More on names and numbers

As a result of the family history work I find myself more and more preoccupied with history, mine, their's and ours. I occasionally pause to wonder if there is any point in preserving this history. I take the answer from an evolutionist's perspective; the more important species' survival behavioral traits such as sex are pleasurable. Sex speaks for itself.  There are certainly a lot of us that find extreme pleasure in the recording and reading of history.

The first principle resolved I then think of the impact of our generations' moving to the preservation of history in digital form. Digital is after all nothing more than series of 1s and 0s. Imagine some 2 million years from now when some archeologist stumbles on a landfill of CDs.

Will there be those who can translate even the 1s and 0s into names and dates? First someone has  fall upon the insight that these contain something important and be curious and want to know it.  Hardware and the software has to likely be re-invented.  Those conundrums once traversed and numbers turned into names and dates; I am as confident as of the sun coming up that they will then begin to construct and explore for the stories.

I am reminded of the recent discovery of a new species of hominid in South Africa. A young boys, almost 2 million years old. The environment preserved around him reveals a mature female hominid and many carnivore species but no evidence of predation. More study suggests they all died together, perhaps from some wash into a cave.

The New York Times April 9, 2010. Link to article and video here.

The study goes on. But first we must name him. They are already doing that. There is a contest among South African school children to provide a name.