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Artifacts
In the western spiral arm of our galaxy lies a star system and a planet occupied ages ago. On one mountain of that planet there is a great structure, thousands of cubits tall. It is constructed of sapphire and diamond, is self-repairing, and derives energy from both solar power and an internal power supply which we still do not understand.
Each solar rotation, this vast mechanism emits a tick. Each hundred rotations, it emits a gong. Those who study the mechanism believe that every ten thousand rotations, a small mechanism will appear from a certain door and make a sound. The last effect has not been observed in living memory, and the next occurrence is projected to be nearly eighty generations removed from those now living. Xenoarchaeologists say that the gong’s period was longer than the lifespan of an individual of that species, and that the unseen mechanism has a period longer than that species’ entire recorded history. The entire edifice was constructed only a few years before that race vanished forever to wherever ancient races go.
Philosophers across the galaxy have argued over the purpose of the Eternal Clock. As with other artifacts such as the Diamond Book, the Circle of Time, the Oracle, and the Wandering Flame, consensus holds that the motive was not religious or superstitious in nature, but philosophical.
What principle the Eternal Clock was intended to embody is still a matter of great controversy. But while arguments rage in the halls of philosophy, while children are born and great-grandparents die, while intelligent races evolve and vanish, the Eternal Clock continues to tick. And perhaps that is the message it is intended to convey.
This document is ©2001,2003 by Eliezer Yudkowsky and free under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License for copying and distribution, so long as the work is attributed and the text is unaltered.
Inspired by the “Clock of the Long Now” project.
Yes, Stewart Brand has already seen it.
The above apparently got forwarded around a bit, and Kevin Kelly wrote me and said: “I’d love to know what the other artifacts are: Diamond Book, the Circle of Time, the Oracle, and the Wandering Flame.”
The Wandering Flame was created by a species that, in a rare coincidence, began acquiring industrial technology just as their home planet was entering a new Ice Age. The species successfully staved off global cooling – first through deliberate emission of greenhouse gases, then through orbital solar mirrors, and finally, as they reached the heights of technology, through direct reversal of the underlying climatic effect. In celebration, they constructed the Wandering Flame, an artificial sunlet that shines for one seventeenth of an orbital period over any planet on which a sentient species successfully manages an environmental crisis. Although the Wandering Flame often delivers more solar energy than the planet’s original star, no climatic or ecological side effects occur. When not fulfilling its primary function, the Wandering Flame can usually be found in the asteroid belt of some otherwise uninteresting star system.
The Oracle is a spherically-shaped region of space, roughly 32 light-hours in diameter, located around 2 light-years to the galactic north of Elnath. The Oracle will answer one question for each petitioner; unfortunately, there is no way to know in advance which question it is. Only seventeen questions have ever been answered, four of them asked by accident and apparently trivial, but in each case the petitioner expressed a profound sense of satisfaction and enlightenment.
The Circle of Time appears as a circular path of beaten silver, eighty-three meters in diameter. When you set foot on the Circle at any point, the path begins to move, conveying you along the Circle. It appears to take exactly fifteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds for you to reach your starting point, although on exiting, no external time appears to have passed. Many past and future selves of the fifteen minutes are visible in their corresponding positions along the Circle of Time, and you can converse with yourself as desired.
The Diamond Book has the density and appearance of purest diamond. No matter how many pages are turned, there are still as many left. The weight and volume of the Book never increase. No page has ever been found containing words, pictures, or other visible content, though each page sparkles beautifully and individually. Those who read the Book by gazing on several pages in succession feel an overwhelming sense of sadness and grief. The emotion is not debilitating but cathartic, and has inspired great artistic works and a lasting end to several wars. Despite the thousands of intrigues that have broken out in competition for possession of the Diamond Book, no violent conflict has ever occurred.
This article describes humanity’s creation of yet another inscrutable artifact.
- The key passage:
- “It’s probably the roundest item ever made by hand. ‘If the earth were this round, Mount Everest would be four meters tall,’ Dr. Nicolaus said. An intriguing characteristic of this smooth ball is that there is no way to tell whether it is spinning or at rest. Only if a grain of dust lands on the surface is there something for the eye to track.”
Whatever would an alien species make of the Silicon Sphere, I wonder? Would they ever guess its purely philosophical purpose?
A cheering sign that humanity is still progressing toward becoming an Incomprehensible Elder Species.
This was posted to SL4:
THE BANACH-TARSKI GYROSCOPE The Banach-Tarski Gyroscope is an intricate mechanism believed to have been constructed using the Axiom of Choice. On each complete rotation counterclockwise, the Banach-Tarski Gyroscope doubles in volume while maintaining its shape and density; on rotating clockwise, the volume is halved. When first discovered, fortunately in the midst of interstellar space, the Banach-Tarski Gyroscope was tragically mistaken for an ordinary desk ornament. Subsequently it required a significant portion of the available energy of the contemporary galactic civilization to reverse the rotation before nearby star systems were endangered; fortunately, the Banach-Tarski Gyroscope still obeys lightspeed limitations on rotation rates, and cannot grow rapidly once expanding past planetary size. After the subsequent investigation, the Banach-Tarski Gyroscope was spun clockwise and left spinning.Back to Top
