November 14, 2025 • 56 mins
Air Date - 12 November 2025
What if 98% of human history has vanished — along with the wisdom we need most today? Did you know that only 1.6 percent of human history is recorded in some form? My guest this week on Destination Unlimited, Jack R. Bialik, says it is time for us to rethink how much we really know and how much is waiting to be rediscovered. Jack Bialik’s life and career have spanned the globe and the technological spectrum. His worldview was shaped by living in many states at an early age and traveling the world, giving him a unique lens on how different cultures operate. With a background in electrical engineering, his professional journey took him from working for the U.S. Air Force to a long, impactful career at Motorola, and eventually to contributions in White House technology initiatives and humanitarian efforts in Haiti. As a global innovator and thought leader, Jack now dedicates his time to exploring the cyclical nature of human knowledge — how we gain it, how we lose it, and, most importantly, how we can do better at preserving it for future generations.
His website is https://jrbialik.com/, and he joins me this week to share his amazing book, Lost in Time: Our Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge.
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What if 98% of human history has vanished — along with the wisdom we need most today? Did you know that only 1.6 percent of human history is recorded in some form? My guest this week on Destination Unlimited, Jack R. Bialik, says it is time for us to rethink how much we really know and how much is waiting to be rediscovered. Jack Bialik’s life and career have spanned the globe and the technological spectrum. His worldview was shaped by living in many states at an early age and traveling the world, giving him a unique lens on how different cultures operate. With a background in electrical engineering, his professional journey took him from working for the U.S. Air Force to a long, impactful career at Motorola, and eventually to contributions in White House technology initiatives and humanitarian efforts in Haiti. As a global innovator and thought leader, Jack now dedicates his time to exploring the cyclical nature of human knowledge — how we gain it, how we lose it, and, most importantly, how we can do better at preserving it for future generations.
His website is https://jrbialik.com/, and he joins me this week to share his amazing book, Lost in Time: Our Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge.
#JackRBialik #VictorFuhrman #DestinationUnlimited #Interviews
Connect with Victor Fuhrman at https://victorthevoice.com/
Visit the Destination Unlimited Show Page https://omtimes.com/iom/shows/destination-unlimited/
Subscribe to our Newsletter https://omtimes.com/subscribe-omtimes-magazine/
Connect with OMTimes on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Omtimes.Magazine/ and OMTimes Radio https://www.facebook.com/ConsciousRadiowebtv.OMTimes/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OmTimes/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omtimes/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2798417/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
My name is Victor Furman. Some call me the Voice.
I've always been fascinated with human nature, spirituality, science and
the crossroads at which they meet. Join me now and
we will explore these topics and so much more with
fascinating guests, authors and experts who will guide us to
(00:28):
destination unlimited. What if ninety eight percent of human history
has vanished along with the wisdom we need most today?
(00:48):
My guest this week on Destination Unlimited, Jack Arbiolic, says
it's time for us to rethink how much we really
know and how much is waiting to be rediscovered. Jack
Biolick's life and career have spanned the globe and technological spectrum.
His worldview is shaped by living in many states at
an early age and traveling the world, giving him a
(01:11):
unique lens on how different cultures operate. His professional career
took him from working for the United States Air Force
to a long impactful career at Motorola and eventually to
contributions in White House technology initiatives and humanitarian efforts in Haiti.
As a global innovator and thought leader, Jack now dedicates
(01:34):
his time to exploring the cyclical nature of human knowledge,
how we gain it, how we lose it, and most importantly,
how we can do better at preserving it for future generations.
His website is Jrbiolic dot com and he joins me
this week to share his amazing book Lost in Time,
(01:54):
Our Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. Please join me in welcoming
today Destination Unlimited, Jack Biolick.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Welcome Jack, Well, thank you, Victor. Happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Jack. You've lived in nine different states by the age
of twenty five and visited many countries. Have these diverse
experiences shaped your perspective on global cultures and systems?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, you know, Victor. I think what happened is as
you're growing up, you know, and you're moving from place
to place, that really gives your mind an expansive view
of things, and you know, an overview of things. You know,
you're not locked down to one particular way of thinking.
(02:44):
I think it helps, not that you necessarily need that,
but I think it helped me to get a bigger
view of the world around us, and you know, kind
of open open my mind up to new ideas and
thoughts and ways of thinking.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
You share that only one point six percent of knowledge
of ancient knowledge is still retained that sounds almost unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, yeah, well, you know you can do the math.
They estimate now, it depends on who you ask, but
of course it's estimated that humankind's been around three hundred
thousand years and we've got about five thousand years recorded,
(03:35):
so you know, we just have a small percentage. And
even of that five thousand years, we only have portions
of it, you know, so it's probably less than one
point six but yeah, it's very little.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
What about some of the architectural discoveries of things that
are dating back beyond where we thought we were.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, well there's many things that we've found that we've seen.
Of course, the biggest one in front of us. All right, now,
you know the pyramids, the Great Pyramids in Egypt. You know,
there's great mysteries surrounding those structures. How they made them,
(04:26):
how they put them together. My background, I have a
background in project management and I just did some simple
mathematical kind of computations and those pyramids are just mind
boggling on how they can put them together. So here
I'll give you an example. So we have two point
(04:49):
three million three ton stones or larger that are placed there,
and one of the Pyramids, and if you do math,
you would have to lay one stone every two minutes,
twelve hours a day, three hundred and fifty nine days
(05:10):
a year. I took a few days out for rain
for twenty years, So basically for twenty years, you know,
every two point three minutes, you're laying a stone, and
it's got to be exactly even and you know, level
and perfectly put together. It's mind boggling. I mean, we
(05:33):
I don't even know that we could do that. So
we have architectural things in front of us that have
made us question, how did these people do this?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Absolutely? What inspired you to write lost in Time are
forgotten and vanishing knowledge? Was there a particular event or
realization that prompted this?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, you know, the way that really came about was
kind of an inspirational moment sitting there watching thing was
National Geographic or the History Channel, one of those, and
you know, they start talking about a vending machine in
(06:22):
ancient Rome, and that by itself doesn't really strike one,
except that if you realize, oh wait, they had a
vending machine in ten BC that dispensed holy water at temples.
(06:43):
You'd put in a Roman coin and holy water would
come out, and they even had a more sophisticated version
where the holy water would come out and steam on
the face of an idol so that it would inspire
(07:04):
the worshipers there at the site to give more money.
Basically was the impetus behind that. But you know, just saying, well, wow,
they had a vending machine in ten BC, Well wait
a minute, what happened in the middle. What happened in
between ten BC and the sixteen hundreds, when that's really
(07:28):
when the most the modern types of vending machines appeared.
In the sixteen hundreds in England, they had in taverns
they would have a he called an honor box. You'd
put a coin in and the lid would pop open
and you could take pipe tobacco out and put it
(07:49):
in your pipe. But you know what happened in between? Then?
Why did we forget what happened? And that was just
the moment of inspiration that got me to thinking and
looking further into the title of the book, Lost in
Time are Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. How can you write
(08:11):
a book about forgotten and vanishing knowledge? You know, if
it's forgotten, how can you write about it? Well? Here
you go, this is this is the start of finding
that kind of information.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Your background is in electrical engineering and as you mentioned,
project management. How did your technical education and professional experiences
influence the themes and insights presented in your book?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
As we as well look at some of these items
that that are discovered in the book, also started to
look into the future also, So part of the book
is about the past. Part of the book is about
the present and what we're doing with knowledge today. You know,
(09:02):
today we're saving our information on you know, thumb drives
or USB drives and SSD drives and so on. We've
got a tremendous amount of information packed into a small space.
If we look back in time, they had kind of
(09:24):
an opposite sort of thing going on, where we had
a stone tablet which you could put some information on.
