Is it normal to wonder what future beings will think?

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I often look around at our infrastructure...the way we've moved mountains, raised roads, and the semi-permanence that many of our constructs could prove in the distant future.

I wonder what intelligent beings, if one evolves long after our extinction, may dig up and what speculation and debate stirs from what they find. "What created all of this? Is it natural? How did rocks from Australia make it to North America? Why, whenever we excavate a site with that 'angel' symbol on it, does everyone near that dig...die a slow painful death?"

Glacial till, seismic activity, and erosion will eradicate most of our work, but some will certainly stand time's test, and mother nature's punishment...what will future beings think? Anyone else wonder this?

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Based on 21 votes (19 yes)
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Comments ( 12 )
  • anti-hero
    11 years ago

    Sure.

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  • Dad
    11 years ago

    I don't think that all the evidence will be fully gone.
    There is space debris on the moon, and there's water ways that are definitely not naturally occuring on Earth.
    It wouldn't take too long for a similar intelligence being as ourselves to work out that intelligent life happened before them.

    Note, no such intelligent life seems to have happened (On Earth) before us though. And we are talking billions of years of just Earth time against the 200K years of human existence.

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    • [Old Memory]
      11 years ago

      Evolution happens in funny ways. Sometimes in the blink of an eye spanning thousands of years, others over millions of years, depending on the severity of the environment. I don't necessarily consider the length of time, or event that caused it, as much as our personal, inevitable extinction followed by the possible rise of another critical-thinking animal and what they may find...and the debates they may have over what they found.

      Yes...it took four and a half billion years for life to expand to where we are right now, but much of that was spent during a cooling period, two complete ice-overs of the planet, a mulititude of catastrophic events, and drastic atmospheric changes making intelligent life's adaptation possible.
      ...Not to mention the fact that just because it hadn't happened before, doesn't mean it can't happen again.

      Like you, I'm convinced that some evidence would remain. Footings of superstructures, pieces of art/tools/weapons, and of course...the inevitable radioactive waste from weapons and power-plants. I just sometimes muse over what they might find...and how and what they might think.

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      • Dad
        11 years ago

        Wow, its actually refreshing reading your comments, and knowing that you are way beyond the human myths that so many desperately hold onto.

        You know that since humans evolved they are obviously the most intelligent (known) life that has existed on Earth. According to this logic the next 'species' may be even more intelligent or possibly evolved with a new sense that is beyond our understanding presently.

        What I'm getting on about is, if you try to explain to a snail that eyes exist and the creatures that can see have an even more clearer understanding of the world, they'll just slowly slide off and never understand you! The NEXT intelligent lifeforms may be so far advanced that 'humans' may resemble plant life intelligence to us! So this 'evidence' would be so miniscule that they may even disregard the so called importance of humans life in our galaxy, except to say oh yes that thing existed once!

        What impact have we truly made on the universe? Even Earth is NOT that effected. Give it a few billion years and the collision with our galaxy and another, Earth will just look like another dieing planet with our Sun.
        Its sad, but working in our gardens has extremely little (actually pretty much zero) impact on anything of true existence in the entire universe. I mean 200K years just to say, that's a human? Lets see what happens when we move ahead another 5 Billion! I'd like to feel that we won't be extinct, but scientifically I feel its inevitable.

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        • [Old Memory]
          11 years ago

          Another sidenote...you mentioned galaxy collisions.

          I hope that I can reincarnate in a couple billion years...just so I can look up and see the Andromeda galaxy fill the night sky. It's hard to imagine anything that awesome.

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          • Dad
            11 years ago

            Just revisiting this topic briefly.

            Its true I've dreamt about looking up and seeing another galaxy within ours. Even more so, to see other planets up close like moon but actual real planets at similar (somewhat safe) distance.
            It would seriously be a magical moment (possibly not the best use of descriptive words!).

            Sadly the best we can hope for presently are meteor showers or comets passing by. But I think I'm with you and selfishly would like to see more of the universe in real life (not just pictures of distant cloud nebulae).

            Your reincarnation theory (or hypothetical dream) I feel does have some minute substance. As you state from stardust to stardust, physically we don't just vanish. Our mind though may live on through our children (not sure, but that's the best hopeful that I can think of).

            In the news they are presently questioning the big 'bang' part, and starting to theorize that it was just a crystallizing cooling effect that created cracks and the matter we see today. But that would mean that space actually has (or had) physical substance in its entirety to actually crystallize (like water into ice). It seems the 'bang' part of the big bang isn't perfectly natural to the universe (ie no real bangs in the last 13.7 billion years either out of nothing!)

            I'm still an evolutionist (and really so should everyone be) but we have much more to discover and possibly (hopefully) change a few laws of physics allowing us to travel to the ends of our expanding universe. One of my best dreams is to actually go all the way to the edge of the universe, and you know what they say, if you can dream it, it may be possible.

            Somehow I don't feel there is a single intelligent entity looking over mankind (and no other life form at that!). Although there may be 'energies' yet to be discovered (like how the electron discovery changed the world, especially in our gadgets day) Maybe we'll find it on another planet one day, maybe its within our universe already, all around us. Anyway that's as close as I'll go towards unfounded beliefs, and I noticed that this type of 'thinking' is not respected well in our rational natural world. Still, allowed to dream :)

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        • [Old Memory]
          11 years ago

          Even if a race of future beings evolved to an intelligence beyond ours, there'd be a growing process that involved exploration and discovery along the way. I would think that during that process some of our artifacts would become subjects of their curiosity...and some could still be deadly, such as cobalt rods from power plants, weaponized uranium, or nuclear waste.

          It also does seem like, as we grow smarter, we become more curious, making it hard to believe that a future being, no matter how brilliant, would become so nonchelant about even simple discovery.

          Sidenote:
          This hypothetical race could even be human if we self destruct; followed by millenia of primitive life, then regeneration.

          Yes. In 5 billion years, everything we've done, and all of our remains will return to star dust. That leaves an awfully long time for the rise and fall of many life forms. That holds true even if the planet only actually remains habitable for 1 billion more years.

          As to your last paragraph...for all we know, we very well may be able to reach interstellar travel capacity and progress well beyond our own solar system. While that sounds impossible, human flight seemed unreachable until the early 1900s. It is unlikely...knowing what we know now, but only time will tell.

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  • Orthanc
    11 years ago

    The only truly durable sign of our existence would be the radioactive waste that will continue to be active millions of years into the future. As for the rest, it won't last very long.

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  • Glass
    11 years ago

    If something so big happened that humanity was entirely wiped out, I don't think any other life on Earth would stand a chance, or any traces of us would be left behind. We're the most adaptable race on the planet, its going to take nothing short of worldwide decimation to get rid us out completely.

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    • [Old Memory]
      11 years ago

      A race of reptiles and bird-like creatures who ruled the world for hundreds of millions of years...far superior to our meager 200,000 year existance...were eraticated 65 million years ago by a huge, catastrophic event, and evidence remains of their rein.

      Even the oldest life-forms, bacteria and viruses, have changed drastically from their original composition.

      Evolution takes its course, either by sudden catastrophy, or gradual changes...and leaves evidence behind.

      ...I just wonder what they'll think of us.

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  • Wendell
    11 years ago

    I don't like to think about stuff like that. Live my life 2 the max, screw the next millennium

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    • [Old Memory]
      11 years ago

      I live my life "to the max" too, I just think it's interesting to think about.

      ...makes me think about every piece of potential artifact I leave behind.

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