ZEICHENWANDEL
In his work Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, the cultural philosopher Ernst Alfred Cassirer refers to humans as animal simbolicum. Through this term, Cassirer emphasises the human ability to create signs as well as to interpret the perceived world through them. However, what kind of behaviour is there in regards to the phenomenon of signs over long periods of time? As a result of change phenomena, which can have different origins, the level of meaning and content of a sign changes, whereby in the case of warning signs, the actual message of the warning is lost. The question then arises: how do we warn a person 10,000 years in the future about the existence of radiation from nuclear storage facilities? The theoretical paper addresses this issue and considers potential solutions based on case studies.
Erbgut
Erbgut is a decentralised data storage system that utilises the storage medium deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to store large amounts of data for up to 1,000 years in a very limited space. The data is made up of a binary code that can be translated into DNA nucleic bases with the aid of technology, which means that a single drop of DNA has a storage capacity of 200 exabytes. Stored in a small capsule, this large data quantity can be passed on from generation to generation by means of hereditary material. As a result, heirs can view the history of their ancestors and record their own for posterity. This shows one way in which knowledge can be continuously preserved in the future – and makes it accessible for posterity.
