Fully Catalogued Museum Collections
There was a lot of mentions in the UK press in the last year or so about museum collections being fully catalogued (by "a lot" I mean more than zero, which I imagine was the rate of mentions before some particular events were revealed in 2023). It interested me thought to think about what people actually mean when they say that phrase "fully catalogued" - for people who haven't really thought about what information museums actually hold about their collections it seems a very plausible idea, but taking it literally what would really mean if we say a large museum collection has been fully catalogued?. After this silly (but enjoyable) exercise I offer my idea on what is actually meant when "fully catalogued" is used (spoiler - it's mostly catalogue as inventory rather than as full-knowledge of everything in the collection)
Fully Catalogued - a literal interpretation
To be considered fully catalogued, a museum collection would have to have every object the museum owns recorded in full in a collection management system. Let's break down that that means.
Provanance
Obivously the entire history of the object before it entered the museum would have to be researched in full, with all previous owners discovered, all relevant facts about those owners and their circumstances which enabled them to become owners of the object for a period of time. Additionaly the wider social history of each previous owners time would be desriable to provide supporting information about why
To be safe then we would probably want biographys of each owner and
Materiality
The compostition of the object would have to be recorded down to the atomic level (and beyond ?) with its complete chemical and physic structure recorded. Once that has been carried out, to prevent any atmospheric damage or change in state to it, the object would need to be placed in a vacuum, in complete darkness, beyond the reach of any other material or agent that could affect it in any way (as a change in state would of course be new information needing adding to the objects catagloue record, which would mean we hadn't fully catalogued it previously).
The only place that seems to satsify this would be if the object was put in the event horizon of a black hole.
Description
The object would need to be described in full with particular
Once the description has been written, we would have to ensure that nothing more further can be said about it. This would mean:
The object cannot be moved anywhere or shown in an exhibition as this would require further information adding to the record
No new facts can be discovered about the object
No humans
It's hard to satsiy all of this, perhaps the best option would be if the object is removed from human sight, with all record of it's existance removed so no further thoughts can occur about it and it is placed under the safe-guarding of robots tasked with maintaining its perfect unchanging condition. However there is a risk that some humans could still rememebr it and might have interesting thoughts about it which would be recorded in the catalogue record. So possibly the only safe course is to imagine a post-human future.
Other concerns:
Potential interference from other dimensions - Could alternative histories in a quantum universe.
In conclusion then, the object will need to be:
near a black hole
maintained by robots
in a post-human universe