Of course it's not very information dense, but that stone
tablet lasted for thousands of years. A you know, a
DVD or CD might last for thirty or forty years. Surprisingly,
(09:48):
the pits inside a DVD or CD, they'll oxidize and
it'll eventually become unreadable. But even our SSD and USB drives,
how long are they going to last? How long does
your computer last five ten years, and you know you
got to get a new one. So our information is
(10:12):
getting more dense. The probability of losing that information and
great amounts of information are becoming more and more possible
and more and more probable with the way we're going.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I remember going to school back in the seventies and
the subways of New York and there was a sign
in the signage, the advertising signage in the subway, and
one said, what will you do when this computer takes
out your jo? It takes over your job? And somebody
had scribbled with a crayon, pulled the plug? What happens
(10:50):
when we pull the plug? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, Well could that happen? I mean, could something happen
that might caused the problem that we might lose this information?
You know, back in the eighteen fifties, there was a
it's called a Carrington event. Carrington event. You know, you
(11:16):
can look this up, you can google it. Carrington event
was like a super sun spot, you know, an emp
electromagnetic pulse from the Sun that went out and hit
the Earth. And in the eighteen fifties, now we didn't
have a lot of lines, you know, a lot of
(11:40):
we didn't have power lines and all that sort of thing,
But we did have telegraph lines, and that sun spot
sent this electromagnetic pulse to the Earth and it energized
the power of the lines in the air on the poles,
and heard fires at the end of the in the
(12:02):
telegraph stations. So now that's a pretty rare event. We
only have records of it happening once. Could it happen again?
What would be the effects of it? You know, it
could be quite extensive and leave us at, you know,
(12:23):
in quite a spot.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I'm not I'm not an astrophysicist, but if I'm not mistaken,
the past few months, we've seen some not a Carrington event,
but tremendous solar activity.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, they've had some pretty strong ones, and of course
tho's cause a lot of the lights and northern lights.
But you know, could something like that happen? Of course,
you know, it's it's possible. It's possible that it could happen.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Your book delves into the cyclical nature of knowledge, loss
and rediscovery throughout history. Can you give us some examples?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Oh? Yeah, so there are many examples, and I'll give
you a couple of these here, a couple little secrets
that are hidden in the book. So, you know, we
think about cataract surgery. I don't know if everybody's familiar
(13:18):
with cataract surgery. It's where the lens of the eye
becomes cloudy. Typically that happens with age as you get older.
And a modern cataract surgery started in the seventeen hundreds
was done. They would basically tie you down to a
(13:40):
chair and do this surgery on your eye. Now, the
reason they had to tie you down to a chair
is the cornea of your eye is the most densely
packed part of your body with nerve endings. I mean,
you know, if you get an eyelash in your eye,
(14:02):
it drives you nuts until you get it out of there,
you know, So it's very sensitive. So they'd have to
tie you down in this chair to get to get
the cataract and they would remove that lens of your
eye and move it out of the way. Well, it
(14:22):
turns out that they did cataract surgery an eight hundred BC.
A physician in ancient India called Shashruda. He did something
called a couching procedure where they would remove the cataract
in your eye and that surgery was even done earlier
(14:45):
than that was done by the ancient Egyptians and twenty
four hundred BC and the Babylonians and twenty two fifty BC.
They have papyrus scrolls. There's the Ebers papyrus scroll that
show was them actually doing this surgery on an Egyptian.
So it's this cyclical nature. I talked a little bit about,
(15:10):
you know, just the vending machine, but here we are
talking about medical you know, procedure that was done, you know,
and then they lost how it was done, and then
we did it again, and we're doing it today. So
many people believe that's a common there's a recent kind
(15:31):
of a procedure, but this procedure has been done multiple
times over the past. And these are just a couple
of examples if you like.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Another one one of my favorites is the Baghdad battery.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, the Bagdad battery. That's a good one, where they
found twelve of these batteries in Baghdad, and these are
they only can generate about one vault, a little over
a vault, but they found twelve of these and they're
(16:09):
two thousand years old. So I mean, the big question
is what did they use them for. We have many
of these things that we've found that we don't understand
and don't know what they used for use them for.
But yeah, that bagdad battery is very interesting. What are
(16:30):
they doing with batteries? You know, maybe they had light bulbs,
or maybe they were using them for some other purpose and.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
You have to take them to a special place to
recycle them, right.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, Yeah, I guess we found the I guess we
found the dumb Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
We talked about the impermanence of digital information. How does
that compare to the preservation methods of ancient societies?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, well, you know, over time, things have just progressed,
and I think it's just the way, you know, our
culture has kind of addressed knowledge because they don't really
think about it. We don't really think about how we're
going to save something for a long time. It just
(17:19):
sort of happens, you know, with the invention of DVD
drive or CD drive or even further back, the invention
of the book. Yeah, that was that was a way
to save your knowledge. But was that why it came up?
I mean it was also a way to disseminate information
(17:42):
and to share that with with others in the world
at that time. But knowledge travels on language, so without
some sort of language, we lose the knowledge and the information.
(18:08):
One of my favorite things is the Voyntage Manuscript. The
Voyage Manuscript is housed today at the Bernaki Museum in
at Yale University, and that document has been analyzed by
(18:32):
scholars and linguists and they've been able to determine that
the language in that document is real. I mean, it's
not something that someone dreamed up, you know, like Star
Wars language or you know, something like that. So they
have this document and it's dated to the fourteen hundreds,
(18:57):
was dated by the University of Arizona twenty eleven radiocarbon dated.
But the interesting thing about this document is no one
can decode it. And there's been many people, cryptologists and
scholars that have taken a look at it to try
(19:17):
to figure out what it's saying. But we've lost the
continuity of the language. And so this is a fantastic
example and I recommend you go out and take a
look at it. It's very amazing kind of a book.
(19:39):
There's I don't know how many pages are as many
it's got a lot of pages in it, but it's
very very amazing in what's in there.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I've seen documentary is about the Vointage manuscript, and some
of the art work in there is incredible.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, yeah, it's very surprising. It's almost otherworldly, say, I
don't know, very unique kind of pictures of plants and people.
Some of the plants don't really ring a bell with
ones that we're familiar with. So there's really a big
(20:19):
question about where that document comes from. They've they've been
able to determine. There were five different people that wrote
the book, and yeah, the language fits the laws of
a real language, so it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah. So what steps can individuals and organizations take to
ensure the preservation of our collective memory for future generations?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, so, I think the number one thing, and part
of the point of this book is to just be aware.
You know, awareness is a catalyst for change. So if
we want to change so that our knowledge will live on,
live on for our children and for our next generations
(21:14):
to come, we kind of have to wake up and
think about what we can do to make smart decisions
for the next generations so that they have, you know,
a better future, a brighter future than what we even.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Have absolutely, and a lot of the challenges that we're
seeing today is the defunding of institutions that maintain that knowledge.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, well this has been this has been a age
old problem many in history. These were emperors. Emperor Quinn
Shee in the year two hundred BC decided he didn't
(22:08):
want anyone to have books, so he burned all the libraries,
you know, and except his, he kept his, but he
burned everybody else's. And then if you were found with
a book, you had your face tattooed and you were
(22:29):
sent out to work on the Wall of China. So
you know, and there's many examples of book burnings over
the years, you know, for for various political reasons and
other other reasons as well. So you know, I don't
(22:49):
know what the solution is to that, but I think
the solution is we just keep copies, you know, make
sure there's copies in multiple places so we don't lose
the lose the knowledge.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Do you think privatization would be helpful?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah? Possibly, I think if I think if they do
a good job, they really think it through. You know,
there is an organization called the long Now Foundation. That
organization measures things in tens of thousands of years, and
(23:26):
so if you look on their website today would be
you know, zero two zero two five would be the year.
And they are trying to promote the long term and
the long thinking. They're building a clock in Texas that
(23:47):
will run for ten thousand years. So just trying to
get people to think, you know, start thinking about things.
