Have you ever wondered how long evidence of our current civilization and existence will last? Check this, the Great Pyramid was built 4,500 years ago, and still stands today. Great Roman structures like the Colosseum are still around. Also, consider that the written word is only just over 5,000 years old dating to the cuneiform system of the Sumerian civilization in the near-East. We know these things because they were carved on stone. Our modern writing systems are printed on paper, or transmitted through cables, or through the air as ghostly invisible electromagnetic waves. Will our cultural achievements that are stored on film, tape, paper or hard drives stand the test of time? Will our skyscrapers still be around in 4,000 years? These questions are impossible to answer now, but there will come a time when our existence is completely forgotten and washed away by the sands of time.
I sometimes find entropy comforting. Everything must end, but there are many things I look forward to ending. Like a bad day.
Even if nobody remembers us, everything leaves its mark on history and influences the universe through small ripples. The “butterfly flapping its wings” and all that.
That’s how I find personal comfort in the knowledge of impermanence. Just because things aren’t permanent, that doesn’t mean they’re devoid of meaning.
When they fall over the rubble piles will be roughly pyramidal and could easily stay that way for over 4000 years.
Some large %% of stuff is crap, and arguably should be forgotten. However, for stuff that you want to be legible in 10,000 years, your own post suggests that you should carve it in stone in preference to burning a CD.
I thought anything posted on the internet will exist forever. At least, that’s what I warned my kids about.
We’re going to leave plastic bits and radiation in future rock layers. That’s going to last quite a while.
My first reaction to that is, yes, and so? Let it be forgotten, as far as I’m concerned. If creative works survive, fine. If they don’t, other people will create other works that are just as good, and that will be enjoyed during or immediately after their lifetimes. Let it go, don’t try to hold onto it. If it’s important to you during your lifetime, fine. After that, you won’t care.
Boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.
The irony is that even in modern times many of us have heard of Ozymandias.