Clarke's short story "Jupiter V" contains elements in common with 2001 and mentions Toynbee several times. Thus the message might be that humanity ought to strive to colonize Jupiter-as in Kubrick's work-or something greater, to survive.Īrthur C. Someone who accepts - as I myself do, taking it on trust - the present-day scientific account of the Universe may find it impossible to believe that a living creature, once dead, can come to life again but, if he did entertain this belief, he would be thinking more 'scientifically' if he thought in the Christian terms of a psychosomatic resurrection than if he thought in the shamanistic terms of a disembodied spirit.Īnother possible interpretation is that the Toynbee reference comes from the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury's short story " The Toynbee Convector", which alludes to Toynbee's idea that in order to survive, humankind must always rush to meet the future, i.e., believe in a better world, and must always aim far beyond what is practically possible, in order to reach something "barely" within reach. No one has ever been, or ever met, a living human soul without a body. The dichotomy of a human being into 'soul' and 'body' is not a datum of experience. Human nature presents human minds with a puzzle which they have not yet solved and may never succeed in solving, for all that we can tell. Toynbee-tile enthusiasts believe that a native Philadelphian created the Toynbee tiles because of the large number that appear in the city, their apparent age, the variety of carving styles, the presence of the "tile creator's screed" (see below), and the Philadelphia address on the Santiago tile.Īccording to letters written by the tiler, allegedly uncovered by Toynbee tile researchers in Philadelphia in 2006, Fact|date=May 2008 "Toynbee's idea" stems from a passage in Arnold Toynbee's book Experiences, pgs. Title = Special Report: Matt Investigates the Mystery of Philadelphia's "Toynbee Tiles" The current occupants of the house know nothing about the tiles and are annoyed by people who ask. The writing is of a similar style and poor quality.Ī tile that used to be located in Santiago de Chile mentions a street address in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 2624 S. government, the USSR (even in tiles seemingly made years after the Soviet Union's dissolution), and Jews. Several of these allude to a mass conspiracy between the press (including newspaper magnate John S. The majority of tiles contain text similar to that above, although a second set is often found nearby. "Kubrick's 2001" refers to "", co-written and directed by filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. Louis, Missouri Cincinnati, Ohio Cleveland, Ohio and South America, among other locations. Many older tiles considered to be the work of the original tiler have been eroded by inner-city traffic, but as of|2008|lc=on "vintage" tiles remain in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania St. Presumed copycat tiles have been spotted in suburban Indiana, in Buffalo, New York, and on the West Coast, including San Francisco, California and Roswell, New Mexico. Since 2002, very few presumed new tiles considered to be the work of the original tiler have appeared outside of the immediate Philadelphia area, although one notable sighting appeared in suburban Connecticut in 2006. In the United States, tiles have officially been sighted as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far north as Boston, Massachusetts, and as far south as Washington, D.C. However, in 1983, " The Philadelphia Inquirer" published a story that referenced a Philadelphia-based campaign to resurrect the dead on Jupiter that, while failing to explicitly mention the tiles, bears a striking similarity to the ideas of the tiles themselves. The first known reference to the tiles in the media came in 1994 in " The Baltimore Sun". A consideration of the frequency of reported sightings points to the likeliness of the tile campaign dating to the mid-1980s. cite newsĬlaims of Toynbee tile sightings date back to the mid-1970s. The material used for making the tiles was long a mystery, but evidence has emerged that they may be primarily made of layers of linoleum and asphalt crack-filling compound.Īrticles about the tiles began appearing in the mid-1990s, though references may have started to appear in the mid-1980s. Some of the more elaborate tiles also feature cryptic political statements or exhort readers to create and install similar tiles of their own. They contain some variation on the following inscription: They are generally about the size of an American license plate, but sometimes considerably larger. ] Since the 1980s, several hundred tiles have been discovered. The Toynbee tiles (also called Toynbee plaques) are messages of mysterious origin found embedded in asphalt in about two dozen major cities in the United States and three South American capitals.
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