Don't think about things in you know, just one hundred
years or just fifty years, think about it in a
thousand years or ten thousand years.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Absolutely. My guest is Jack Biollick. His book is called
Lost in Time, Our Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. Jack, please
share with our listeners where they can get your book
and find out more about you and your work.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Oh yeah, well there's a couple of plays of course, Amazon, Amazon,
Barnes and Noble. Book is available on hardback, paperback and ebook,
and you can go to my website and find it
as well. That's Lost in Time dot world is the website.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
And we'll be back with more of Jack after these words.
On the Own Times Radio Network.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
The Cutting Edge of Conscious Radio, ome Times Radio IOWMFM.
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Their net proceeds are final to support worldwide charity initiatives
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(25:05):
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Speaker 1 (25:15):
Back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this week is Jack Biollick,
his book Lost in Time Are Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge? Jack,
is it possible that we've already rediscovered ideas that existed
thousands of years ago without realizing it.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, that's that's a good one. You know, we find
things all the time. It's how history changes, you know,
we find older and older artifacts we find. Of course,
there's the go Beckley tuppy that was found in Turkey
(25:59):
with bring the changes are understanding of the past and
what's been done. I think there's been recent findings in
I'm gonna say in Peru. Yeah, in Peru they found
(26:19):
skulls that have been had They had cranial surgery on
the skulls and the surgery started in the four hundreds
and went through to the fourteen hundreds, and when the
skulls were operated on back in the year four hundred,
(26:41):
they found they were about forty effective, and as they
approached the end of when they were doing these surgeries,
they found they were ninety percent effective. So there's always
some information popping out. Oh, you may wonder, why, how
can you say it was forty percent or ninety percent?
(27:02):
While these skulls, they could see if the person lived,
the bone would grow back over the repaired part of
their cranium back over. They used a gold kind of
a plate that they would put in there, and if
they lived, the bone would grow back over it. And
(27:24):
if the person didn't live, then of course it didn't
grow back. So they have a really good understanding of
how effective they were. But there's new findings every year.
Something comes up.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
And it's fascinating that they actually accepted everyone's insurance back
in those days. So that was a that was really
the great discovery, is that the insurance industry was a
little a little more acceptable back when, way back when.
How do you propose that we balance the rapid advancement
of technology with the need to maintain accessible and enduring records.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, this is this is the challenge for us. How
can we do that? I think it has to be
a bigger picture. People have to have the big view
of the world, the world around us and what we're
doing instead of just doing it to be cheap or
(28:25):
the most inexpensive way to do something, or you know,
just for that commercial need. How about we do something
that's for the good of all of humankind. You know,
let's have that as one of our design criteria that
(28:46):
we use in our production values. Wouldn't that be novel?
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Absolutely? Do you see artificial intelligence as a boon or
a threat to knowledge?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, that's that's a great one, because think about it.
I can remember when the calculator came out, how everybody
was up in arms. Well, you know, the world's going
to end. We're not going to be able to calculate anymore,
and no we will remember how to add, subtract, and
multiply and divide. But that isn't what happened. We just
(29:23):
were able to do more and do more calculations. Even
further back, when the book came out or printed material
came out, a lot of the scholars of that time,
the philosophers of the time, thought that was the end
of mankind because we wouldn't have to remember anything. It
(29:45):
would be in a book or written down, but that
isn't at all what happened. So I think AI is
just another step. You know, the Internet was a step.
AI is another step. I think it's going to help us,
you know, And my hope is that it can actually
help us figure out how to keep our knowledge. Not
(30:09):
that it will necessarily keep it, but it could help
us figure out how to keep it for ages, for
years beyond, you know, when the information was created.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Your career spans from working with the United States Air
Force to a twenty five year tenure at Motorola's cell
phone business. How have these roles influenced your understanding of
knowledge management and preservation.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, well, I think it's given me the view of technology. Really,
my whole career has been around technology understanding that I've
done project roles, multi million dollar projects for banks and
communications communications systems for organizations, and it really has given
(31:06):
me pause to sit and think. As I went through
writing this book. This book took ten years to put together,
I think that gave me the background to really think
about the future, you know, being embedded in technology, where
(31:27):
I think the tendency is to think, hey, technology is great,
more technology is better. Well, it is, but within context,
as long as it can help us live longer, you know,
think better, keep our knowledge longer, I think it is good.
So we just need to keep that in mind.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Part of my career I spent forty six years in
the welding and industrial technology industry, and in the last
few years before my retirement, I was working with robotic
systems for welding. And one of the things about robots
is they will do what you program them to do.
They won't think for you, but they'll do the thinking
that you embedded into them, imbued into them. And so consequently,
(32:14):
the idea was that the gentleman who was the operator
could load the parts, take the program, and then initiate
the program, and that the robotic arm would go to
the places assigned do the wels the same way. Every time.
There were sensors to make sure that if anything was
out of shape or out of alignment, that they would
correct the path and do the work. And people would say, well,
(32:35):
those robots are taking over people's jobs and actuality, those
robots were actually enhancing the jobs because you still needed
operators to load them to make sure they were operating properly,
to unload them and reload them. What do you think
about robotics.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, you know, that's a great point, Victor, because in
many of these cases, what's happened is people's jobs may
have been replaced in some form, but then they go
on to do something else, you know, a bigger, a
bigger kind of a job. Now, your question was about robotics,
(33:13):
and you know, in terms of of assembly lines, you
know there there have been I'm going to go back
to Emperor Quinn in twenty ten BC, you know, the
I'll talk a little bit about the terra Cotta army.
(33:35):
You know, Emperor Quinn he built a mausoleum in two
hundred and ten BC. He was the first emperor of China.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
And.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
He built this mausoleum with seven thousand statues. Actually it's
over seven hundred thousand statues of warriors, of chariots, horses, musicians,
and imperial court figures to keep guard at his mausoleum.
And it covers an area of two point one million
(34:11):
square meters or five hundred and thirty eight acres. Five
hundred and thirty eight acres of these figures. The interesting
thing about these figures is they were built in a
assembly line sort of fashion, not exactly assembly line like
(34:31):
we would think of it today, And they didn't have robotics,
but they did a huge kind of an assembly line
to put that together. So in past years, maybe they
didn't have the machinery to do it, but they certainly
had the idea, you know, the base idea of putting
(34:53):
those things together.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Why do you think we humans are so bad at
holding onto wisdom even in the digital age?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, well, I'll go back to.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Know what we're aware of.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
You know, if we're thinking about just the we tend
to think just in a very linear way, but not
very far into the future. We just have to have
a wider purview of what it is we're doing and
think about things for the long term.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
You were involved in the White House's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program.
How did this experience shape your views on digital infrastructure
and its role in knowledge dissemination.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Well, digital infrastructure, of course is important, you know, being
able to share information with others is critical in our expansion,
and I think, I think what is going to happen
in the future is the more information that we have
(36:11):
that's spread out wider, the more likely it is that
it'll last through whatever, you know, whatever we go through
as a as a human race. I know there's been
many places where we've put time capsules in the ground
(36:37):
and in the hopes that these time capsules will be
there in the future. For example, Oglethorpe University has a
crypt of Civilization that they put in place in nineteen
thirty five. Their hope is that that's going to be
(36:58):
opened in the year eighty one thirteen. But we have
plenty of examples of time capsules that have been lost.
