ayavuzk@fas.harvard.edu on 04/16/99 03:37:01 PM
Please respond to extropians@extropy.com
To: extropians@extropy.com
cc: (bcc: Tamara Zyganiuk/CIBG/TDBANK)
Subject: A 50,000-year time capsule in space...
the article:
http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/internet/docs/344236l.htm
This is amazing.. KEO (www.keo.org) is sending up a time-capsule
satellite
designed to wait 50,000 years, then return to Earth.. and is including with
it many CD-ROMs of messages from people who visit its website.. and it's
free.. this sounds like a great opportunity to put in our thoughts about
the future and messages to our future counterparts... and.. an opportunity
to test an idea I've had for a long time...
Here's my idea.. perhaps if more people participate, it could work...
if
only one did it, they might not listen, but if many did it, it could have a
greater chance of doing *something*..
Assuming time travel is invented sometime in the future, perhaps
within
the next 50,000 years, what would happen if one made an indestructible
message to the inhabitants of the future, who would presumably hold
time-travel technology under their control, asking them to travel back to
OUR time?... assuming time-travel isn't tightly controlled by then, and
assuming they're irresponsible enough to do it (chuckle), we should see
results as soon as we enter the message.. if we see no results, then we can
assume that time travel will be impossible and can forget about trying to
create it.
Of course, if it *is* possible, but we don't see results within a timeframe we like, and give up on it, then we've of course negated the possibility of its existence by believing it to be impossible..
Fun mental experiment, eh?.. why don't we see if it works?..