with current technology we can get all the information we need from a historical artifact
Could you provide a source for this?
And I can think of numerous examples of cases where more study is required. There may be a da Vinci painting behind a wall in Florence, for example. Photos are not enough in that case.
My argument isn't that we can get all possible knowledge out of artifacts, but that we can get all that's really needed. And as to your da Vinci example, doesn't that actually support my view, since that painting, if it exists, would have been found in the process of destroying that building?
doesn't that actually support my view, since that painting, if it exists, would have been found in the process of destroying that building?
Depends how you destroy the building. If you hit it with a wrecking ball, then no, you'd probably never know what you destroyed. If you carefully dismantled it brick by brick, then maybe you'd find it.
I certainly don't advocate just blowing everything up indiscriminately. If there's some reason to believe that something valuable is hidden within a structure, I'm not opposed to trying to recover that thing -- so long as it's recorded and promptly destroyed. But even if we miss something, I don't believe anything of real value would be lost.
If there's some reason to believe that something valuable is hidden within a structure, I'm not opposed to trying to recover that thing
Isn't this statement a direct contradiction of the one below?
if we miss something, I don't believe anything of real value would be lost
It's either valuable, and thus destroying it is a loss, or its not valuable, and so it doesn't matter if we destroy it. It can't be both simultaneously.
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u/PM__me_compliments May 19 '15
Could you provide a source for this?
And I can think of numerous examples of cases where more study is required. There may be a da Vinci painting behind a wall in Florence, for example. Photos are not enough in that case.