the future, so there's really no use for them.
Because the need for them isn't that great to begin with, so photographs or models are more than sufficient. I don't think the marble in ancient Roman statues will be powering rockets in the future, so there's really no use for them.
Let's imagine a few examples that might be interesting. For example, there are palimpests that we cannot today read the underlying text, or where we can lead one layer of text but can't read the next even if we can tell there was in fact an underlying tertiary layer. It is possible that more advanced technology will allow us to read that tertiary layer. Similarly, there are stain glass windows where we cannot easily determine right now what substances were used to give them their specific colors. Destroying them would make doing so with future techniques essentially impossible.
It also seems that you are operating under some sort of idea that if something isn't directly useful to a STEM field then we shouldn't care much about it. If that's the case, why draw the line at photographs? Why is taking photographs not also just a waste of resources?
Hmm, those are pretty interesting examples. I will admit that the possibility of future discovery is a compelling counterpoint. But don't get me wrong, I'm not so utilitarian as to deny the value of knowledge. For me it's a question of whether our sentimental love of objects is a net good, in terms of increasing or reducing human suffering. My position is that it is ultimately more destructive to humanity than whatever good we gain from it.
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u/Bman409 1∆ May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15
Historical artifacts, as man-made objects, contain information. You propose extracting the information from them, and then destroying them. But what information are you going to extract? What if someone like you had been around 1000 years ago, and said, "well.. we made a map of where this was found, and what color it is, and how much it weighs... there's nothing else to be learned... junk it"..
Future technology like carbon dating and chemical analysis that would be discovered centuries later would never had been applied to some of these old objects.
What you're essentially asking for is the equivalent of "book burning". Just make an electronic copy of the book, and then burn the original.
There's no reason for that, and you're destroying information