In general, I’d expect sentences that convey information about the scientific process to be much superior to sentences that contain merely some clever concoction of facts. Analogous to teaching a man to fish versus just giving him some fish he would have caught anyways given the right method. The only exception would be information that is extremely unlikely to be experimentally discovered* (yet the previous generation stumbled upon) but the expected value of which would outweigh some optimization of the scientific method. (*Before a cataclysm)
Come to think of it, the most such important piece of information (and also keeping with the hypothetical) would be information about the cataclysm (only applies for anthropogenic cataclysms). The reason is that ceteris paribus, a similar pattern (which we would even help along with our usual sentences) could well lead to a similar outcome (another catacylsm). Gotta break the circle.
Alternatively, what about “ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE”. Imparts some important cultural information. Hope the poor blokes don’t take it too literal and implement a naval embargo of Europe.
In general, I’d expect sentences that convey information about the scientific process to be much superior to sentences that contain merely some clever concoction of facts. Analogous to teaching a man to fish versus just giving him some fish he would have caught anyways given the right method. The only exception would be information that is extremely unlikely to be experimentally discovered* (yet the previous generation stumbled upon) but the expected value of which would outweigh some optimization of the scientific method. (*Before a cataclysm)
Come to think of it, the most such important piece of information (and also keeping with the hypothetical) would be information about the cataclysm (only applies for anthropogenic cataclysms). The reason is that ceteris paribus, a similar pattern (which we would even help along with our usual sentences) could well lead to a similar outcome (another catacylsm). Gotta break the circle.
Alternatively, what about “ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE”. Imparts some important cultural information. Hope the poor blokes don’t take it too literal and implement a naval embargo of Europe.