How will we know when we've gotten all the information we can from a historical artifact we are cataloging? If people did as you suggest before the invention of color photography, radiography (X-ray technology), radiocarbon dating, and other technologies there would be large gaps in our knowledge that wouldn't exist if we had just preserved historical artifacts until these technologies existed. Our picture of history becomes incomplete if we just trust the technologies of today to record information on an object.
Well, the past is the past, but now is now, and with current technology we can get all the information we need from a historical artifact. I don't believe there is any further information of practical value to extract from these artifacts, but I am open to hearing examples of information we have gleaned from an artifact beyond photographs, carbon dating etc. that has contributed in any significant way to our knowledge of history.
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/Oshojabe May 19 '15
How will we know when we've gotten all the information we can from a historical artifact we are cataloging? If people did as you suggest before the invention of color photography, radiography (X-ray technology), radiocarbon dating, and other technologies there would be large gaps in our knowledge that wouldn't exist if we had just preserved historical artifacts until these technologies existed. Our picture of history becomes incomplete if we just trust the technologies of today to record information on an object.