Historians at Korea International University say they originally uncovered the phenomenon five years ago, but waited until now to confirm their findings, which finally appear irrefutable. According to the researchers, in 2007 Korean people were talking about the country's 5,000-year-old civilization, exactly one year later they were still talking about that history being 5,000 years, not 5,001. As each year passed, the 5,000 year history remained the same, even though it should now be at least 5,005.
But worse still is the evidence historians have uncovered that 5,000 years of history was being written about as long ago as 1990, and was being talked about decades before this, possibly making the Korean civilization almost 5,100 years old. In fact, the government has admitted that this failure to keep count Korean history properly may have been going on for so long that Korean civilization could be as much as 9,000 years old.
Some say there may be circumstantial evidence to support the 9,000 year proposition, because if Korea's civilization is 5,000 years old, nobody seems to be able to name anything that happened exactly 5,000 years ago. History can sometimes be inexact, but there appears to be a complete lack of information relating to the beginning of Korean civilization around that period, even though it was clearly a momentous time in history which should have been worthy of a song or two, or at least a message posting on a cave wall. But there is nothing.
This logically means Korean history is 9,000 years old, but the historians raise a second uncomfortable question, which is the lack of specific evidence of the early days of Korea's civilization at any time between 5,000 and 9,000 years ago. So is Korea's civilization even older? The historians say it might be. But however old Korea's ancient civilization really is, it is becoming clear that there are no records of the its beginnings, which clearly is a paradox as it wouldn't be much of a civilization if nobody could be bothered to write things down as they went along.
All of which leads to an alarming conclusion. The beginnings of Korea's civilization have been lost, and worse, if Korea provably had a 5,000 year history in 1990, but still has a 5,000 year history today, as each new year progresses an old year at the beginning of history is being lost to accommodate it. And it means that 5,001 years from now, no-one will be able to say what a Galaxy S3 is or who Kim Yu-na was, because these important pieces of history will be erased from the Korean consciousness.
Ultimately, the loss of Korean history raises unsettling existential questions for the entire human race, because it lends credence to the theory that we are all actually living in a computer simulation, and one which only has a 5,000 year storage capacity and therefore copes with this limitation by erasing its simulated people's minds of anything it can no longer store. And if something isn't done about this, it means that in 2,000 years Japan's civilization will be as old as Korea's, and in almost 5,000 years even the unthinkable will happen - America's civilization will be equal in age to ours.
Related Links
A Panorama of 5000 Years: Korean History
5,000 Years of Korean Martial Arts
K-Logic Stuns Math and Philosophy World
Are You Living In a Computer Simulation?
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