so we all died and 100'000 of years later...

[Toho]

so lets say a plague kills us all and we die in a couple of years from now.
and lets say in couple of 100'000 of years a new species would finally evolve enough and be as intelligent as us.

besides our bones/fossils how would they know we even had a civilization that far surpassed their wildest imagination? according to this nothing recognizable would be left and the next ice age would clean anything that was left.

if this is all true how do we know if there was not a species before us that was just as intelligent as we are?

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Cell phones. Most anything plastic would survive for a million years or more.

And places like New Orleans, etc, which would be buried under silt and preserved.

[Caelifer_1991]

Also, following on from the last post, everything we leave in a stable orbit. If there was a species as intelligent as us, that achieved the same level of technological development as us, we'd have noticed as soon as our optical equipment became sufficient to see a satellite in orbit. We've also left behind various amounts of evidence on the Moon, Mars, and other planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond (Voyager I, anyone?), much of this evidence, such as on Titan, would doubtless be wiped out within 100000 years, but assuming the flag/ reflector/ etc, on the moon for instance never suffered the bad luck of being hit by an asteroid, then that and other assorted material would remain as conclusive evidence. Our infrastructure on Mars, sadly, would probably be completely hidden from any successor species, as Mars has an atmosphere and wind, and these create dust storms that would eventually bury everything we have on the surface there, though its worth mentioning again that we also have satellites in orbit around Mars and that they would remain.

Its worth mentioning of course that not everything we have in space is in a stable orbit; the International Space Station for instance must be frequently accelerated to keep it in orbit, and as such it, for instance, would not survive our sudden annihilation. Even if it did, the amount of space debris that we have left in low earth orbit would very rapidly (as in, within a few thousand years) destroy everything therein. It would only be those orbits such as our geostationary satellites that would remain undamaged and salvageable, eg; that infrastructure that exists beyond the debris field, including that which is in a solar orbit. Its also worth mentioning however that the debris field left in low earth orbit, would harbour evidence of our existence itself, it would be likely that, even after 100000 years, that there would still be salvageable components, circuit boards, etc, that would give away our previous existence.

Aside from all this, it should be considered that it would be extremely unlikely for another intelligent species to evolve in the space of only 100000 years. Evolution is generally an extremely slow process, assuming chimpanzees evolved in the same direction as us for instance, it would still probably take several million years for them to reach a similar level of capability. All the same facts remain valid of course, though anything on the Earth's surface at present, even ruins of the foundations of our cities, would likely be completely destroyed, it would only be our infrastructure in space that would survive.

[Toho]

well i kind of meant 100k of years as in 300k or 400k maybe even close to a million years after our existence a new species would finally be intelligent and advanced enough to dable in science and archeology.

[Kyriakos]

Well, the last intelligent species left us the Moon

[Phier]

Sooner or later they would find a landfill.

If we can still find soft tissue fossils millions of years later, just think what they will find in landfills.

[Sphere]

Nuclear fission products.

If this future species has as advanced understanding of nuclear physics as us, when they came across concentrations of certain isotopes of Plutonium and Uranium left over by humans, they would know they did not occur naturally.

Indeed if they came across the core of a nuclear bomb made of Plutonium-239 (which would have partially decayed into other elements after 100,000 years), they could use the ratio of decayed elements to fairly accurately calculate when we had discovered and developed nuclear reactors/weapons.

[Phier]

Nuclear fission products.

If this future species has as advanced understanding of nuclear physics as us, when they came across concentrations of certain isotopes of Plutonium and Uranium left over by humans, they would know they did not occur naturally.

Indeed if they came across the core of a nuclear bomb made of Plutonium-239 (which would have partially decayed into other elements after 100,000 years), they could use the ratio of decayed elements to fairly accurately calculate when we had discovered and developed nuclear reactors/weapons.

Don't be so sure, "young earthers" would use it as proof that the earth was only 100k years old

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

I was going to mention landfills, but I wasn't sure if they would survive or not.

[Ima Farmathar]

The stuff we left on the moon will be there as long s there is a moon.
Even if cities get compressed, they will be detectable due to high concentrations of heavy metals.
Some of our grave yards will be preserved, there are just too many human remains to be missed entirely, most of them concentrated on relatively small areas.
Some open mines, will leave clear marks on the landscape for geological eras. They could be considered as natural formations by whatever finds them,

[Toho]

By the way, what if someone tried to put evidence of our existence in some kind of air tight super durable plastic? Assuming this box was spare volcanoes and eventually found the plastic should have protected the books, USB drives and so on so that whoever finds it could read and decipher it. Right? In my city we have this box sent from the past and its been buried for 90 years now so I guess we could do it. Could we even create something that can last, intact for millions of years?

[empr guy]

By the way, what if someone tried to put evidence of our existence in some kind of air tight super durable plastic? Assuming this box was spare volcanoes and eventually found the plastic should have protected the books, USB drives and so on so that whoever finds it could read and decipher it. Right? In my city we have this box sent from the past and its been buried for 90 years now so I guess we could do it. Could we even create something that can last, intact for millions of years?

We could probably do that, but how would they decipher it?

[Toho]

We could probably do that, but how would they decipher it?

we leave some kind of rosseta stone like book or instruction manual? maybe they wont pronounce the words correctly but they should know what they mean.

@Euphoric
lets assume it only kills humans and chimps/guerrillas/monkeys.

[Euphoric]

@Euphoric
lets assume it only kills humans and chimps/guerrillas/monkeys.

And intelligent life reemerged 100,000 to a million years later? Still unlikely, but if we were to go with it hypothetically, there would be plently of material that won't decompose within a million years that will be evident of civilization. Plastics and certain construction materials will take a very long time to decompose. In desert/tundra areas, the snow and sand will be capable of preserving the foundations of structures to a large degree as well, particularly if they are made of semi-permanent materials.

[empr guy]

we leave some kind of rosseta stone like book or instruction manual? maybe they wont pronounce the words correctly but they should know what they mean.

@Euphoric
lets assume it only kills humans and chimps/guerrillas/monkeys.

The rosetta stone worked because it had the ancient egyption message written in greek as well, a known language. Take out the known and it's gibberish just like every other egyption text, so I don't know how a manual would work.

[Hobbes]

egyption

Why do people make this retarded mistake? A is not even close to O in the keyboard so it's not a typo. This reminds me of the user pharoah; he used to make this mistake all the time. Are you pharoah?

[Euphoric]

Realistically, if a scenario in which enough of the species on Earth died in order for humanity to go entirely extinct, we would be looking at massive levels of extinction, and it could potentially take hundreds of millions of years for intelligent life to reemerge, depending on the level of organic complexity remaining after our demise.

[Himster]

Maybe our self-replicating algorithms will be what evolves into the next cycle of life and/or intelligent life: digital life. Maybe that's how our abiogenesis was begun, from some kind of technology made by a long dead life-form of some kind, or a time-traveler that sneezed and went home.

[Hobbes]

But you type Italian, Ethiopian, Indian. Why would Egyptian be an exception to this rule?

[empr guy]

Why do people make this retarded mistake? A is not even close to O in the keyboard so it's not a typo. This reminds me of the user pharoah; he used to make this mistake all the time. Are you pharoah?

just for you obviously

But you type Italian, Ethiopian, Indian. Why would Egyptian be an exception to this rule?

The Italion, Ethiopion, and Indion people are not relevant to this discussion.


Also my previous questions are because i'm seriously curious if theres any way for us to teach a language to someone who comes later and doesn't have a mutual language, maybe a really big picture book for general meaning of nouns but is anything else really plausible?