Which human being(s) up to this point in our history do you believe is the odds-on favorite to be included in history books (or other media) into the far distant future?
Think of your choice before reading spoiler:
I believe that our early journey out into space is the most important human endeavor for all ages. #1 Neil Armstrong – 1st man on moon. #2 Yuri Gagarin – 1st man in space.
Animal most likely to live on in infamy: The dog, Laika – first animal in space, aboard Sputnik II.
(Sadly, unlike good ol’ Lassie, Laika Didn’t Come Home)
I believe the quote most likely to live on through the ages is Armstrong’s: “That’s one small step for man but one giant leap for mankind.” Let’s hope that we’re not judged too harshly for his apparent redundant flub (man/mankind).
Photos: Again, I think that the space photos will have the greatest longevity: Armstrong’s first step on the moon, the first clear photo of Earth from space, that wonderful first picture of Earth from the moon, the photo of Laika in Sputnik II.
Wouldn’t it be kind of a buzz-kill to learn that, due to some abhorrent archive maintenance in the distant future, someone like Anna Nicole Smith or Michael Jackson became the only people to make it as early mankind’s historical representatives for all time?
I think one million years is just too large a time frame to predict. It’s quite probably no one today will be remembered a million years from now. We don’t know anyone who lived a million years ago.
Both Armstrong and Gagarin are way overrated. Neither one of them invented the shuttles they rode in, and both of them were chosen, not for their great intellect, but because they could withstand the forces of space travel best. Armstrong didn’t write his famous line and he screwed up the delivery anyway. We may or may not remember the date of the first moon landing, but I don’t think we’ll remember him.
I think Hitler has the greatest chance of having his name remembered. Runners up? Einstein and Newton. Maybe Shakespeare. If Christianity survives, Jesus and Martin Luther. Not much else.
Well, that’s because our species wasn’t around a million years ago. With so much documentation from the last few hundred years (at least), I’m sure somebody will be remembered from our time - if human beings are still around, at least.
A million years ago, there was arguably no such thing as “us”. So it will be a million years hence, especially if and when genetic isolation occurs in colonising communities.
Given that there will then have been a thousand millennia to choose from, I doubt whether the enormous history tome will have room for much more than, say, Newton.
Heh, since I play on living that long and improving my memory significantly (It’s already fairly good for concepts but not for specific details) anyone I remember will be alive.
Jesus most definitely will be remembered, he’s the single most famous person in history, regardless of where in the world you live. Abraham will be remembered. Hermes Trismegistus will be remembered as people take great strides to keep his work alive. I think largely people will be remembered who affected a massive shift in consciousness, meaning that Newton and Einstein may very well make that cut, Max Planck, especially if they are still using his base units of measure. Hammurabi, Julius Caesar. What makes us remember people are two things, either they seriously affected the course of history, and they then become an icon for that period in history that marks our own timeline of history in our heads, historical people are good mnemonic devices. The other is if they particularly touched us specifically in some way.
Without plunging into the vagaries of what scientific, social, economic and religious trends will shape humanity over the next million years, I’ll offer a few observations.
First, if you want to be remembered that long, get some good publicity. Many thunderous events, world-changing trends and formerly towering individuals in history are entirely forgotten. Others are obscure, or in the process of being forgotten. What we remember is stuff that was recorded well, in memorable format.
For instance, if asked to name an Ancient Roman, more people will immediately respond with the name “Julius Caesar” than any other. Why? For sure Caesar was an important person, but there were tons of other important figures during the thousand year history of the Roman Empire. Caesar gave himself great publicity in his own writing. Shakespeare and other adoring fans gave him more after the fact. Many of the later emperors were equally worthy, but they didn’t get good publicity during the following centuries.
Secondly, pretend to originality. Everyone on this board knows the name Pythagoros. Many incorrectly believe that he invented a certain theorem involving right-angled triangles. In fact, that theorem was known to the Babylonians and Egyptians centuries earlier. That didn’t stop Pythagoros from claiming it as his own. He built a reputation based mainly on that theorem, and it’s lasted for 2,500 years and counting.
Get with the winning team. Socrates is still world famous. So is Plato. Thales of Miletos is a comparitive unknown. Yet Thales’ philosophical achievement rival those of Soc and Plat. The reason is that socrates and Plato lived in Athens, which at that time was the most powerful city-state in Greece. Thales lived in Miletos, an unimportant city that no one remembers.
For instance, if asked to name an Ancient Roman, more people will immediately respond with the name “Julius Caesar” than any other. Why? For sure Caesar was an important person, but there were tons of other important figures during the thousand year history of the Roman Empire. Caesar gave himself great publicity in his own writing. Shakespeare and other adoring fans gave him more after the fact. Many of the later emperors were equally worthy, but they didn’t get good publicity during the following centuries.
