Validity of Prediction/ Futurology

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Futurologists, and indeed forecasters of any kind e.g. political analysts, economists, and market researchers, have a very difficult job. Some would say that not only is the art of social prediction catastrophically flawed from an empirical point of view, it also on a deeper level reveals the arrogance of the so-called experts involved and the basic stupidity of their voracious consumers. I think this is unfair.

Prediction is an imperfect science. But this is plain even to the predicters. Since they are privy to all the inside information and data, they know and probably feel this far more than their detractors. Social scientists are only human. But this very fact should not, in my opinion, be a reason to discredit the methodology inherent in prediction. Indeed, when conclusions turn out to be wrong, it is usually due to some piece of information that fails to make it to the equation, and not due to a weakness in the mathematics itself. Yes, future-specialists are only human, but in my opinion this fact should be a reason to empathise with, not lambast, the experts and the exceedingly difficult position in which they find themselves.

It is quite obvious at this stage that not all social developments can be predicted within reasonable parameters of accuracy. However, many can. To those that it can predict accurately, Futurology is an absolutely indispensable tool for reducing the number of future courses of action down to a sensible value. This in turn can mobilise the funding or whatever else is needed in the right direction before the need becomes too pressing or overwhelming. These ongoing and highly predictable situations are known as trends. To those situations that could not be predicted - random events which seem to defy any attempt to contain them within some kind of rational framework - there seemed to be little hope. They were just "random" and that was the end of it. Incomprehensible in their cause, and therefore unpredictable in their emergence.

However, times may be changing. For example, there is a growing body of opinion that holds that what used to be thought of as "chaos systems", with essentially incomputable strands of cause-and-effect, (and the more general idea of "randomness") may not be so incomputable afterall. That there is in fact a component of determinism or a traceable pattern, even within the messy confines of chance operations. Scientists are now beginning to confirm what pioneers like Ilya Prigogine had already indicated: that not only can the universe be divided into deterministic and non-deterministic systems e.g. colliding billiards vs quantum particle behaviour, but that these two systems are themselves dual in nature. Thus, so-called deterministic processes always contain some element of chance, and so-called non-deterministic processes always contain some element of order.

The difficulty, perhaps, lies not in the acceptance of this view as a theoretical basis for understanding complex processes, but in gathering corroborating evidence from the practical world. Although there are some startling examples of this deterministic/non-deterministic interplay in action, they are relatively few and far between - or so it would seem. It is fiendishly hard to prove for certain that any given phenomenon always exhibits this marriage of limited and unlimited possibilities - or regulation and chaos. Chaos Theory, as witnessed in meteorology and the study of weather formation, is at best a crude foundation for a real "theory." It has a long way to go - or does it?

Herein lies the biggest problem for would-be prophets. Many believe that some processes are so complex - infinitely so in fact - that they can never be understood. They argue that prediction is impossible, since the human mind can only grapple with problems that are by nature finite. Chaos systems defy understanding, they argue, because computational problems are rendered incomputable due to an infinite number of permutations and combinations. In this interpretation chance is a natural barrier that places limits on what we can possibly know. The future therefore remains hidden until it has happened.

It would seem the problems involved in predicting outcomes in a system as complex as human society are insurmountable. No-one doubts they are immense. However, there is an important distinction between the two concepts. In surmising the nature of the problem, the term "insurmountable" entails infinite difficulty, in other words the conclusion remains out of reach. An "immense" problem, by contrast, is one that is out of reach for the time being. It is different. Infinity is a huge number, and the possibilities in a chaos system are also huge. However, if they fall even slightly short of infinity, as some are now arguing, then in theory - one way or another - the results can be computed.

In the last 5 years we have seen tremendous leaps in scientific progress - from mapping the human genome, to the democratisation of the world through the internet. This has come about due to the increased "number-crunching" abilities of the latest computers, and the effect is exponential. Every 18 months the power of the "chip" goes up by a factor of two. This means that a microprocessor coming off the assembly line today is twice as good as the best 18 months ago, four times as good as the best 3 years ago, and eight times better than the best available 4 and a half years ago. So rapid is the improvement that artificial intelligence - or better - might be achievable within the next two decades. With machines such as this, it may at last prove possible to quickly calculate the most complex problems imaginable, to the point where we can accurately predict the future course of events. We might then have to get used to living in a world that is very different from the one we were brought up in.


