Collective memory ?

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the attempts to write an entertaining collection of meaningless contemplations and tales leading up to the coming changes...

As said in an earlier blog, I'm working on my pile of books while I have some time before shipping off to Canada. One of them is the Swarm or rather: was the Swarm.

Books like “the Swarm” are an addiction to me. I blazed through the book in a mere three days. If any of you intend to read the book, then you might want to skip this paragraph since it contains some spoilers. The book revolves around a marine single celled super creature that has been around longer than humanity. The creature has decided man had its time destroying the earth with his pollution and it's time to stop it, humanity that is. It's up to a band of heroic scientist to stop this creature. Not the greatest literature ever written but it's a gripping light weight doomsday scenario. Good entertainment.

Now the book states somewhere that humanity is inferior in the eyes of the creature for many reasons. One of them is the fact that humans are individuals and have a hard time thinking about anything but themselves, an other one is the fact that humans don't have a collective long lasting memory (*).

That's odd.

If anything, humanity has a very extensive age old collective memory in many forms. Our languages contain many metaphors and expressions which are the result of years of cumulative knowledge and wisdom. We have the useful tales which reflect on being a cautious human aware of the world around us. Sure some of them are slightly unbelievable, but any sane person can see through the obvious reasons behind those attempts. Moreover we can draw upon a huge and interesting library of written history, outlining the events and results of those actions, so we may learn from the past and never repeat our mistakes again. Not only can we look backwards, we have a amazing system of highly respected journalists which are keeping us aware of what is happening at the moment. And then there is the web, surely that must be the pinnacle of human communication and our collective memory.

But that's not the point the book is trying to make. The book is merely trying to state the obvious that we're individuals and can't, or won't learn from other people's experiences.

Anyway, while I agree with the book that the outlook is certainly very bleak , there may be a few bright spots at the end of the tunnel which might convince the Yrr that it may be worthwhile to see what we make of it anyway.

Inspirational credits for go to “you-d!3-now”, which is quite amuzing in its own right and does a much better job in that respect...

(*) Don't quote me on this, the book might add some variation on that theme.