Quote induced reflection
The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet. William Gibson
Okay, so my most recent posts have been induced by random quotes on my Google homepage. Still it is the introduction of randomness into any process that provides creativity. The oddly positioned lens or mirror allows glimpses that often add nothing, but occasionally grant new understanding.
This quote has reminded me of the place of science and progress in the world today. Things are happening, advances are being made, prophecies of all ilks are being fulfilled and refuted, and we step into the future. The future that everyone seems to expect, whether optimistic, pessimistic, or unforeseen (not as big a self contradiction as you'd think) happens all the time. I can only speak of my small patchwork piece of perceived reality and I can only keep up with mere fraction of the new knowledge generated in my areas of expertise. It's perhaps a more Zen-like state of consciousness. You don't know that the future has arrived until you can look back on the moment with the perspective of hindsight. Then it isn't really the future, is it?
So we must prepare ourselves to receive a changing world. Not by predicting the next sequence of events with five decimal place precision, but by stretching our understanding of possibilities, probabilities, and consequences. Or we resign ourselves to be subsumed by the crashing waves of events that are not only uncontrollable, but incomprehensible. So read more science fiction to prepare yourself for the strangeness yet to come.
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Okay, so my most recent posts have been induced by random quotes on my Google homepage. Still it is the introduction of randomness into any process that provides creativity. The oddly positioned lens or mirror allows glimpses that often add nothing, but occasionally grant new understanding.
This quote has reminded me of the place of science and progress in the world today. Things are happening, advances are being made, prophecies of all ilks are being fulfilled and refuted, and we step into the future. The future that everyone seems to expect, whether optimistic, pessimistic, or unforeseen (not as big a self contradiction as you'd think) happens all the time. I can only speak of my small patchwork piece of perceived reality and I can only keep up with mere fraction of the new knowledge generated in my areas of expertise. It's perhaps a more Zen-like state of consciousness. You don't know that the future has arrived until you can look back on the moment with the perspective of hindsight. Then it isn't really the future, is it?
So we must prepare ourselves to receive a changing world. Not by predicting the next sequence of events with five decimal place precision, but by stretching our understanding of possibilities, probabilities, and consequences. Or we resign ourselves to be subsumed by the crashing waves of events that are not only uncontrollable, but incomprehensible. So read more science fiction to prepare yourself for the strangeness yet to come.
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. Dwight D. Eisenhower