Re: Information & Power (was: RE: Einstein's Brain on the internet)

Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Thu, 29 Apr 1999 21:00:19 -0700

OK Ill take this on.

> > I now suspect that within 20 years, *all* the information currently found
> > in print-only format will be no more useful in that form than the
> > collection of mostly sermons in the stacks at Yale. spike
>
> Karsten Bänder wrote: ...If we assume that even the most
> insignificant book holds at least a bit of useful information, why do we
> risk the destruction of it by not replicating it's contents?

Karsten, the problem is that the useful information in that form is so diffuse as to make it not worth the effort to search the text to find the jewels of wisdom.

> To me, one of the greatest disasters was the burning of the Great Library at
> Alexandria. Humanity lost - in one night - the intellectual work of several
> hundreds or thousands of wise men.

Granted this was a sad loss. However...

> What would we know today if we had this information?

We would know a lot about how people in the old days thought. What would we learn about anthropology? Nothing! We know far more about ancient humans than would have been recorded in the library at Alexandria. This is because we have technology. There is no evidence that the ancients had anything we would consider advanced technology. They had no way of determining the age of a fossil for instance. If we discovered today that the collection at Alexandria was spirited away and hidden, then we found it today, we would find therein no breakthru insights that we have not already independently rediscovered in the intervening years.

> ...The library of the Vatikan in Rome still
> holds one of the most important libraries of the world....

I beg to differ. Theologians might feel the loss should that library burn, but I suspect it would have almost no impact on the lives or the thinking of our society. Religious thinkers, especially ancient ones, offer little or no guidance in the questions we are now facing, such as:

Should we charge ahead with the altering of the human genome?

Should we unleash nanotechnology, specifically the nanoreplicator, as soon as it is physically possible to create?

Should we work towards a singularity, even if it means the passing of the human race as we know it? Should we work to slow it?

> BTW: The burning of books reminds me of Fahrenheit 451 ...

Karsten, we have a much greater challenge than the accidental or intentional burning of books: preventing data from being lost by changing technology. Anyone have any floppy discs? How about the old 5 inch floppies? Can you still read them? spike