I vividly remember sitting in high school History class about 10 years ago, studying the 20th century. I found it interesting; but as with all high school courses there is a huge emphasis on testing and exams.
This meant a great deal of my time was spent trying to memorize a lot of dates and a lot of names of various people, none of which I remember now, and if I ever needed to know, I would just look up in seconds on my 4G Smartphone, at my convenience.
I don’t regret studying history at all, I dedicated myself to getting a good grade and I did. I wish I had the opportunity to try to study the future much earlier in life. I had to piece everything together for myself following the science news and technology news, reading around the subject.
Early on I stumbled across the idea that since there was so much change in the 20th century, the 21st century, which I would most likely live in, would be very important as well, but I didn’t realize that many prominent thinkers were also talking about this. This was not really discussed in school in any serious way.
In fact, thinking back, it was just stunningly off the menu. What little talk there was of the future usually happened on the playground. It was only really when I got to university were these ideas completely opened up, and I did my dissertation "on the predictive metrics for the future of artificial intelligence".
Why study history? Why not futurology?
History is interesting. So is futurology.
History is the basis for understanding politics and culture. Futurology is the basis for understanding the future world, and the basis of potential future politics, technology, and culture.
History lets kids understand the lessons from history, so as to be able to apply these things to the future, repeat what worked well, and avoid repeating disasters. Well in this case, if we are trying to prepare kids for the future through history, why not just be open to studying the future directly? In other words, futurology.
The only real complaint I hear to this suggestion is….No one knows the future.
Well, no one really knows what exactly happened in a battle thousands of years ago. Historians can’t agree on whether Robin Hood ever even existed. However we can look at various claims, evidence, and try and piece something together, and thus build an argument. Different thinkers, who have studied the subject, will have different opinions. This is not too different in principle from studying the future.
Understandings about the distant past are usually based on certain assumptions. For instance, if a writer described what happened at a battle a long time ago, and that is by far our biggest source of information, we are often assuming (perhaps incorrectly) they are not a complete liar.
Future predictions are also based on certain assumptions. This doesn’t mean they have to be bad assumptions however. What kind of things should be taught in class?
Here are some basic ideas:
No one actually knows the future, the best we can do is make educated guesses, estimates and calculations, and reasoned arguments, none of which are absolutely guaranteed to be validated by reality.
Futurology is not a pseudoscience as described with the key attribute of unfalsifiability – if a "scientific" claim is made and there is no way to ever test and falsify it, this is not science. Specific claims about the future can be tested and falsified, but it usually takes time to pass (short or long).
Predicting the future isn’t about magic, it’s about trying to deal with trends, arguments and possibilities/probabilities.
Some predictions are easy, – too easy- such that apple will release a new product in the future. Some predictions are pretty much impossible – determining the price of apple shares 10 years from now.
Futurology is concerned with the interesting middle ground, such as what kinds of products will come on the market 10 years from now? Driverless cars ?- It seems like the car companies are claiming they are aiming for this and intend to deliver.
This is the bulk of the study – what significant people are claiming – and debating it.
Some interesting things I might have learned about if I was studying futurology back when I was in school;
Bill Gates was predicating a revolution in different form factors of computers and mobile computers- in particular, Microsoft tablets. It Looks like he was spot on, it just wasn’t Microsoft that would end up leading this revolution.
Ray Kurzweil was predicting for around our time now:
Computers in eyeglasses – (we will see soon)
Education will be mostly computer based (It is for me now, I’m not sure how this is in high schools)
Full immersion consumer video/audio virtual reality – this sounds like the Oculus Rift.
Video chat and conferencing – this exists and it is pretty popular.
Ubiquitous driverless cars – Driverless cars exist, they are not available to the public, and they are an extreme rarity on the roads of California.
Let’s think about a few of the mind-blowing ideas that might be explored these days…
Extremely intelligent computers – Siri is not a very impressive as an AI conversationalist, but it is widely predicated AIs will be. You might be holding a deep and meaningful conversation with processed sand (Silicon). Computers might one day be able to read almost everything ever written, and understand it, faster than it takes you to blink.
Climate change – this isn’t purely a scientific issue as it is a future technological one.
Here’s something that will blow your mind. Lately we have been seeing some success in cryopreserving a whole animal organ and restoring it to viability for transplant.
It looks pretty much like it is just a question of time before we can do this for bigger, human organs. Because things don’t really decay at liquid nitrogen temperatures, we would be able to bank organs for transplant at convenience. This would revolutionize transplant medicine.
Now here’s where it gets really crazy… What are humans made of? Organs.
If we have mastered cryopreservation, what’s to stop us from preserving someone just as or before they died of an incurable disease, and then waiting for the cure to be found, and then restoring them?
There isn’t really anything we know, in principle, that would to stop you from keeping someone cold for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. And then (if you want) your cancer is cured, in the year 3000. Think about that.
No guarantee any of this will happen.
What are we waiting for? Telling the next generation that the future is for them to create and telling them about the possibilities will thrill and inspire them to become the next science, technology, innovation, business and thought leaders of the world.
Unlike other important subjects such as Mathematics, you could easily see them taking the discussion out of class and into the playground.
Alex Muller