history homework 4

The reading by David Orrell, ‘Divide and Conquer: The Gospel of Deterministic Science,’ is taken from his book Apollo’s Arrow: The Sciencxe of Prediction and the Future of Everything, and looks at the same ideas we covered in class this week. Especially, it compares the two seemingly contradictory visions of the future represented by (1) determinism (in which the future is seen to be the inevitable outcome of forces in the present, and therefore should, in theory, be possible to predict with absolute certainty as long as we have access to all available information) and (2) probability (in which even absolute knowledge will not allow us to predict the future with 100% certainty, and the best we can hope for is to estimate a range of possibility).

This apparent conflict will be the subject of much of the remainder of this semester. Think about Laplace’s claim in the early 1800s — is it possible to imagine a vast intellect (e.g. a supercomputer) that is able to analyze a vast amount of data (e.g. the Internet) and on that basis make absoutely certain predictions about the future? If not, why not? Or is still true that, despite that vast increases in the production and storage of information, our ability to communicate with each other at the speed of light, and the sharing of ideas with billions of other people (all crucial to the explosion of “collective learning” in the 20th century), we are no closer to being able to predict the future than we were, say, 200 years ago?

For now, please take another look at Orrell’s article and post a brief reply to the following questions by the end of next week:

1. Select any TWO of the sub-headed sections of this chapter (e.g. ‘Straight vs. Crooked,’ ‘Limited vs. Unlimited,’ etc.) and in your own words briefly summarize in each instance what you understand Orrell is arguing.

2. Having discussed the possibilities and problems in determining (i.e. predicting) the future scientifically, Orrell then conlcudes (p. 117) that “the fundamental danger of deterministic, objective science” is that “It has no sense of the mystery, magic, or surprise of life. A key difference between a living thing and an object is predictability: kick a stone, and you know what will happen; swat at a bee, and things get more complicated.”

Briefly, say whether you agree or disagree with Orrell’s view here, and explain why. In either case, in your opinion what is the key obstacle in predicting the future of human events?