Secondly, pretend to originality. Everyone on this board knows the name Pythagoros. Many incorrectly believe that he invented a certain theorem involving right-angled triangles. In fact, that theorem was known to the Babylonians and Egyptians centuries earlier. That didn’t stop Pythagoros from claiming it as his own. He built a reputation based mainly on that theorem, and it’s lasted for 2,500 years and counting.
Get with the winning team. Socrates is still world famous. So is Plato. Thales of Miletos is a comparitive unknown. Yet Thales’ philosophical achievement rival those of Soc and Plat. The reason is that socrates and Plato lived in Athens, which at that time was the most powerful city-state in Greece. Thales lived in Miletos, an unimportant city that no one remembers.
If anyone from our past or present, anyone at all, is remembered 998,000 years from now–the length of recorded history multiplied by 150, more or less–my ghost will be astonished.
Depends on what you mean by remembered. Our technology for storing information is getting better and better every year. Anything we remember now won’t ever be forgotten, assuming the concept of human memory is more than just what living humans have stored in their heads.
“Welcome to the year 1,002,005. Humankind has achieved a perfect utopia. What would like to do?”
“Watch Cinderella!”
“Sorry, the copyright for that still belongs to Disney.”
I agree that Armstrong and Gagarin don’t necessarily deserve to be the ones most likely to live on for all time (they weren’t particularly great in and of themselves), but I still think that they are the best candidates to be the posterity mongers. Given the enormous time frame that I am considering, almost every present scientific achievement to date will most likely be thought of as childish common sense or hopelessly antiquated and insignificant (Calculus? Yeah, my kid figured that out about 36 hours post partum…not exactly Harvard material; Relativity? You mean someone actually put that nonsense to paper and got some sort of a prize for doing so?). Present day politics will likewise be of little consequence to our distant relatives. (Western Civilization? Is that anywhere near our outpost in Alpha Centari?). I’m sure that future acts of barbarism will eclipse anything mankind has endured thus far. (Somebody killed 6 million who? Not quite in the same league as Bob the Bad who slaughtered 4 trillion catsup lovers in the condiment wars of AD 500,000). Religion? (So, this dude turned water into wine and resurrected a few days after he died a long time ago? And that’s unusual because…?). The arts will probably undergo a similar fate. (Listen up class! A long time ago, orangutans banged sticks against tree trunks, 20th century man banged sticks and strummed electrified metal strings…but real music didn’t start until the 900th century). Philosophy? (Those guys had way too much time on their hands).
All things considered, one of the few things that we will have in common with our far distant relatives, IMO, is space exploration, and they will almost certainly be nostalgic for how it all began.
I think it’s also because the name Caesar became synoymous with an Emperor, and many people wanted to be Caesar, he was the archetypal emperor. He was the Emperor that united what we knew not too long ago as “Christendom”. It doesn’t hurt that there is a Month named after him. You name his publicists, but you didn’t really address why people who were born a thousand years after he died would still single him out. I think publicity is part of it, but some major shift in geopolitics with that person riding the crest of the wave is usually what sets them apart from others with similarly impressive achievements.
Actually what is attributed to Pythagoras is the body of knowledge that was maintained by the cult that he started the “Mathematekoi”, his name was almost a communal possession for that organization. Their entire purpose was to maintain a mathematical body of knowledge. I think that we don’t have enough reliable info to know what he took credit for or not.
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Tibbycat Somehow I don’t think man will be less interested in his origins than he is now in 1,000,000 years. Of course it’ll be some sort of highly arcane study, but I believe that people will do it. They’ll have the galactic neural net that they can pull up anytime they want to.
Also, what if we develop a technology that can look into the past? What if there is some characteristic currently undetectable by science that sets a person apart that people in the future might be more interested in, someone who may not make it into history books.
Nobody will be remembered, by a Human being, insofar as Evolution & Genetic Engineering shall have eliminated anyone or anything even remotely Human by that time.
They would no more remember our greatest men & wommen than we recall the greats among the Australopitheceans.
I largely agree. I expect any descendents of ours so far in the future will both be far beyond us and far different than us. I think it’ll be more like us and insects than us and Australopitheceans. No one remembers the first insect to chew wood or spin a cocoon.
I largely agree. I expect any descendents of ours so far in the future will both be far beyond us and far different than us. I think it’ll be more like us and insects than us and Australopitheceans. No one remembers the first insect to chew wood or spin a cocoon.
I don’t agree. A lot of information will be lost. Stuff doesn’t interest many people anymore, only scarce references to it are stored in something, the something get destroyed, information dissapear. That’s too long a period to assume that piles upon piles of datas about completely irrelevant and unimportant events like, say, WW2 will be safely kept.
And of course, that’s assuming that there’s something even somewhat similar to a human race still existing. And if it does, how important will be considered people who lived during the first 0.5% of recorded human history?
By the way, due to the unbelievable lenght of 1 million years of human history, I’m not sure how history in itself would be perceived. Probably not in the same way we perceive it. Questions like “who were the most important people in human history?” could be considered as quite nonsentical by this point.
