How far into the future is too far?

So, a project I'm plotting out involves a main character in suspended animation for centuries, only to finally be revived, and find his place within an advanced future society. But my question is, how far do you suppose I could realistically push this in terms of time passed? I want to set this in a time as far forward as logically possible. But it also stands to reason that too far into some advanced future, and a human being could simply never catch up. And I want him to do so. I want it to make sense that he's okay - even though it certainly takes a while, and an existential crisis or two for him to get there.

Humanity, within my future setting, is now a space-fairing species. That's a huge part of my plot. But that means I need at least a few centuries. And all that time passed without making this poor character useless in a world that's just not his anymore.

Thanks for the input!

 

Buck Rogers was set five centuries in the future. That seems a reasonable amount of time.

Too far, and he wouldn't even be able to communicate.

 

I thought about that too. My character speaking a now-dead, ancient language would, in itself be difficult, but likely not a deal-breaker entirely. After all someone from this future time could probably teach him... and that whole situation could lead to more plot. But it's obviously not just the language issue. In a world where modern languages are ancient history, so much else would have become ancient history too... I fear that in a world of a now-dead language of his own time, he'd be in a world that's just overall, too inconceivable, and terrifying.

 

This is very much up to you as the writer.

We have absolutely no idea how society is going to develop. Human society is utterly horrible at predicting this stuff beyond maybe a few years. We can kind of guess reasonably 20 to 50 years out. Beyond that we're way more wrong than we are right. 2075 we could be traveling to Mars on a daily bases or be in some kind of Mad Max apocalypse... or both.

I will say humanity is on a current upward trajectory of technology and culture; humans are getting better and better at retaining information about the past. Humans have existed for almost 200,000 years but we only kind of started recording stuff in the past 5000, only got sort of good at in the past 2500 years, and it has only been a little over 160 years we've been recording sound. The guys signing the deceleration of independence may have been grunting like monkeys, we'd have no way of knowing.

Today we're really good at recording everything. If a human woke up in the far future it is within the realm of possibility that future humans would know a lot about his era of history, and possibly the specific human himself.

Not only are we good at recording things, we are starting to become really good at translating things. Or as they say the Marathis might say "आम्ही केवळ गोष्टी रेकॉर्ड करण्यातच चांगले नाही, तर आम्ही गोष्टींचे भाषांतर करण्यात खरोखर चांगले बनू लागलो आहोत." Do I know anything about Marathis people? No, but five seconds on google and I can write in their language.

And I say again that's using 2024 technology. In 2324 or 5024 who the hell knows how super advance the tech will be.

The concept of a "universal translator" is possible within our lifetime because we sort of have them now (using them in real time is kind of shit, but they exist). If it is a recorded language we can translate it with some degree of accuracy in 2024, in the far future translators could be more advance than we could ever imagine.

This is a very long way of saying, if in 2024 we unfroze a man from 10,000 years ago, it would probably be impossible to understand him, but if in 10,000 years they unfroze a man from today... there is the possibility that they'd have no trouble understanding him on day one.

 

That is assuming technology keeps moving forwards.

 

The concept of sci-fi is inherently about making assumptions.

As I said in my first line. It's up to the writer.

 

Unless you're including trans-humanism I don't think it really matters. Its been said that if a Cro-Magnon man fell through a worm hole into the present he wouldn't be much more or less bewildered by central London or an IMAX show than would be, say, a mediaeval peasant. I mean, space ship life would bewilder me, and my Granny has no conception of the Internet. But she managed, mostly by ignoring it. And so far I'm doing fine on this flying saucer I was abducted to yesterday.

 

I think that was a legitimate issue contemporaries had with the earliest dictionaries. And I can't find the citation, but I'm sure I saw somewhere that they were, and you are, right: the evolution of the written language has actually slowed down not sped up.

 

Language will continue to change - things like consonant shifts are taking place before our eyes ("ask" -> "aks") and changes in the meanings of words ("gay","wicked" etc.).