There's one rather famous one. George Washington buried one at
the White House in seventeen ninety three and it's never
(37:22):
been found. They've looked for it through different refurbishments and
changes at the White House. That time capsules still lost
to today. You know that we got to think about,
you know, not just I don't think a time capsule
(37:42):
is the answer. I think we have to spread the
information and I think our infrastructure can help with that.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
They couldn't even find it under the East Wing.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
I don't know. I hope they took their time and
looked for it.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
You've done a lot of humanitarian work, and that work
includes installing water purification systems in Haiti. How did these
efforts inform your perspective on the importance of preserving practical
knowledge for societal well being.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, so I had the opportunity to go to the
seventh poorest country in the world, and you know, you
see how they live their life simply, which is, you know,
that's good, nothing wrong with that, But you see how
(38:33):
their life could be so much better if they utilize
the same knowledge and wisdom that we have. You know
that That's the other part of this I haven't really
talked about yet, which is the proper application of knowledge,
which is wisdom is an important aspect to the knowledge
(38:57):
we have preserved. So we have to be mindful of
how we use this knowledge so that it's used in
a way that is helpful and not you know, negative purposes.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Absolutely. What do you see as the biggest challenges we
face in preserving knowledge in the twenty first century?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
I think, in my opinion, I think it I just
touched on it being wise, thinking about what we're doing
using the knowledge we have for wise applications. You know,
I just had a just listening to a family member
(39:44):
tell a story about an elderly person getting scammed out
of twenty five thousand dollars. You know, here's an example
of someone that is using knowledge in a way that
is not wise. You know, it is a wise way
(40:08):
of using the knowledge. So I think the challenge, and
you know, as we get more and more knowledge, we
have to also have more and more wisdom about how
to use that. So as AI comes down to the
under the forefront, here are we going to be wise
(40:30):
about it? You know, we have to be wise about it,
otherwise we could have negative consequences.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
And also adapt an understanding of how not everyone will
be technologically savvy and being good neighbors and good humans
and sharing that with them. Yeah, yeah, for sure in
everything that we do. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
My guest is Jack Biolick. His book is called Lost
in Time, Are Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. We'll be back
with more after these words on the Own Times Radio network.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
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Our projects are not broad mandates, nor are they overnight solutions,
but they bring the reassurance then no one is alone
(41:28):
and that someone cares to learn more, please visit Humanityhealing
dot org. Humanity Healing is where your Heart Is.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
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(41:59):
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Speaker 1 (42:10):
Back on destination Unlimited. My guest this week is Jack Biollick,
his book Lost in Time, Are Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. Jack,
can you discuss any innovative solutions or technologies that are
currently being developed to address the issue of knowledge preservation.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, well, we already touched on it briefly. There the
Long Now Foundation. They are taking many steps. They're working
in different areas to try to bring to the forefront
new thoughts, new ways of thinking about things. There's also
(42:57):
a branch of knowledge that has been seeing quite a bit.
It's okay, there's a there's a new branch of knowledge
management that's kind of been coming to the forefront. It's
called knowledge management, uh, And there are several books out
(43:20):
on this topic of how to manage our knowledge. So
I think is if we see a kind of an
uptick in how you know we manage our knowledge, I
think that will be a great help because we have
so much data, so much information. Uh. In my in
(43:44):
my book, I talk about that, the talk about the
digital dark Age. I talk about how our our knowledge
information has just been expanding on an exponential rate, how
much information. I took a look at the number of
(44:04):
patents being applied for If you take a look at
the graph of the number of patents, it's tremendous. It's
an explosive growth. So we really have to figure out
a way to save that knowledge.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
In a way and be able to.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Ferret through it to find where's the nuggets of information
we need to save? Do we need to save everything?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
You know?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
So?
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I remember a song lyric from the late nineteen sixties
that said knowledge is a deadly friend. When no one
sets the rules, the fate of all mankind, I fear
is in the hands of fools, is it?
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Well, yeah, that's great. Didn't know about that?
Speaker 1 (44:56):
A song by King Crimson.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Oh yeah, wow, I used to listen to them. Uh uh,
I probably heard that song. Maybe maybe that was a
subliminal suggestion to me.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
I think the song was called epitaph.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Ah okay, very good, good, good memory on that one.
So uh yeah, I think you know, we we often
will take a negative view towards some of these things.
You know, we're doomed or you know, this is this
(45:37):
is the end of it all, but in reality that
that rarely happened that you know that that isn't the case.
We we figure out a way, we get around it.
You know, things things get better. We're smart, so uh,
you know, we'll we'll see our way through it. But
(45:58):
there's often an easy way or a hard way. It's
a lot better if we take the easy way and
make the decisions for ourselves that are the wise ones.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
How do cultural differences impact the way societies value and
preserve knowledge.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Yeah, so if we take a look at the different
cultures around the world, you know, if we have a
culture that, you know, say, take a look at the
Indian culture. They used a technique of passing down knowledge
(46:46):
through stories, through the spoken word, And is that better
or worse? I don't. I don't think there's a thing
we can say about that that is negative. Spoken word
(47:08):
is good, that can work as long as the people
don't disappear for whatever reason, as long as they're around.
I think there's other cultures in the South Africa that
sort of area where there's a lot of storytelling that's done.
(47:31):
The written word is fine too, but again that can
get lost. So there's different techniques. I've seen where they
used beads to store information and knowledge. I think that
was in South America. They've found beads where they use
(47:54):
them for counting and for embedding information and to be
different cultures do have different ways of saving the information.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
How many individuals our listeners out there contribute to the
preservation of knowledge in their daily lives.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Well, we all do. Every single one of us, you know,
contributes in some way to the knowledge and the knowledge
base that we have. No matter what you do, you're
part of the big picture. You interact with other people,
(48:40):
or you yourself are a person who stores and saves information,
or you store and save information for other people. So
we all have a role to play and we all
are important in doing the right things.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
So years from now, what do you think that the
civilizations will say about our era, are we preserving wisdom
or setting ourselves out for another dark age? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Well, the ultimate litmus test on that will be where
are we in a thousand years? But you know, you
can imagine someone in even five hundred years or two
hundred years finding a buried cell phone, and if they
(49:38):
could take that cell phone and turn it on, would
they be able to use it, or to find any
of the information that's on it, or be able to
make any sense out of it. They might just think
it's a piece of metal or something like that. So
(50:00):
it's the crux of the problem is we need to
think about how we save the information. So, for example,
today we have libraries that have huge problems. I just
read an article where JPEG standard is going to change.
There's going to be a new one come out, and
(50:23):
what do libraries do with all the JPEGs they have
of pictures and they have huge terabytes of stores of information.
You know, it's a big problem for libraries and do
they convert it to this new format and what do
they do? So there's a lot of people, a lot
(50:44):
of smart people working on this, but it's a big problem.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
And we don't really.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
We always think, you know, the latest thing is the
best thing. Well maybe it is, but make sure we
give ourselves a path to keep the information that's old.
I've got an interesting story about that. I interviewed the
curator for the Internet Museum in San Francisco, and at
(51:13):
that museum they have all of the original ibms and
IBM PCs and original Apple computers, and he was telling
me a story that those computers all use floppy discs
to store and save the information, and those floppy discs
(51:37):
only last a short time and then they become brittle
and fall apart, so they can't read them anymore. And
I don't even believe you can buy them anymore. I
don't know. But what they do at the museum is
they take the programs that are on those computers and
they print them on paper. I mean, is that going
(52:00):
backwards kind of interesting? So, you know, that's an example
of how we got to think about things, you know,
to make sure that they're extendable into the future.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
The philosopher George Santiana said, those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it. Do you agree?
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yeah, you know, I do, and I think there's proof
of it. I think we have plenty of proof. We
have examples all over the place. So I didn't talk
about this example, but I'm going to talk about it
now because it's close to all of us, something that
we're all very familiar with, and that's the toilet.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
You know.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
The toilet is commonly believed that it was you know,
invented by Thomas Crapper in eighteen sixty one. That is
his real name, by the way, but in fact he
only invented an improved version of the toilet. The modern
(53:11):
toilet was invented in the fifteen hundreds in England for
use in castles. But the Babylonians also had sewers in
twenty nine hundred BC, as did the Romans in five
hundred BC. However, in the Middle Ages in Europe, they
(53:31):
had no sewers or toilets. The sewage ran off the
top of buildings and into the middle of streets and
may have contributed to the Black plague. So if we
don't think about things, and don't remember things, and don't
utilize our knowledge, we will go through difficult times. You know,
(53:55):
those people in the thirteen hundreds in the Middle Ages
did not have have a good time. You know, that
was not something we want to go through again. So
it's important, you know, this is a sanitary purpose, but
that we don't forget our knowledge and don't lose it absolutely.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
What message do you hope readers take away from Lost
in Time?
