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273 points geox | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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monero-xmr ◴[] No.40712749[source]
I personally believe forms of writing and record keeping are far, far older than we think, having been discovered and forgotten repeatedly. Very hard for something hundreds of thousands of years old to be preserved. Once you can pass on information orally and written through the generations, knowledge will always improve.
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lelanthran ◴[] No.40715418[source]
> Once you can pass on information orally and written through the generations, knowledge will always improve.

Nope. You can pass on myths the same way. All that happens is that you get more refined myths, that always have "evidence" for them at any point in time because they are refined by each generation to fit any new observations.

It's worse with oral knowledge[1]: oral "knowledge" that is passed down is frequently more damaging than not passing anything down at all, because in the lack of any knowledge on the subject, people will try to gain some knowledge (whether experimentally or not), but with "knowledge" passed down, there will exist pockets of people who will actively resist any attempt to discard that "knowledge".[2]

[1] Ever play a game of telephone? Each generation changes the message enough so that even a short period of 30 generations is enough to completely obliterate any of the original message.

[2] See every religion ever.

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1. ordu ◴[] No.40717384[source]
> Each generation changes the message enough so that even a short period of 30 generations is enough to completely obliterate any of the original message.

Wouldn't multiple transmission between generations and the comparison of diverging stories of the older generation in a newer generation work like an error correction?

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2. lelanthran ◴[] No.40717652[source]
> Wouldn't multiple transmission between generations and the comparison of diverging stories of the older generation in a newer generation work like an error correction?

I doubt it - which one is the "correct" message is going to be up to chance, not up to a network effect.

Even if you take the optimistic approach and only retain that knowledge that is common to all branches, there is a vanishingly small chance that the correct knowledge would be retained, because the errors in transmission are not going to be completely random - the sort of error one oral storyteller introduces is going to be similar to the errors introduced by other storytellers.[1]

It's why the history of tribes who did not write things down is treated as myths: the myth-makers are likely to weave whatever current affairs into existing mythology to "explain" new observations, in the process discarding what was there in the first place.

When the record is written down, at least we can read what was thought at the time of writing.

[1] Completely made-up example: Original story -> Crocodile dragged off tribes best warrior. Probable error after gen-10 -> Crocodile is double the original size. Probable error after gen-20 -> Longer than a man. Probable error after gen-30 -> Taller than a man. Probable error after gen-40 -> Walks around, bipedal.