We should use stone. Build it in a desert where it will preserve the best.

Also It should lack any symbols or language as our descendents will likely not be able to understand.

Instead of words, we need to demonstrate math. Perhaps build several massive geometric shapes to mathematical precision and have them align with the planetary and solar positions to demonstrate our astronomical understanding.

Dude.

Aaaaaaand you just described ancient Egypt (if you ignore the symbols and whatnot). Like that high up guy's tomb had a statue of him in a chair and the chair had so much geometry going on it's frickin' mind blowing.

Aaaaaaand you just described ancient Egypt (if you ignore the symbols and whatnot).

Someone was paying attention :)

Referenced comment hint: Think older and in a European location...

;)

yeah but a stone henge parthenon can fall over, cool as it would be. we need something like… i dunno… a massive structure… maybe a platinum pyramid. That'd be intense. One solid lump of perfect platinum pyramid. I'll take three.

A Henge of Stones...

I wanted to use that before, but since you broke the word up, I had to do it.

Now... Cake or Death?

but a stone henge parthenon can fall over

Not if its buried in sand! (Thinking about gobleki tepe here!!) =-)

HA! Build it, put some metal on it, bury it. Either it'll be found later but whatever tech can sense it, or the covering will erode away

Im sure itd be possible to cover itbin some sort of plastic epoxy or have layers of plastic and metal over the stone. That should last a few million years, especially if buried under sand, right?

Someone once said math is the universal language. Astronomical alignments would have an added benefit for a timeframe of when such a thing was constructed.

I also wanted to add that our DNA is the very best information carrying device ever. As in.... EVER. passing messages via our dna would last as long as there are survivors to pass them. Doesnt have to be our dna either, there are many animal species thzt coukd survivr many catastrophies, like the cockroach...

Cave paintings/carvings tend to last a long time. What should we tell the future civilizations?

That's a good question. My first thought is to tell them about our technological capabilities, but in fact that's pretty vain and useless. A better idea might be to tell them about our findings in science like Einstein's field equations and the evolutionary timeline of man.

Einstein had many theories but unfortunately on a few have been proven into laws. But you have the right idea

Write a bible. Try to pass on some message that will enable the next group to live in a perfect, harmonious utopia; rather than giving them the information to pick up where we left off because lets admit it, not too many happy people on this planet, relatively speaking.

That information to enable them to live in utopia would be something like, keep your numbers in check, or you will be toast?

I wish I knew. Several good books are attributed to great philosophers. The Buddhist Cannons, The Holy Bible, both have great philosophies and have helped countless folks. Maybe the next one will take care of everyone else?

They'll intuit it. We can intuit it as well. It's all happened before and will all happen again. It's written in our genes.

I like that this question has the potential to generate ideas on where to find lost caches of ancient knowledge.

Now, what if our civilization starts crumbling and an elite portion of our population gets sent out to live in space, and after rebuilding on a faraway planet send envoys to find out what became of good ol earth.. Where everything has been destroyed by nuclear war and survivors have become savages who workshop the "aliens" as gods.. And they help them build impressive things, give them fire, try to teach them a good way to live?

I love your hypothetical proposition so ill add:

What if the returnjng "elite" destroyed all evidence of mans past and created myths about creating mankind and sell it as truth so they will be revered as gods?

What if, since everything was destroyed by nuclear war and the survivors were savages, they instead destroyed all the evidence because they knew the misery that their way of life wrought. What if they just left a few guide stones to try and help the next group to live in a perfect utopia.

Haha well if that was the case it didnt work for very long! But that could be representative of adam and eve mythologies if the pair are to he taken as representative of the savages rather than individuals...

With advanced destructive technology I'd say that's entirely possible, historically there have been civilizations that worshipped even regular humans as gods, like Egyptian Pharaos..

Look into the Clock of the Long Now at www.longnow.org

Fuck 'em

put it on a ZIP Disk, those things last forever and will never be obsolete :P

Now we just need to figure out how to fit the whole of human history into a 100 MB file.

Here is a what if... I was musing about how long the planet has been here and how relatively short humanity has been, in comparison. We know the universe was a more violent place the further you go back. Who is to say a prior "humanity" or other "inhabitants" with an expansive culture was not present before, and completely erased by catastrophic meteoric events resulting in a complete destruction of everything on the surface and substrate of the planet, molten away, to begin again anew. Leaving no "evident" trace behind. A clean slate if you will...

Just a thought... gloomy, but interesting.

Great question!! One ive asked myself on several occassions.

Ive come to the conclusion that this is why monliths like thebgreat pyramids, puma punku were built. Also, this is whybi think gobekli tepe was buried in sand. Stone could last for millions of years when buried in sand in an arid environment.

our best bet would be creating a monolith comparable to these ancient monoliths, though your idea to encapsulate information would work to an extent, i have doubts itll survive intact during the retrieval process, especislly when future civikisations arent expecting to be retrieving information in a manner you described.

think about our oil drillers, how would they know if they came across sncient cellphones like you described? Unless, of course, harbored in stone monoliths possibly buried.

i thjnk we shoukd excavate soil like a surface mine, build a giant stone structure that will house and keep safe certain seals containing information. I feel anything thst requires electronic capabikities will be a disservice to future generations who might have found a way around the need for electricity, so carving things into stone blocks or tablets using lazers would suffice better, in my opinion (as far as practicalities and longevity are concerned, at least.).

I saw your post a little late, but what is a month or two in the long-term scheme of things? :)

Check out the Earth Pyramid idea...

http://www.earthpyramid.org/

Stainless steel covered in some sort of thick polymer material. Inscribed with math/physics just to give them a chuckle.

You may want to follow this line of enquiry with Scientology. They are unlikely to be helpful to you directly, but there's plenty on the net about their project to immortalise the works of L Ron Hubbard in an underground archive in the desert.

Underground structures. What about all of the underground structures our government has built. D.U.M.B.S. and the like. I mean, that's how we've found out about some previous civilizations right? We dug them up. And underground structures wouldn't be subject to as much erosion would they? Like how long do you think NORAD will last or similar structures. Just the vault/blast door at Norad alone, how long could that last? I'd love to hear comments pertaining to this. Perhaps that's why Birtha stopped in Seattle?

Good point, has there been any new revelations on birtha? Any explanations for what stopped her? I feel like burying something like the monoliths at gobekli tepe would work extremely well in preserving information. I believe we have the means to do it, and because of that, i wonder if some people have already done so in modern times..

I love your hypothetical proposition so ill add:

What if the returnjng "elite" destroyed all evidence of mans past and created myths about creating mankind and sell it as truth so they will be revered as gods?

Haha well if that was the case it didnt work for very long! But that could be representative of adam and eve mythologies if the pair are to he taken as representative of the savages rather than individuals...