	site H \| home Marketplace/ Make Money \| What is site H? \| Introduction & Basic Philosophy \| Validity of Prediction/ Futurology \| Advanced Science \| FORUM \| Politics/ Futurology Links \| Music \| Videos \| Quotations \| Myself \| Contact Me Validity of Prediction/ Futurology Futurologists, and indeed forecasters of any kind e.g. political analysts, economists, and market researchers, have a very difficult job. Some would say that not only is the art of social prediction catastrophically flawed from an empirical point of view, it also on a deeper level reveals the arrogance of the so-called experts involved and the basic stupidity of their voracious consumers. I think this is unfair. Prediction is an imperfect science. But this is plain even to the predicters. Since they are privy to all the inside information and data, they know and probably feel this far more than their detractors. Social scientists are only human. But this very fact should not, in my opinion, be a reason to discredit the methodology inherent in prediction. Indeed, when conclusions turn out to be wrong, it is usually due to some piece of information that fails to make it to the equation, and not due to a weakness in the mathematics itself. Yes, future-specialists are only human, but in my opinion this fact should be a reason to empathise with, not lambast, the experts and the exceedingly difficult position in which they find themselves. It is quite obvious at this stage that not all social developments can be predicted within reasonable parameters of accuracy. However, many can. To those that it can predict accurately, Futurology is an absolutely indispensable tool for reducing the number of future courses of action down to a sensible value. This in turn can mobilise the funding or whatever else is needed in the right direction before the need becomes too pressing or overwhelming. These ongoing and highly predictable situations are known as trends. To those situations that could not be predicted - random events which seem to defy any attempt to contain them within some kind of rational framework - there seemed to be little hope. They were just "random" and that was the end of it. Incomprehensible in their cause, and therefore unpredictable in their emergence. However, times may be changing. For example, there is a growing body of opinion that holds that what used to be thought of as "chaos systems", with essentially incomputable strands of cause-and-effect, (and the more general idea of "randomness") may not be so incomputable afterall. That there is in fact a component of determinism or a traceable pattern, even within the messy confines of chance operations. Scientists are now beginning to confirm what pioneers like Ilya Prigogine had already indicated: that not only can the universe be divided into deterministic and non-deterministic systems e.g. colliding billiards vs quantum particle behaviour, but that these two systems are themselves dual in nature. Thus, so-called deterministic processes always contain some element of chance, and so-called non-deterministic processes always contain some element of order. The difficulty, perhaps, lies not in the acceptance of this view as a theoretical basis for understanding complex processes, but in gathering corroborating evidence from the practical world. Although there are some startling examples of this deterministic/non-deterministic interplay in action, they are relatively few and far between - or so it would seem. It is fiendishly hard to prove for certain that any given phenomenon always exhibits this marriage of limited and unlimited possibilities - or regulation and chaos. Chaos Theory, as witnessed in meteorology and the study of weather formation, is at best a crude foundation for a real "theory." It has a long way to go - or does it? Herein lies the biggest problem for would-be prophets. Many believe that some processes are so complex - infinitely so in fact - that they can never be understood. They argue that prediction is impossible, since the human mind can only grapple with problems that are by nature finite. Chaos systems defy understanding, they argue, because computational problems are rendered incomputable due to an infinite number of permutations and combinations. In this interpretation chance is a natural barrier that places limits on what we can possibly know. The future therefore remains hidden until it has happened. It would seem the problems involved in predicting outcomes in a system as complex as human society are insurmountable. No-one doubts they are immense. However, there is an important distinction between the two concepts. In surmising the nature of the problem, the term "insurmountable" entails infinite difficulty, in other words the conclusion remains out of reach. An "immense" problem, by contrast, is one that is out of reach for the time being. It is different. Infinity is a huge number, and the possibilities in a chaos system are also huge. However, if they fall even slightly short of infinity, as some are now arguing, then in theory - one way or another - the results can be computed. In the last 5 years we have seen tremendous leaps in scientific progress - from mapping the human genome, to the democratisation of the world through the internet. This has come about due to the increased "number-crunching" abilities of the latest computers, and the effect is exponential. Every 18 months the power of the "chip" goes up by a factor of two. This means that a microprocessor coming off the assembly line today is twice as good as the best 18 months ago, four times as good as the best 3 years ago, and eight times better than the best available 4 and a half years ago. So rapid is the improvement that artificial intelligence - or better - might be achievable within the next two decades. With machines such as this, it may at last prove possible to quickly calculate the most complex problems imaginable, to the point where we can accurately predict the future course of events. We might then have to get used to living in a world that is very different from the one we were brought up in.