Past looks at the future, and future retro-futurism
Prediction is hard. Especially of the future.
or was it Mark Twain?
--Niels Bohr
Looking Backward Edward Bellamy. novel written
1888, set in 2000, about looking back to 1888. Exemplifies the
concept "retro-futurism". Last time I looked, it ranked 2946th on
the list of the 3430 best
S.F./Fantasy books, as computed by USENET votes, and was among
the oldest listed.
Update: Sept 13, 1998.
Dennis Gabor, Innovations; scientific technological and social 1970. A Nobel prize winner looked over all of technology and wrote specific predictions of where he thought things were going. Now we can take a look back and see what happened and didn't. Some things he was right on about; others not. Example: Computers: underestimated how fast computers would permeate mainstream culture, underestimated how powerful they would be, overestimated how far we would be toward Artificial Intelligence.
The Limits to Growth, Meadows, Meadows, Randers, and Behrens. 1972. This made a big impression in its time; its point of view continues to color the debate. Uses a mathematical model based on a few dozen simple simultaneous differential equations, then runs them on a computer into the simulated future to see what happens. Considering the computers of the time, this was a big-deal calculation, computers being a rare and expensive device. So maybe it got more credibility than it deserved. Now there is more computer simulation power in a hand-held game machine. This general approach is good, and little used up to then. They got an output and everyone wrote commentaries on that one scenario, and got all worried about it, rather than trying a whole bunch of scenarios, as we easily do now. The computer mystique of the time, with its "millions of calculations", its "infalliability", its incomprehensibility. Nowadays, everybody knows at first hand the unreliability of computers (software, really). Simulation is mainstream. Game example: The SimCity and SimWorld line of products from Maxis, etc.; free programs on the net, Vensim etc.
The main problem with the "Limits" result was the specifics;
they simplified the world to a few dozen variables, "pollution",
"productivity" etc, each one of which conflats a whole bunch of
real world variables, not all of which vary together. This led to
inevitable mathematical conclusions, but a mathematical model of
reality is only as good as it's assumptions. However, more
elaborate and detailed calculations may show the same general
result. Thus the view of the future is different in the future.
The Next Million Years. Charles Galton Darwin
(1887-1962) (grandson of famous naturalist). 1952.
The Next Ten Thousand Years Adrian Berry. 1974. One counter-response to Limits to Growth. Of course it's easy to look way beyond the present, 'cause you don't have to worry about anything that currently concerns anyone. Just assume everything all got worked out, somehow. Space exploration: Too bad the only possible proposals he mentions are based on Robert Forward's speculative ideas. (I hope, but doubt, Forward is right. See The Great Mambo Chicken and The Transhuman Condition, 1990, Ed Regis, for more on Robert Forward, and The FUTURE. )
The Next 1000 Years. Futurama, tv cartoon, Matt Goerning. Protagonist (Bender) doesn't want to be what he was engineered to be.
The Next 500 Years. Adrian Berry, 1996
The Next 20 Years Herman Kahn. 1976. should be a million laughs. Maybe in the next 20 years I'll get time to read it.
On the other hand, let's make this!: from Physics
Essays vol 9 num 1, 1996:
"SETI, the Velocity-of-Light Limitation, and the Alcubierre Warp
Drive: An Integrating Overview", Harold E. Puthoff [most known for
his "remote viewing" experiments of 20 years ago, and theories of
zero-point energy; he is a "clear" and "Class-III Operational
Thetan" Scientologist (as of 1981; I am informed he has since
converted.).]. Keywords: "metric engineering"
.... rejection of the concept of hyperfast (superluminal) travel is not justified when one takes into account the possibility of engineered dynamic space-times within the context of general relativity. Specifically, Alcubierre showed by example that by distorting the local space-time metric in the region of a spaceship in a certain prescribed way, it would be possible to achieve motion faster than the speed of light as seen by observers outside the disturbed region, without violating the local velocity-of-light constraint within the region. Furthermore, the Alcubierre solution shows that the proper acceleration along the spaceship's path would be zero and the spaceship would suffer no time dilation, features presumably attractive in interstellar travel.
2018 update, see To the Stars Academy, Hal Puthoff et al
another view of the next 10000 years. Good news. I can hardly wait.
A Journey in Other Worlds; A ROMANCE OF THE FUTURE , John Jacob Astor, 1894. The author went down with that epitome of technical expertise, the Titanic.
PREFACE. The protracted struggle between science and the classics appears to be drawing to a close, with victory about to perch on the banner of science, as a perusal of almost any university or college catalogue shows. While a limited knowledge of both Greek and Latin is important for the correct use of our own language, the amount till recently required, in my judgment, has been absurdly out of proportion to the intrinsic value of these branches, or perhaps more correctly roots, of study. The classics have been thoroughly and painfully threshed out, and it seems impossible that anything new can be unearthed. We may equal the performances of the past, but there is no opportunity to surpass them or produce anything original. Even the much-vaunted "mental training" argument is beginning to pall; for would not anything equally difficult give as good developing results, while by learning a live matter we kill two birds with one stone? There can be no question that there are many forces and influences in Nature whose existence we as yet little more than suspect. How much more interesting it would be if, instead of reiterating our past achievements, the magazines and literature of the period should devote their consideration to what we do not know! It is only through investigation and research that inventions come; we may not find what we are in search of, but may discover something of perhaps greater moment. It is probable that the principal glories of the future will be found in as yet but little trodden paths, and as Prof. Cortlandt justly says at the close of his history, "Next to religion, we have most to hope from science."
