I heard an item on British News on how concerned scientist and conservationists are eager to try to preserve all the equipment and artefacts left in the Arctic by Scott and his colleagues, who perished so tragically in their quest to reach the Pole... The little hut where they took shelter, and all the items they left behind, are in serious need of repair and restoration.
Their names are etched 'permanently'in the nals of History, and their story is well-known....
But I am in two minds with regard to the expenditure involved in this current quest...
I can understand the emotional and nostalgic desire to preserve and maintain something 'living', in their memory....
But on the other hand, even with the destruction of the two enormous carved stone statues of Buddha, by forces in Afghanistan, Buddhists have said that 'nothing is permanent, everything is transitory'...

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - on this planet, that can be classified as tangibly and solidly eternal....
True to say, some things last longer than others, but always with impermanence...

So, in your (collective) opinions,where and when does saving/restoring/preserving something historical, become superfluous?

Buddhists have said that 'nothing is permanent, everything is transitory'...

Exactly. Life is fleeting.

Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has yet to come. Live for the present.

Making certain the mark you make today is a true reflection of your soul is your goal.

What is the objective of life? Sorry I did not understand your last sentence.

Absolutely so.
The only moment we truly have, is the present instant.
The 'secret' is to live life as wholesomely and as beneficially as possible.... all else is superfluous.
Being in the Now is all we can do. So making the most of it is the best we can do.

Good one Lynn. <img src="/images/graemlins/rolling.gif" alt="" />

Dang. Talk about nothing being permanent. I wrote a whole long reply, forgot to confirm it, and now it's "not valid". Heck.

Anyhow...

It had to do with two definitions of superflous.

The first is "beyond what is required or sufficient". What is required, by law, is probably very little aside from that there may be a law that if you find a hoard of ancient coins and gold bowls and such, you musn't melt it all down for the value of the metal to avoid the laws regarding such hoards.

As for sufficient, that's a judgement call and the question is "Whose?" I gave three examples.

Up until a few years ago,little or no care was taken to preserve intact DNA in forensic samples. Then a criminology class in Illinois set out to re-examine death row evidence and ended up exonerating 1/4 of the prisoners. Now it would be insufficient care to allow such evidence to deteriorate.

A farm near where I live grows woad, a plant source of the indigo dye. They are always looking for new applications and markets. It turns out the Mayans had a woad-based indigo glaze, but nobody knows how they did it because plant materials are generally destroyed by glazing temperatures. Without the actual material still here, we woldn't even suspect it was a possibility.

In the same vein, the art of glass bead making has practically been reinvented in the past 20-30 years. We didn't know how they made some of the glass beads from the Mediteranean 2000 years ago. There certainly weren't any written instructions. And glass beads are pretty superfluous things to have been kept around all those years. But they were and the technical knowledge has been recovered and developed further.

That's why archaeologist leave part of an area they did undisturbed, because future archaeologists will have even better tools and will be able to draw more information from what is left.

Scott's exploration did not occur that long ago. The artifacts they are being so careful to preserve may not tell us much that we do not already know. But future generations will have lost track of most of the written information. Material culture, physical artifacts, become more important and provide more missing information with time.

The second definition is "serving no useful purpose". I think there is little that is done as an effort of preservation or restoration that "serves no useful purpose", unless it is restoration that prevents future investigators from getting accurate information.

Scott's exploration did not occur that long ago. The artifacts they are being so careful to preserve may not tell us much that we do not already know. But future generations will have lost track of most of the written information. Material culture, physical artifacts, become more important and provide more missing information with time.

DJC in Norwich, UK

Is it not true that our goal in life is to achieve enlightenment?

From wikipedia:

"Enlightenment (or illumination) broadly means "the acquisition of new wisdom or understanding". However, the English word covers two concepts which can be quite distinct: religious or spiritual enlightenment (German Erleuchtung) and secular or intellectual enlightenment (German Aufkl�rung). This can cause confusion, since those who claim intellectual enlightenment often reject spiritual concepts altogether."

The secular meaning is not that slippery a term. And unless we want to duplicate all the work previous generations have done giving us the short-cut means to that, we had better preserve sources from them. It's what they mean by the Enlightenment, a period of time just after the Dark Ages, a period in which secular knowledge was discounted in favor of the current version of religious fundamentalism.

The religious meaning is pretty slippery. I don't reject it entirely, but I also don't feel the necessity to strive for it. I treat my fellow travelers as well as I can manage and figure I was made with faults known by the maker and will be judged accordingly with compassion.

DJC in Norwich, UK

What is the objective of life? Living.

You have to find your own purpose for being.

To each their own, I guess. I want a little more than just living. I truly want to leave something worthwhile behind. As for my purpose. As I responded in another thread, mine is to reveal options by living them. To do more than just live, to leave something behind, is one possible option.

DJC in Norwich UK

Could you elaborate what you mean by this?
This is not everyone's objective, consciously or unconsciously....