Peter Schwartz is one of the founders and chairman of the Global Business Network, an organization that specializes in scenario planning and future research. He is the author of the book "The Long Distance View". Schwartz served as a script consultant for films such as "War Games", "Sneakers", and "Lethal Strike And he believes he will live to be 150 years old
Peter Schwartz
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/helem3.html
In the past year we discovered that the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate and is, apparently, more flat than round. We found evidence that dark matter fills the universe. We completed the first draft of the human genome and began building the fastest computer that could solve even more complicated biological problems. All these events, and other events hint to us about the upcoming scientific revolution. They challenge old ideas and accepted ways of doing things, and open new ways for the future.
A world of increasing discontinuity was the basic message of "Future Shock", the next scientific revolution, which we now foresee on the rise, will bring more discontinuity, the latest developments in physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, and other fields of knowledge, will revolutionize our view of seeing the nature Such changes in our point of view often lead to changes in social and political thinking and a huge leap in technical capabilities.
New tools
Scientific advances are often associated with new tools, which have opened up new areas of research. The telescope and the microscope changed the way we look at the very large and the very small atom splitters that are called particle accelerators, made the study of the interior of the atom possible. The study of the crystals using X-rays made it possible to discover the double helix of the DNA molecule.
But despite all these innovations, the most important new tool invented so far was the computer. It gave us the ability to simulate phenomena such as complex chemical reactions, in a very faithful way to reality. It allowed us to study a much larger number of samples, millions instead of dozens. Attempts to solve difficult scientific problems continue to advance on the computerized front.
Today's supercomputers already allow us to simulate many thousands of possible chemical reactions, with the aim of bringing about the most productive result in the laboratory. In the beginning, the Internet was a tool for accelerating scientific communication. The study was part of a broader process, which included peer review, publication, challenges, repeated experiments, and so on. It took months and even years. Today an experiment was conducted in the morning, and the results are sent online by lunchtime. By the afternoon, they are valid in other places and happy until the end of the day.
Ideas can also be tools. A new important idea has emerged in recent years, the mathematics of chaos. This form of observation was carefully described through this new mathematical discipline. Two new principles of change arise from chaos theory: one talks about small changes at the beginning of the development process that can cause large-scale effects later, while the other focuses on the result of the process and the path that led to it, small, almost random changes accumulate over time and create a pattern of development that changes from system to system, even if lightness. The leaves are very similar on each tree, but not identical. There are many spiral galaxies in the universe, but not one of them is a replica of the Milky Way. Uniqueness is the product of any unique event that occurs at some point along the way, and adds something to the leaves, or to the galaxies, that changes, even slightly, their shape or size.
There is a kind of interrelationship between science, technology, and society. New scientific principles may enable new technologies, which will lead to the development of new scientific tools and the social consequences of the new technology. The issues related to genetic cloning, for example, embody all the above aspects, new tools also lead to new scientific ideas. New ideas can lead to social changes.
The technological fruits of scientific progress usually attract research funders. The solutions to many scientific problems are found while confronting the needs of the military. Microchips and microfabrication are the result of a military need for miniature equipment. But now that economic interests are driving the research, the accelerated completion of the federal Human Genome Project was driven by commercial competition. Many venture capital funds and super corporations are pouring venture capital into the frontiers of science and technology, in an attempt to develop profitable intellectual assets. The payoffs for the technological advances can be enormous and, therefore, provide an important incentive for funding.
Is the story over? Some people, like the writer John Horgan, believe that we have reached the "end of science". The important questions have been answered, and it only remains to complete a few details, or they will forever be beyond the reach of science. The edifice of physical science is almost completely completed, while the connection between the mind and the brain will always be deceptive, but those who follow this line of thought are no more right than the American Physical Society, which at the end of the 19th century announced that there would soon be a surplus of physicists, because answers to all the important questions had been found. The unification of competing theories in physics, the discovery of how the human genome and the human brain work, are just some of the questions on the agenda. It is possible that the answer to some of them will come soon, and that others will have to wait until the end of the century. Still, one can indeed see some of them on the horizon. One of the reasons why these advances are revolutionary is the fundamental changes that are taking place in all fields of knowledge. Although I focus here on physics, biology and chemistry, I could cover many other areas of knowledge. And as we will see, they feed each other. In physics we experience changes in the way we understand the universe - on both sides of the scale, from the countless stars in space, to the heart of the atomic particles. The most serious problem in physics today is the fundamental conflict between relativity, which describes well the nature of a large-scale universe, and quantum mechanics, which is useful on the other side of the scale. One of the two is true, but not both together.
Meanwhile, new findings in particle research, and new theories such as superstrings, are leading to a reexamination of the most elaborate model of the subatomic world. Superstring theory has the potential to become a conflict between relativity and quantum theory, and it may also be the unifying theory.
Uncertainty is the nature of things. Today it is difficult for us to imagine how physical reality works. After all, can anyone imagine the big bang? Did a unique discontinuity in the structure of space-time, which suddenly exploded in a flash of enormous energy, create the universe?
We were in this movie. One of the first models of the universe in the West, was established by Ptolemy. It worked pretty well, except for the fact that it assumed that our planet was at the center of the universe, and that everything revolved around the earth. As astronomy became more sophisticated, we had to come up with more elaborate mathematical models to make Ptolemy's world picture work. The stellar circles in which the heavenly bodies moved became circles within circles within circles. Until Copernicus suggested that we imagine that the earth is not at the center of the system. The way we understood the way the universe works has changed, both in perception and in mathematics.
The current moment in physics has a Ptolemaic flavor. Maybe the universe is complicated and incomprehensible. Or, maybe only our models have become complicated and unfathomable, maybe new theories will bring perspectives, which will not be as simple as the clockwork universe of the 19th century, or as deceptive as the incomprehensible world of the XNUMXth century. In our new understanding of the relationship between large and small, we may literally see anew the universe around us.
Revolution scenarios
The outcome of the revolutionary dynamics is unknown. Maybe those who claim that there are no new revolutions are right. All the details are already here or we'll never figure it out, but either way the story is mostly over. In this scenario, it is unlikely that we will be surprised by new discoveries in the coming decades. The world of 2030 will largely resemble our world today - maybe the technology will be higher, but there will be no far-reaching changes in contemporary science and technology.
What will happen if these developments are indeed revolutionary, and they feed each other in many different areas, and create a period of world changes? Part of the motivation for this is found in the high turnovers that the new technology calls for today. But well-being, ideas, talent and power can join together and become oil in the wheels of a technological and scientific revolution - which will lead to the development of the concept of "uniqueness" Singularity in the words of Vernon Wing. Indeed, it is extremely difficult to imagine the world that will emerge when the rate of changes and their significance continue to increase at an accelerated rate.
And yet, we are able to imagine a world where there are mutual connections, where the actions of humans are important, but such a world where it is difficult to monitor things. We can develop new capabilities to create new devices and materials in pleasant and ecological ways. Maybe we will even open up new and clean energy sources. It will be a different world from our world today, just as it was a world of airplanes and automobiles and a wild year where people traveled in horse-drawn carriages and steamships.
If history is a faithful guide, and the signs of the revolution we are already seeing are significant, I would bet that the singularity scenario is the one that holds the next scientific revolution.
Yadan the third millennium - futurism
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~613775544~~~180&SiteName=hayadan