Speaker 2 (54:21):
Well, the number one thing that to keep in mind,
and this is in the last chapter of the book,
is be humble, you know, be open to new ideas,
be open to old ideas. You know, be mindful about
(54:43):
what you're using, what knowledge you're using, and where it's from,
and what you're using it for. I think a lot
of times, I know, in business, I've been in places where,
you know, they may have information from a previous project
or previous thing that was done, and they don't want
(55:04):
to use it because they say, well, this time it's different.
Well maybe not. Maybe this time you could use some
of that information. Maybe there's parts of it you can
use that will help you to do it quicker, faster, smarter, cheaper, easier.
So be humble and think about being wise. You know,
(55:28):
those are the two key things.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
The wisdom of my guest Jack Biolick his book Lost
in Time are forgotten and vanishing knowledge Jack one more time,
please chair with listeners. Whether you get your book and
find out more about you and your work.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yeah, thank you Victor. Yeah, they can go to Amazon
or Barnes and Noble look it up. Lost in Time
are Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. You can also go to
my website, it's Lost in Time dot world and find
information there and links to the hardback, south back and ebook.
Speaker 1 (56:06):
Jack. Thank you so much for joining us ensuring this
important and amazing information.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Well, thank you, Victor, thank you for having me on
this broadcast, and.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
Thank you for joining us on Destination Unlimited. I'm Victor
the Voice Furman. Have a wonderful week
My name is Victor Furman. Some call me the Voice.
I've always been fascinated with human nature, spirituality, science and
the crossroads at which they meet. Join me now and
we will explore these topics and so much more with
fascinating guests, authors and experts who will guide us to
(00:28):
destination unlimited. What if ninety eight percent of human history
has vanished along with the wisdom we need most today?
(00:48):
My guest this week on Destination Unlimited, Jack Arbiolic, says
it's time for us to rethink how much we really
know and how much is waiting to be rediscovered. Jack
Biolick's life and career have spanned the globe and technological spectrum.
His worldview is shaped by living in many states at
an early age and traveling the world, giving him a
(01:11):
unique lens on how different cultures operate. His professional career
took him from working for the United States Air Force
to a long impactful career at Motorola and eventually to
contributions in White House technology initiatives and humanitarian efforts in Haiti.
As a global innovator and thought leader, Jack now dedicates
(01:34):
his time to exploring the cyclical nature of human knowledge,
how we gain it, how we lose it, and most importantly,
how we can do better at preserving it for future generations.
His website is Jrbiolic dot com and he joins me
this week to share his amazing book Lost in Time,
(01:54):
Our Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. Please join me in welcoming
today Destination Unlimited, Jack Biolick.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Welcome Jack, Well, thank you, Victor. Happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Jack. You've lived in nine different states by the age
of twenty five and visited many countries. Have these diverse
experiences shaped your perspective on global cultures and systems?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, you know, Victor. I think what happened is as
you're growing up, you know, and you're moving from place
to place, that really gives your mind an expansive view
of things, and you know, an overview of things. You know,
you're not locked down to one particular way of thinking.
(02:44):
I think it helps, not that you necessarily need that,
but I think it helped me to get a bigger
view of the world around us, and you know, kind
of open open my mind up to new ideas and
thoughts and ways of thinking.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
You share that only one point six percent of knowledge
of ancient knowledge is still retained that sounds almost unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, yeah, well, you know you can do the math.
They estimate now, it depends on who you ask, but
of course it's estimated that humankind's been around three hundred
thousand years and we've got about five thousand years recorded,
(03:35):
so you know, we just have a small percentage. And
even of that five thousand years, we only have portions
of it, you know, so it's probably less than one
point six but yeah, it's very little.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
What about some of the architectural discoveries of things that
are dating back beyond where we thought we were.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, well there's many things that we've found that we've seen.
Of course, the biggest one in front of us. All right, now,
you know the pyramids, the Great Pyramids in Egypt. You know,
there's great mysteries surrounding those structures. How they made them,
(04:26):
how they put them together. My background, I have a
background in project management and I just did some simple
mathematical kind of computations and those pyramids are just mind
boggling on how they can put them together. So here
I'll give you an example. So we have two point
(04:49):
three million three ton stones or larger that are placed there,
and one of the Pyramids, and if you do math,
you would have to lay one stone every two minutes,
twelve hours a day, three hundred and fifty nine days
(05:10):
a year. I took a few days out for rain
for twenty years, So basically for twenty years, you know,
every two point three minutes, you're laying a stone, and
it's got to be exactly even and you know, level
and perfectly put together. It's mind boggling. I mean, we
(05:33):
I don't even know that we could do that. So
we have architectural things in front of us that have
made us question, how did these people do this?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Absolutely? What inspired you to write lost in Time are
forgotten and vanishing knowledge? Was there a particular event or
realization that prompted this?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, you know, the way that really came about was
kind of an inspirational moment sitting there watching thing was
National Geographic or the History Channel, one of those, and
you know, they start talking about a vending machine in
(06:22):
ancient Rome, and that by itself doesn't really strike one,
except that if you realize, oh wait, they had a
vending machine in ten BC that dispensed holy water at temples.
(06:43):
You'd put in a Roman coin and holy water would
come out, and they even had a more sophisticated version
where the holy water would come out and steam on
the face of an idol so that it would inspire
(07:04):
the worshipers there at the site to give more money.
Basically was the impetus behind that. But you know, just saying, well, wow,
they had a vending machine in ten BC, Well wait
a minute, what happened in the middle. What happened in
between ten BC and the sixteen hundreds, when that's really
(07:28):
when the most the modern types of vending machines appeared.
In the sixteen hundreds in England, they had in taverns
they would have a he called an honor box. You'd
put a coin in and the lid would pop open
and you could take pipe tobacco out and put it
(07:49):
in your pipe. But you know what happened in between? Then?
Why did we forget what happened? And that was just
the moment of inspiration that got me to thinking and
looking further into the title of the book, Lost in
Time are Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. How can you write
(08:11):
a book about forgotten and vanishing knowledge? You know, if
it's forgotten, how can you write about it? Well? Here
you go, this is this is the start of finding
that kind of information.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Your background is in electrical engineering and as you mentioned,
project management. How did your technical education and professional experiences
influence the themes and insights presented in your book?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
As we as well look at some of these items
that that are discovered in the book, also started to
look into the future also, So part of the book
is about the past. Part of the book is about
the present and what we're doing with knowledge today. You know,
(09:02):
today we're saving our information on you know, thumb drives
or USB drives and SSD drives and so on. We've
got a tremendous amount of information packed into a small space.
If we look back in time, they had kind of
(09:24):
an opposite sort of thing going on, where we had
a stone tablet which you could put some information on.
Of course it's not very information dense, but that stone
tablet lasted for thousands of years. A you know, a
DVD or CD might last for thirty or forty years. Surprisingly,
(09:48):
the pits inside a DVD or CD, they'll oxidize and
it'll eventually become unreadable. But even our SSD and USB drives,
how long are they going to last? How long does
your computer last five ten years, and you know you
got to get a new one. So our information is
(10:12):
getting more dense. The probability of losing that information and
great amounts of information are becoming more and more possible
and more and more probable with the way we're going.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I remember going to school back in the seventies and
the subways of New York and there was a sign
in the signage, the advertising signage in the subway, and
one said, what will you do when this computer takes
out your jo? It takes over your job? And somebody
had scribbled with a crayon, pulled the plug? What happens
(10:50):
when we pull the plug? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, Well could that happen? I mean, could something happen
that might caused the problem that we might lose this information?
You know, back in the eighteen fifties, there was a
it's called a Carrington event. Carrington event. You know, you
(11:16):
can look this up, you can google it. Carrington event
was like a super sun spot, you know, an emp
electromagnetic pulse from the Sun that went out and hit
the Earth. And in the eighteen fifties, now we didn't
have a lot of lines, you know, a lot of
(11:40):
we didn't have power lines and all that sort of thing,
But we did have telegraph lines, and that sun spot
sent this electromagnetic pulse to the Earth and it energized
the power of the lines in the air on the poles,
and heard fires at the end of the in the
(12:02):
telegraph stations. So now that's a pretty rare event. We
only have records of it happening once. Could it happen again?