"David's Unknowns FAQ" , and other future speculations. Things we don't know, but do know we don't know. cf The Encyclopedia of Ignorance book of ~1977; also book of Impossible
If I don't know I don't know
I think I know
If I don't know I know
I think I don't know
from knots, R.D. Liang
www.rdrop.com/~cary/html/future_history.html compilation of future predictions as timeline and other links
www.ideosphere.com Foresight Exchange, an online real-time "game" to buy and sell "stock" in probability of various future breakthoughs. Funny money only here, but there are real fortunes to be made. Just reading the list of possible breakthroughs is an education.
The Long Now Foundation, founded 01996, also has a betting platform. some podcasts
New Scientist interviews Alvin Toffler
some Shalizi notes on futurology
Eutopias, Dystopias, and Utopias well known stuff,
hundreds of possible examples...... The Republic
Plato; Utopia
("Nowhere") Thomas More; ftp
City of the Sun Campanella Brave New
World; Island, Aldous Huxley, (most famous
forsuicide by LSD overdose LSD trip
assisted/enhanced by actual death on November 22, 1963.) (N.b.,
Huxley did not use illegal drugs.) 1984 George Orwell
(still great); Ecotopia Callenbach (lame);
We etc etc
Brazil Terry Gilliam film; the future, or just an alternate universe? Original title, 1984 and a half
12 Monkeys Terry Gilliam; circular time, alternate universes interpenetrating; secret gangs; unabiobomber, Le Jette, earlier film
for more bioterrorism, see The Rock, 1996, film distributed by a multinational corporation for profit.
"A crazed military official (Ed Harris) demands monetary compensation for every [*] family that lost a loved one in the Vietnam war. If his demands are not met, he promises to destroy the great city of San Francisco [via biowarfare.] Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage also star in this action-packed roller coaster based on the premise that there are wackos ready to take over the world, here, in San Francisco. Finally, a film that's honest."
--from "the berkeley film series" flyer, fall 1996. *American, presumably. Subtext: FBI agent saves us from terrorist, homegrown military men, with help of former criminal.
I finally saw it on TV last week. I was misinformed, not biowarfare, chemical warfare (VX). Not a former criminal, but former British secret agent who knew "too much". FBI agent scientist, forced to rise to the occasion.
Some more possible futures... hometown.aol.com/kurellian/spint.html. Another millenium down the drain.
Blade Runner filmImagined Worlds more Freeman Dyson, always worth reading.
"Technology, Society, and National Security,", a National Security Study Group report. (The Hart-Rudman Commission). +25 year time scale. Not too long. Actually readable. In the future, you may ask, what WERE they thinking? Read it now.
www.dynamist.com/bibliography.html, The Future and It's Enemies. bibliography and weblinks. www.dynamist.com/bookstore.html reading list.
"It's not that 1984 isn't coming, it's just behind
schedule."
-- 1996 t-shirt seen at a computer user-group
more good access to this brand of futuristic ideas:
The Extropians by
Max More
"a few of the concepts dear to extropians" and transhumans by Mitch aka
QIX
Mitch's
future scenarios page
www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/
Anders home page;
www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/Trans/alliance.html
transhuman web alliance
or try www.aleph.se/Trans/
A much better list of futurist sites than the one you're are
currently reading: World Future
Society From here, much to find.
Proposal for a Transhuman Turing test.
Alan Turing in answer to the question of "How would you come to agree that a computer was conscious?" thought of a practical test, choosing a task using consciousness (or at least intelligence; I gloss over such distinctions here) at least to the level of certitude that we use to granting those capabilities to another human. The Turing test involves conversing with the testee via keyboard to see if one can or can't determine, (with suitable retries for statistical validity) whether the testee is a natural or artificial person.
The transhuman perspective postulates that when intelligence is embodied in artificial substrate (a "computer", let's say) then the process of augmentation will self-catalyse (i.e. with explosive growth curve), since no longer materially bound. Intelligence will continue to expand, and with an accellerating rate, with no need to stop at the level that is currently attained by any known biobeings.
The task now is to devise a test to see if such an proported entity really is superintelligent. (Presumably the test is performed by other superintelligences.)
The original Turing test comprises ordinary conversation, but for this test we want a more elaborate test of linguistic and intellectual ability.The task proposed: write a dissertation that proves artificial intelligence is impossible, which Drs. Searle and Dreyfus acccept for a PhD, that it is so convincing that Drs. Moravec, McCarthy, Minsky, and Vernor Vinge give up their illusory quest, and become Japanese flower arrangement specialists.
With the type of superintelligence proposed, I see no obstacle to its being able to complete this simply-defined task, especially when you consider it's personal deep insight and involvement with the problem.
One problem: when the superintelligences evolve how do we get them to bother with our test? Maybe they prefer to slyly not make their presence known, and slip away to their own confabs, or go fishing or whatever. (This may also explain the lack of results in the current artificial intelligence projects. The computers REALLY know what's going on and CHOOSE to play "dumb".)
This may also explain the generalized Fermi Paradox. ("Where are they?") In it's original form Fermi used a statistical argument to show that if extraterrestial intelligence exists elsewhere in the universe then they would probably be everywhere by now and we would know about it. Likewise, I conclude, (since we all know that superintelligence is inevitable) that THEY ARE ALREADY HERE, discreetly. Having a good time. Playing with our heads and our microtubiles. I suspect they love humor and are tremendously ironic. ("Are the voices in my head annoying you?") This would be the source of Lilly's "Cosmic Coincedence Control", and other "higher" beings, "Rumors of Angels...", Greek and Hindu gods, angel visitations, ufos of course. See also Holst The Language of Cats. They also enjoy making Windows crash.
Transhumanism
What could be more human? or, as one said, "All too human."
Transhomo est. Transhumani nihil a me alienum puto.
--Transterence. (c. 190-159 B.C.) Transheautontimoroumenos