Fun fact: The Japanese call modern mobile/cell phones "smaaho"s (short for smart phone). They're sure better than dumhos.

 

How far is too far in the future? As long as you Don't go past the heat death of the universe I would say your okay.

As for the issue of languages, there would be solutions for translation. Especially if we are talking about a species with a vocal or communication range outside of the normal range for humans.

 

But right up to the moment is fine...

"I'll just nip off and shoot myself. Don't worry sir, I'll be very humane."

 

According to theory, the human brain hasn't evolved that much since we became humans. Technology and general knowledge advances without us actually getting all that much smarter. Hundreds of years, or even several thousand, could pass, and your character would probably catch up just fine. The differences in daily life might be mind-blowing, but user interfaces are easy things to learn. You can teach a person who lived most of their life in the analog era how to do just about anything they want to do on a computer or mobile device. They might not understand all the technology behind it, but then most of us don't.

I think it would be the same for your character. There might be a steep learning curve, and the tech might seem like voodoo at first, but he could master whatever level you want to throw at him. If anything, tech usually gets easier to use, not harder.

I think you're right about language, too. I think it could be taught. Hell, come up with some futuristic upgrade to the Rosetta app, lol. It might be that easy.

Cultural differences could be a bigger hurdle. Mores, taboos and politics change drastically over time. Consider feudal systems vs modern democratic societies or even 1950s racial relations and anti-homosexual norms vs modern concepts of tolerance. Thoughts on personal rights and freedoms change. Slavery was only abolished in most countries during the 19th century. Women were barely considered citizens in most of the first world until the 20th.

Ideas like equality might continue to advance; they might reverse entirely. Progress can change trajectory. The antecedents already exist. There are more white supremacist groups operating in America and the UK than there were decades ago. Putin is actively trying to bring back the USSR. Other dictatorships are thriving in the east. Who knows what will happen over centuries? Personally, I'm an optimist, but you get to decide. Are you writing a utopia, a dystopia or a varied and volatile world like ours today? Will your character fit in? Can he adjust?

 

I once set a story a few months before the Big Rip (one of the possible end scenarios of the Universe).

 

Oh, I will cease communications when it appears it wasn't a typo.
That said, I actually typed "seize" first, so...

But if you do, there's a nice restaurant at the end of it where the story can begin.

I don't think there's such a thing as too far into the future, as long as you sell it right. I don't know how far Futurama went, but that seems to be rather popular. And didn't Time Machine go five digits into the future? That's a classic right there.
You can make it work. Sound Of Thunder (?) had people go back to the time of dinosaurs, where it would have been impossible or very hard for a human to breathe. Conversely, the Brachiosaur reveal in Jurassic Park would have looked a whole lot different if realism was allowed a producing credit.

I'll refer you to another cinematic grandmaster when he was asked how... uhm, Ted worked. I'm gonna have to paraphrase Seth MacFarlane, but the gist of it was: You can have one completely crazy thing, if everything else is normal.
So, all you need is your reader to go "Yeah, that seems right." And in sci-fi, I think, it's easier. Example? Sure. Lightsabers. Coolest thing ever, and nobody's asking how they make a laser beam stop at sword's length. Only thing anyone's asking is "can I see more of that, please?"
And your answer should be no, otherwise you'll end up with that piss-ugly blacklight saber and ruin it.

Anyway... Err... The height of the hill you need your reader to climb determines the footholds you need to give them.

 

I have been waiting to see if anyone else would bring up a possible complication, but no one has yet.

Consider for a moment the extreme example of the movie Idiocracy. How distorted was the future's idea of history? Yes, as a comedy they went to extremes, but how would our own historians react to having an eye witness to historical events, especially if there were conflicting theories involving that event? How does the MC escape the clutches of an academia, that wants his take on all their pet theories? How does the MC balance that with the need to fill in the knowledge gaps necessary to function in the future?

Thought to consider

 

Futurama was set around the year 3000.

And Time Machine went as far as the point where the Sun had turned red and the only life was lichen, so at least a billion+ years.

Duck Dodgers only went about 400 or so years.