Ripples on the Pond
My husband has long held to the theory of time operating like ripples on a pond: events are like stones dropped in the pond, causing ripples that expand in all directions, with big events, like larger stones, creating bigger waves, all accounting not only for the effects of events after they occur but also for such phenomena as premonition. (Yes, I have ripped this idea off to use in a story. Hey, I'm no fool...)
Well, it seems there may be proof of this.
And at the same time, the first baby steps toward science being able to predict the future.
WTF?! Yeah, exactly.
Apparently the Global Consciousness Project (which sounds all airy-fairy new-age, but in fact involves bona fide scientists at reputable research universities; the site is based at Princeton University) has been attempting to assess the ability of people's thoughts to affect random number generators, with some success. But the big surprise is that a random number generator in Edinburgh is showing dramatic effects from traumatic world events...before they happen. Read about it here.
It's far from meaningful, or even proven, at this point, but it's all certainly intriguing. Sure will be cool when we can predict (and perhaps prevent? but that's a whole 'nother philosophical argument) catastrophic world events.
But what about the time before? Let's suppose the results in the article turn out to be replicable, and other possible influences (see the FAQ on the GCP page for some suggestions what these might be) can be controlled for, and ruled out. That is to say, it becomes pretty well proven that the data are telling us something; but the process is not refined to a point where anything more can be said. So you're the person watching the black box, and the data go crazy. You know something big is about to happen. What you don't know is what, where, or when. What do you do? What does anyone do?
If you're the Homeland Security tsar in the U.S., maybe you raise the terror alert flag as a precaution. Then, when a tsunami hits Asia, or an earthquake hits Iran, and nothing happens in the U.S., nobody takes your warning seriously. (Okay, most of us have gotten over taking the rainbow-alert system seriously anyway.) Or maybe the UN makes an announcement, and the whole world goes on alert for . . . what? All anyone knows is that something is going to happen somewhere: it's as if there's a death lottery, and all you know is approximately what time the drawing will be held.
Maybe that would just cause panic, so in absence of sufficient details to do anything specific, the public is not warned. Then, when whatever the data presaged happens and news reports are full of terrifying and sad stories of loss, how do you, the person watching the black box, keep from being driven crazy wondering whether you could have saved any of those lives? And how do you keep the terrified masses from storming your ivory tower demanding to know why you didn't warn them?
Knowing the future is a burden. Not knowing enough about it is really scary.
Well, it seems there may be proof of this.
And at the same time, the first baby steps toward science being able to predict the future.
WTF?! Yeah, exactly.
Apparently the Global Consciousness Project (which sounds all airy-fairy new-age, but in fact involves bona fide scientists at reputable research universities; the site is based at Princeton University) has been attempting to assess the ability of people's thoughts to affect random number generators, with some success. But the big surprise is that a random number generator in Edinburgh is showing dramatic effects from traumatic world events...before they happen. Read about it here.
It's far from meaningful, or even proven, at this point, but it's all certainly intriguing. Sure will be cool when we can predict (and perhaps prevent? but that's a whole 'nother philosophical argument) catastrophic world events.
But what about the time before? Let's suppose the results in the article turn out to be replicable, and other possible influences (see the FAQ on the GCP page for some suggestions what these might be) can be controlled for, and ruled out. That is to say, it becomes pretty well proven that the data are telling us something; but the process is not refined to a point where anything more can be said. So you're the person watching the black box, and the data go crazy. You know something big is about to happen. What you don't know is what, where, or when. What do you do? What does anyone do?
If you're the Homeland Security tsar in the U.S., maybe you raise the terror alert flag as a precaution. Then, when a tsunami hits Asia, or an earthquake hits Iran, and nothing happens in the U.S., nobody takes your warning seriously. (Okay, most of us have gotten over taking the rainbow-alert system seriously anyway.) Or maybe the UN makes an announcement, and the whole world goes on alert for . . . what? All anyone knows is that something is going to happen somewhere: it's as if there's a death lottery, and all you know is approximately what time the drawing will be held.
Maybe that would just cause panic, so in absence of sufficient details to do anything specific, the public is not warned. Then, when whatever the data presaged happens and news reports are full of terrifying and sad stories of loss, how do you, the person watching the black box, keep from being driven crazy wondering whether you could have saved any of those lives? And how do you keep the terrified masses from storming your ivory tower demanding to know why you didn't warn them?
Knowing the future is a burden. Not knowing enough about it is really scary.
posted by Maines at 4:36 PM
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