

If all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed what would you pass on? - bootload
http://seedmagazine.com/content/print/starting_over/

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watchandwait
The list in the article is terrible. Mostly evolution or biosphere mumbo-jumbo
that says more about our time today than helping humanity start over.

I'd pass along the idea of the scientific method, that through observation,
hypothesis, and testing we can advance knowledge in a cumulative way.

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bootload
_"... You can make sense of anything that changes smoothly in space or time,
no matter how wild and complicated it may appear, by reimagining it as an
infinite series of infinitesimal changes, each proceeding at a constant (and
hence much simpler) rate, and then adding all those simple little changes back
together to reconstitute the original whole. ..."_

Ever heard of the Watts/Strogatz model? ~
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_and_Strogatz_model>

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anateus
Several of these seem to be "a clever thing about my field" rather than a
Reboot Keyphrase such as the one Feynman provided.

I particularly enjoyed Steven Strogatz's phrase which attempts to encapsulate
calculus and thus impart the mathematical underpinnings that Newton did--thus
providing for the first time that leap in predictive powers of human-created
models that spurred the _belief_ in our ability to truly understand the world
around us.

That is, it's one of the few phrases that I think would _generate the impetus
for further study_ , rather than relying on that drive to be there.

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pavlov
The proposed nuggets of information seem too complex and abstract to survive
after the "reboot".

In that environment, the seed phrase would essentially be a message from
supernatural beings. It would need to be simple enough not to get distorted
beyond recognition when it is orally transferred by nomadic tribes in the
desert who are likely to be more interested in instructions concerning
circumcision and goat-slaughter than the details of double-helix molecules
(think Bible, Quran).

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patio11
Boil water prior to drinking it.

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michaelcampbell
Skepticism and the importance of rigor and the scientific method.

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fractallyte
A shopping list: 'Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels - bring home for Emma'

That should be _just_ sufficient... ;-)

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petervandijck
Diseases spread by viruses and such, wash your hands.

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kunjaan
Godel's incompleteness theorem.

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ilkhd2
I would pass a description, how to make a Gutenberg Press. Everything else
will come up afterwards.

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pavlov
The printing press may not be all that useful on its own, if the culture
doesn't have a framework for thought development that printing could
accelerate.

The Chinese had printing technology long before Gutenberg, but it did not
spread to Europe, nor the Middle East where the Islamic culture was
intellectually advanced. It was only after the Renaissance that the cultural
and political atmosphere was ripe for mass distribution of accumulated
knowledge and dissenting opinion.