What would be the effects of it? You know, it
could be quite extensive and leave us at, you know,
(12:23):
in quite a spot.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I'm not I'm not an astrophysicist, but if I'm not mistaken,
the past few months, we've seen some not a Carrington event,
but tremendous solar activity.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, they've had some pretty strong ones, and of course
tho's cause a lot of the lights and northern lights.
But you know, could something like that happen? Of course,
you know, it's it's possible. It's possible that it could happen.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Your book delves into the cyclical nature of knowledge, loss
and rediscovery throughout history. Can you give us some examples?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Oh? Yeah, so there are many examples, and I'll give
you a couple of these here, a couple little secrets
that are hidden in the book. So, you know, we
think about cataract surgery. I don't know if everybody's familiar
(13:18):
with cataract surgery. It's where the lens of the eye
becomes cloudy. Typically that happens with age as you get older.
And a modern cataract surgery started in the seventeen hundreds
was done. They would basically tie you down to a
(13:40):
chair and do this surgery on your eye. Now, the
reason they had to tie you down to a chair
is the cornea of your eye is the most densely
packed part of your body with nerve endings. I mean,
you know, if you get an eyelash in your eye,
(14:02):
it drives you nuts until you get it out of there,
you know, So it's very sensitive. So they'd have to
tie you down in this chair to get to get
the cataract and they would remove that lens of your
eye and move it out of the way. Well, it
(14:22):
turns out that they did cataract surgery an eight hundred BC.
A physician in ancient India called Shashruda. He did something
called a couching procedure where they would remove the cataract
in your eye and that surgery was even done earlier
(14:45):
than that was done by the ancient Egyptians and twenty
four hundred BC and the Babylonians and twenty two fifty BC.
They have papyrus scrolls. There's the Ebers papyrus scroll that
show was them actually doing this surgery on an Egyptian.
So it's this cyclical nature. I talked a little bit about,
(15:10):
you know, just the vending machine, but here we are
talking about medical you know, procedure that was done, you know,
and then they lost how it was done, and then
we did it again, and we're doing it today. So
many people believe that's a common there's a recent kind
(15:31):
of a procedure, but this procedure has been done multiple
times over the past. And these are just a couple
of examples if you like.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Another one one of my favorites is the Baghdad battery.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah, the Bagdad battery. That's a good one, where they
found twelve of these batteries in Baghdad, and these are
they only can generate about one vault, a little over
a vault, but they found twelve of these and they're
(16:09):
two thousand years old. So I mean, the big question
is what did they use them for. We have many
of these things that we've found that we don't understand
and don't know what they used for use them for.
But yeah, that bagdad battery is very interesting. What are
(16:30):
they doing with batteries? You know, maybe they had light bulbs,
or maybe they were using them for some other purpose and.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
You have to take them to a special place to
recycle them, right.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, Yeah, I guess we found the I guess we
found the dumb Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
We talked about the impermanence of digital information. How does
that compare to the preservation methods of ancient societies?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, well, you know, over time, things have just progressed,
and I think it's just the way, you know, our
culture has kind of addressed knowledge because they don't really
think about it. We don't really think about how we're
going to save something for a long time. It just
(17:19):
sort of happens, you know, with the invention of DVD
drive or CD drive or even further back, the invention
of the book. Yeah, that was that was a way
to save your knowledge. But was that why it came up?
I mean it was also a way to disseminate information
(17:42):
and to share that with with others in the world
at that time. But knowledge travels on language, so without
some sort of language, we lose the knowledge and the information.
(18:08):
One of my favorite things is the Voyntage Manuscript. The
Voyage Manuscript is housed today at the Bernaki Museum in
at Yale University, and that document has been analyzed by
(18:32):
scholars and linguists and they've been able to determine that
the language in that document is real. I mean, it's
not something that someone dreamed up, you know, like Star
Wars language or you know, something like that. So they
have this document and it's dated to the fourteen hundreds,
(18:57):
was dated by the University of Arizona twenty eleven radiocarbon dated.
But the interesting thing about this document is no one
can decode it. And there's been many people, cryptologists and
scholars that have taken a look at it to try
(19:17):
to figure out what it's saying. But we've lost the
continuity of the language. And so this is a fantastic
example and I recommend you go out and take a
look at it. It's very amazing kind of a book.
(19:39):
There's I don't know how many pages are as many
it's got a lot of pages in it, but it's
very very amazing in what's in there.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I've seen documentary is about the Vointage manuscript, and some
of the art work in there is incredible.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, yeah, it's very surprising. It's almost otherworldly, say, I
don't know, very unique kind of pictures of plants and people.
Some of the plants don't really ring a bell with
ones that we're familiar with. So there's really a big
(20:19):
question about where that document comes from. They've they've been
able to determine. There were five different people that wrote
the book, and yeah, the language fits the laws of
a real language, so it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah. So what steps can individuals and organizations take to
ensure the preservation of our collective memory for future generations?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, so, I think the number one thing, and part
of the point of this book is to just be aware.
You know, awareness is a catalyst for change. So if
we want to change so that our knowledge will live on,
live on for our children and for our next generations
(21:14):
to come, we kind of have to wake up and
think about what we can do to make smart decisions
for the next generations so that they have, you know,
a better future, a brighter future than what we even.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Have absolutely, and a lot of the challenges that we're
seeing today is the defunding of institutions that maintain that knowledge.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, well this has been this has been a age
old problem many in history. These were emperors. Emperor Quinn
Shee in the year two hundred BC decided he didn't
(22:08):
want anyone to have books, so he burned all the libraries,
you know, and except his, he kept his, but he
burned everybody else's. And then if you were found with
a book, you had your face tattooed and you were
(22:29):
sent out to work on the Wall of China. So
you know, and there's many examples of book burnings over
the years, you know, for for various political reasons and
other other reasons as well. So you know, I don't
(22:49):
know what the solution is to that, but I think
the solution is we just keep copies, you know, make
sure there's copies in multiple places so we don't lose
the lose the knowledge.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Do you think privatization would be helpful?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah? Possibly, I think if I think if they do
a good job, they really think it through. You know,
there is an organization called the long Now Foundation. That
organization measures things in tens of thousands of years, and
(23:26):
so if you look on their website today would be
you know, zero two zero two five would be the year.
And they are trying to promote the long term and
the long thinking. They're building a clock in Texas that
(23:47):
will run for ten thousand years. So just trying to
get people to think, you know, start thinking about things.
Don't think about things in you know, just one hundred
years or just fifty years, think about it in a
thousand years or ten thousand years.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Absolutely. My guest is Jack Biollick. His book is called
Lost in Time, Our Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. Jack, please
share with our listeners where they can get your book
and find out more about you and your work.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Oh yeah, well there's a couple of plays of course, Amazon, Amazon,
Barnes and Noble. Book is available on hardback, paperback and ebook,
and you can go to my website and find it
as well. That's Lost in Time dot world is the website.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
And we'll be back with more of Jack after these words.
On the Own Times Radio Network.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
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Speaker 1 (25:15):
Back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this week is Jack Biollick,
his book Lost in Time Are Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge? Jack,
is it possible that we've already rediscovered ideas that existed
thousands of years ago without realizing it.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, that's that's a good one. You know, we find
things all the time. It's how history changes, you know,
we find older and older artifacts we find. Of course,
there's the go Beckley tuppy that was found in Turkey
(25:59):
with bring the changes are understanding of the past and
what's been done. I think there's been recent findings in
I'm gonna say in Peru. Yeah, in Peru they found
(26:19):
skulls that have been had They had cranial surgery on
the skulls and the surgery started in the four hundreds
and went through to the fourteen hundreds, and when the
skulls were operated on back in the year four hundred,
(26:41):
they found they were about forty effective, and as they
approached the end of when they were doing these surgeries,
they found they were ninety percent effective. So there's always
some information popping out. Oh, you may wonder, why, how
can you say it was forty percent or ninety percent?
