There have been many great prognosticators through the ages, and indeed there still are, but these days they tend to call themselves futurologists, and rather than gazing into crystal balls or into the heavens they tend to gaze into computer screens, but is the result any clearer? Mankind is by nature a worrying species. Part of our self awareness is the awareness that we are individually finite. With this awareness comes thoughts about the way we, as individuals, will reach our end, and from that, where we as a species will reach our end. From the earliest records it appears that we have been fascinated by the future. The Sumerian Gods, the Annunaki, came to Earth and gave man knowledge of the future and how to develop. The Egyptian Gods, particularly Thoth granted wisdom and knowledge including knowledge of the movement of the stars and the future destiny of the Pharoahs. The Greeks consulted the Sybils, most famously the Oracle at Delphi for predictions of the outcomes of battles.
Throughout the ages, men and women have attempted to gain glimpses of the future through a vast range of methods. From John Dee, Nostradamus, through Mother Shipton to Edgar Cayce, using angelic voices, astrology, scrying mirrors, trance states, Kabbalah and many more techniques. Some scholars of prognosticators have suggested that what a lot of these prophets are doing is taking existing knowledge and extrapolating it forward. Particularly in the field of astrology, the theory is that history is cyclical, as are the paths of the heavenly bodies being studied, so by understanding the position of those bodies and how they have related to events on Earth it is possible to predict forward what is going to happen the next time those same heavenly alignments occur.
Of course, since the enlightenment in Europe, and the formalisation of theories of the physical work by Gallileo, Newton, Copernicus and the long list of physical scientists and thinkers the idea of cause and effect has been refined and we now understand that there are a vast array of complex interactions both understood and not yet understood that have a significant impact on future events. This hasn't meant an end to prediction, on the contrary, this has led to an increase in the desire to plan for the future, particularly for big companies interested in predicting future trends and fashions, future demand, changes in political ideology and the like. In theory at least, the vast amount of information available to the modern prognosticator is, to all intents and purposes limitless. Forget the library of Alexandria as the repository of all human knowledge, we have the internet. Research papers, companies data, government decisions, even supposedly secret information is available for analysis.
The question is, does the availability of all this data make prognostication any easier? Complexity theory would suggest otherwise, but there is an arguement that complexity theory is a function of not fully understanding the underlying principles, assuming there are some, of the physical world. So, currently we can make predictions based on a great deal of information. Some success has been had in the field of financial prediction, although some key market fluctuations have been missed. The wealth of data available it now at a level where predictions can become more accurate. The next step is to understand the algorythms required to perform the analysis and the probabilities involved.
How far are we from truly accurate predictions? Now that would be telling.....
No comments:
Post a Comment