(27:02):
While these skulls, they could see if the person lived,
the bone would grow back over the repaired part of
their cranium back over. They used a gold kind of
a plate that they would put in there, and if
they lived, the bone would grow back over it. And
(27:24):
if the person didn't live, then of course it didn't
grow back. So they have a really good understanding of
how effective they were. But there's new findings every year.
Something comes up.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
And it's fascinating that they actually accepted everyone's insurance back
in those days. So that was a that was really
the great discovery, is that the insurance industry was a
little a little more acceptable back when, way back when.
How do you propose that we balance the rapid advancement
of technology with the need to maintain accessible and enduring records.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, this is this is the challenge for us. How
can we do that? I think it has to be
a bigger picture. People have to have the big view
of the world, the world around us and what we're
doing instead of just doing it to be cheap or
(28:25):
the most inexpensive way to do something, or you know,
just for that commercial need. How about we do something
that's for the good of all of humankind. You know,
let's have that as one of our design criteria that
(28:46):
we use in our production values. Wouldn't that be novel?
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Absolutely? Do you see artificial intelligence as a boon or
a threat to knowledge?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, that's that's a great one, because think about it.
I can remember when the calculator came out, how everybody
was up in arms. Well, you know, the world's going
to end. We're not going to be able to calculate anymore,
and no we will remember how to add, subtract, and
multiply and divide. But that isn't what happened. We just
(29:23):
were able to do more and do more calculations. Even
further back, when the book came out or printed material
came out, a lot of the scholars of that time,
the philosophers of the time, thought that was the end
of mankind because we wouldn't have to remember anything. It
(29:45):
would be in a book or written down, but that
isn't at all what happened. So I think AI is
just another step. You know, the Internet was a step.
AI is another step. I think it's going to help us,
you know, And my hope is that it can actually
help us figure out how to keep our knowledge. Not
(30:09):
that it will necessarily keep it, but it could help
us figure out how to keep it for ages, for
years beyond, you know, when the information was created.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Your career spans from working with the United States Air
Force to a twenty five year tenure at Motorola's cell
phone business. How have these roles influenced your understanding of
knowledge management and preservation.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, well, I think it's given me the view of technology. Really,
my whole career has been around technology understanding that I've
done project roles, multi million dollar projects for banks and
communications communications systems for organizations, and it really has given
(31:06):
me pause to sit and think. As I went through
writing this book. This book took ten years to put together,
I think that gave me the background to really think
about the future, you know, being embedded in technology, where
(31:27):
I think the tendency is to think, hey, technology is great,
more technology is better. Well, it is, but within context,
as long as it can help us live longer, you know,
think better, keep our knowledge longer, I think it is good.
So we just need to keep that in mind.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Part of my career I spent forty six years in
the welding and industrial technology industry, and in the last
few years before my retirement, I was working with robotic
systems for welding. And one of the things about robots
is they will do what you program them to do.
They won't think for you, but they'll do the thinking
that you embedded into them, imbued into them. And so consequently,
(32:14):
the idea was that the gentleman who was the operator
could load the parts, take the program, and then initiate
the program, and that the robotic arm would go to
the places assigned do the wels the same way. Every time.
There were sensors to make sure that if anything was
out of shape or out of alignment, that they would
correct the path and do the work. And people would say, well,
(32:35):
those robots are taking over people's jobs and actuality, those
robots were actually enhancing the jobs because you still needed
operators to load them to make sure they were operating properly,
to unload them and reload them. What do you think
about robotics.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, you know, that's a great point, Victor, because in
many of these cases, what's happened is people's jobs may
have been replaced in some form, but then they go
on to do something else, you know, a bigger, a
bigger kind of a job. Now, your question was about robotics,
(33:13):
and you know, in terms of of assembly lines, you
know there there have been I'm going to go back
to Emperor Quinn in twenty ten BC, you know, the
I'll talk a little bit about the terra Cotta army.
(33:35):
You know, Emperor Quinn he built a mausoleum in two
hundred and ten BC. He was the first emperor of China.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
And.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
He built this mausoleum with seven thousand statues. Actually it's
over seven hundred thousand statues of warriors, of chariots, horses, musicians,
and imperial court figures to keep guard at his mausoleum.
And it covers an area of two point one million
(34:11):
square meters or five hundred and thirty eight acres. Five
hundred and thirty eight acres of these figures. The interesting
thing about these figures is they were built in a
assembly line sort of fashion, not exactly assembly line like
(34:31):
we would think of it today, And they didn't have robotics,
but they did a huge kind of an assembly line
to put that together. So in past years, maybe they
didn't have the machinery to do it, but they certainly
had the idea, you know, the base idea of putting
(34:53):
those things together.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Why do you think we humans are so bad at
holding onto wisdom even in the digital age?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, well, I'll go back to.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Know what we're aware of.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
You know, if we're thinking about just the we tend
to think just in a very linear way, but not
very far into the future. We just have to have
a wider purview of what it is we're doing and
think about things for the long term.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
You were involved in the White House's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program.
How did this experience shape your views on digital infrastructure
and its role in knowledge dissemination.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Well, digital infrastructure, of course is important, you know, being
able to share information with others is critical in our expansion,
and I think, I think what is going to happen
in the future is the more information that we have
(36:11):
that's spread out wider, the more likely it is that
it'll last through whatever, you know, whatever we go through
as a as a human race. I know there's been
many places where we've put time capsules in the ground
(36:37):
and in the hopes that these time capsules will be
there in the future. For example, Oglethorpe University has a
crypt of Civilization that they put in place in nineteen
thirty five. Their hope is that that's going to be
(36:58):
opened in the year eighty one thirteen. But we have
plenty of examples of time capsules that have been lost.
There's one rather famous one. George Washington buried one at
the White House in seventeen ninety three and it's never
(37:22):
been found. They've looked for it through different refurbishments and
changes at the White House. That time capsules still lost
to today. You know that we got to think about,
you know, not just I don't think a time capsule
(37:42):
is the answer. I think we have to spread the
information and I think our infrastructure can help with that.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
They couldn't even find it under the East Wing.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
I don't know. I hope they took their time and
looked for it.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
You've done a lot of humanitarian work, and that work
includes installing water purification systems in Haiti. How did these
efforts inform your perspective on the importance of preserving practical
knowledge for societal well being.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, so I had the opportunity to go to the
seventh poorest country in the world, and you know, you
see how they live their life simply, which is, you know,
that's good, nothing wrong with that, But you see how
(38:33):
their life could be so much better if they utilize
the same knowledge and wisdom that we have. You know
that That's the other part of this I haven't really
talked about yet, which is the proper application of knowledge,
which is wisdom is an important aspect to the knowledge
(38:57):
we have preserved. So we have to be mindful of
how we use this knowledge so that it's used in
a way that is helpful and not you know, negative purposes.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Absolutely. What do you see as the biggest challenges we
face in preserving knowledge in the twenty first century?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
I think, in my opinion, I think it I just
touched on it being wise, thinking about what we're doing
using the knowledge we have for wise applications. You know,
I just had a just listening to a family member
(39:44):
tell a story about an elderly person getting scammed out
of twenty five thousand dollars. You know, here's an example
of someone that is using knowledge in a way that
is not wise. You know, it is a wise way
(40:08):
of using the knowledge. So I think the challenge, and
you know, as we get more and more knowledge, we
have to also have more and more wisdom about how
to use that. So as AI comes down to the
under the forefront, here are we going to be wise
(40:30):
about it? You know, we have to be wise about it,
otherwise we could have negative consequences.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
And also adapt an understanding of how not everyone will
be technologically savvy and being good neighbors and good humans
and sharing that with them. Yeah, yeah, for sure in
everything that we do. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
My guest is Jack Biolick. His book is called Lost
in Time, Are Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. We'll be back
with more after these words on the Own Times Radio network.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
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Our projects are not broad mandates, nor are they overnight solutions,
but they bring the reassurance then no one is alone
(41:28):
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Speaker 4 (41:38):
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Speaker 1 (42:10):
Back on destination Unlimited. My guest this week is Jack Biollick,
his book Lost in Time, Are Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. Jack,
can you discuss any innovative solutions or technologies that are
currently being developed to address the issue of knowledge preservation.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, well, we already touched on it briefly. There the
Long Now Foundation. They are taking many steps. They're working
in different areas to try to bring to the forefront
new thoughts, new ways of thinking about things. There's also
(42:57):
a branch of knowledge that has been seeing quite a bit.
It's okay, there's a there's a new branch of knowledge
management that's kind of been coming to the forefront. It's
called knowledge management, uh, And there are several books out
(43:20):
on this topic of how to manage our knowledge. So
I think is if we see a kind of an
uptick in how you know we manage our knowledge, I
think that will be a great help because we have
so much data, so much information. Uh. In my in
(43:44):
my book, I talk about that, the talk about the
digital dark Age. I talk about how our our knowledge
information has just been expanding on an exponential rate, how
much information. I took a look at the number of
(44:04):
patents being applied for If you take a look at
the graph of the number of patents, it's tremendous. It's
an explosive growth. So we really have to figure out
a way to save that knowledge.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
In a way and be able to.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Ferret through it to find where's the nuggets of information
we need to save? Do we need to save everything?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
You know?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
So?
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I remember a song lyric from the late nineteen sixties
that said knowledge is a deadly friend. When no one
sets the rules, the fate of all mankind, I fear
is in the hands of fools, is it?
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Well, yeah, that's great. Didn't know about that?
Speaker 1 (44:56):
A song by King Crimson.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Oh yeah, wow, I used to listen to them. Uh uh,
I probably heard that song. Maybe maybe that was a
subliminal suggestion to me.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
I think the song was called epitaph.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Ah okay, very good, good, good memory on that one.
So uh yeah, I think you know, we we often
will take a negative view towards some of these things.
You know, we're doomed or you know, this is this
(45:37):
is the end of it all, but in reality that
that rarely happened that you know that that isn't the case.
We we figure out a way, we get around it.
You know, things things get better. We're smart, so uh,
you know, we'll we'll see our way through it. But
(45:58):
there's often an easy way or a hard way. It's
a lot better if we take the easy way and
make the decisions for ourselves that are the wise ones.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
How do cultural differences impact the way societies value and
preserve knowledge.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Yeah, so if we take a look at the different
cultures around the world, you know, if we have a
culture that, you know, say, take a look at the
Indian culture. They used a technique of passing down knowledge
(46:46):
through stories, through the spoken word, And is that better
or worse? I don't. I don't think there's a thing
we can say about that that is negative. Spoken word
(47:08):
is good, that can work as long as the people
don't disappear for whatever reason, as long as they're around.
I think there's other cultures in the South Africa that
sort of area where there's a lot of storytelling that's done.
(47:31):
The written word is fine too, but again that can
get lost. So there's different techniques. I've seen where they
used beads to store information and knowledge. I think that
was in South America. They've found beads where they use
(47:54):
them for counting and for embedding information and to be
different cultures do have different ways of saving the information.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
How many individuals our listeners out there contribute to the
preservation of knowledge in their daily lives.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Well, we all do. Every single one of us, you know,
contributes in some way to the knowledge and the knowledge
base that we have. No matter what you do, you're
part of the big picture. You interact with other people,
(48:40):
or you yourself are a person who stores and saves information,
or you store and save information for other people. So
we all have a role to play and we all
are important in doing the right things.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
So years from now, what do you think that the
civilizations will say about our era, are we preserving wisdom
or setting ourselves out for another dark age? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Well, the ultimate litmus test on that will be where
are we in a thousand years? But you know, you
can imagine someone in even five hundred years or two
hundred years finding a buried cell phone, and if they
(49:38):
could take that cell phone and turn it on, would
they be able to use it, or to find any
of the information that's on it, or be able to
make any sense out of it. They might just think
it's a piece of metal or something like that. So
(50:00):
it's the crux of the problem is we need to
think about how we save the information. So, for example,
today we have libraries that have huge problems. I just
read an article where JPEG standard is going to change.
There's going to be a new one come out, and
(50:23):
what do libraries do with all the JPEGs they have
of pictures and they have huge terabytes of stores of information.
You know, it's a big problem for libraries and do
they convert it to this new format and what do
they do? So there's a lot of people, a lot
(50:44):
of smart people working on this, but it's a big problem.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
And we don't really.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
We always think, you know, the latest thing is the
best thing. Well maybe it is, but make sure we
give ourselves a path to keep the information that's old.
I've got an interesting story about that. I interviewed the
curator for the Internet Museum in San Francisco, and at
(51:13):
that museum they have all of the original ibms and
IBM PCs and original Apple computers, and he was telling
me a story that those computers all use floppy discs
to store and save the information, and those floppy discs
(51:37):
only last a short time and then they become brittle
and fall apart, so they can't read them anymore. And
I don't even believe you can buy them anymore. I
don't know. But what they do at the museum is
they take the programs that are on those computers and
they print them on paper. I mean, is that going
(52:00):
backwards kind of interesting? So, you know, that's an example
of how we got to think about things, you know,
to make sure that they're extendable into the future.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
The philosopher George Santiana said, those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it. Do you agree?
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yeah, you know, I do, and I think there's proof
of it. I think we have plenty of proof. We
have examples all over the place. So I didn't talk
about this example, but I'm going to talk about it
now because it's close to all of us, something that
we're all very familiar with, and that's the toilet.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
You know.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
The toilet is commonly believed that it was you know,
invented by Thomas Crapper in eighteen sixty one. That is
his real name, by the way, but in fact he
only invented an improved version of the toilet. The modern
(53:11):
toilet was invented in the fifteen hundreds in England for
use in castles. But the Babylonians also had sewers in
twenty nine hundred BC, as did the Romans in five
hundred BC. However, in the Middle Ages in Europe, they
(53:31):
had no sewers or toilets. The sewage ran off the
top of buildings and into the middle of streets and
may have contributed to the Black plague. So if we
don't think about things, and don't remember things, and don't
utilize our knowledge, we will go through difficult times. You know,
(53:55):
those people in the thirteen hundreds in the Middle Ages
did not have have a good time. You know, that
was not something we want to go through again. So
it's important, you know, this is a sanitary purpose, but
that we don't forget our knowledge and don't lose it absolutely.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
What message do you hope readers take away from Lost
in Time?
Speaker 2 (54:21):
Well, the number one thing that to keep in mind,
and this is in the last chapter of the book,
is be humble, you know, be open to new ideas,
be open to old ideas. You know, be mindful about
(54:43):
what you're using, what knowledge you're using, and where it's from,
and what you're using it for. I think a lot
of times, I know, in business, I've been in places where,
you know, they may have information from a previous project
or previous thing that was done, and they don't want
(55:04):
to use it because they say, well, this time it's different.
Well maybe not. Maybe this time you could use some
of that information. Maybe there's parts of it you can
use that will help you to do it quicker, faster, smarter, cheaper, easier.
So be humble and think about being wise. You know,
(55:28):
those are the two key things.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
The wisdom of my guest Jack Biolick his book Lost
in Time are forgotten and vanishing knowledge Jack one more time,
please chair with listeners. Whether you get your book and
find out more about you and your work.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yeah, thank you Victor. Yeah, they can go to Amazon
or Barnes and Noble look it up. Lost in Time
are Forgotten and Vanishing Knowledge. You can also go to
my website, it's Lost in Time dot world and find
information there and links to the hardback, south back and ebook.
Speaker 1 (56:06):
Jack. Thank you so much for joining us ensuring this
important and amazing information.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Well, thank you, Victor, thank you for having me on
this broadcast, and.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
Thank you for joining us on Destination Unlimited. I'm Victor
the Voice Furman. Have a wonderful week
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.