The Speculist

Divvying up the Future

Time Traveler's Toolkit, Part 2

Previous Entries:
What's a Speculist?
Practical Time Travel

In response to last week's piece in which I defined Practical Time Travel, FastForward Posse member Mike Sargent wrote the following:

Today's entry is great, as far as it goes. One, particularly annoying, issue with the automotive analogy is the distinct lack of navigation aids to cut through the otherwise impenetrable fog ahead to give us a view comparable to the one in the rear view mirror (although the true quality of that vista is also open for debate). Without headlights [1] and / or a good map [2] intentional progress can only be slow, cautious, conservative, and fraught with danger.

[1] "headlights" in this case would have to be some kind of well-developed civilian intellegence-gathering and analysis network. It would have to make CNN/Fox look like the salon correspondence of 18th c. Europe.

[2] "a map" would resemble the beginning stages of Asimov's 'psychohistory'. I don't hold out a great deal of hope for the development of such a predictive science in the next couple of centuries since (In my humble, if educated, opinion) the social sciences are somewhere between "If I bang on this rock hard enough with this other rock I get two sharp rocks." and the phlogiston model of combustion by comparison to the physical sciences.

As brilliant as he was, Asimov was very much a creature of his time. I suppose it's only natural that, as a twentieth century writer, he would view approaching the future as some vast collectivist enterprise. I realize that I verge on blasphemy in suggesting this, but seriously: what was the Foundation, really, but a benign (and much more accurate) Politburo, cranking out 5,000 year plans rather than the Five-Year variety? I'm not saying this collectivist or "mass future" approach is necessarily wrong, unfortunate political associations notwithstanding. I'm saying it's one of many possible approaches to the future. The future can also be approached from an individual or small-group perspective. And when it is approached this way, when we focus our energies on What Am I Going to Do for the Next Three Years rather than How Can I Unravel the Ultimate Fate of Humanity, we find that many of the roadblocks are diminished, if not eliminated. Or, to extend the automotive analogy just a bit, I think the availability and quality of travel aids increases greatly as we choose routes nearer to home*.

There are a number of reasons why our own future is easier to map out than the future of our family or town or planet. But not least among them is the simple fact that we're generally more interested in our own future than we are in any other. Let's look at an example that illustrates this point. Imagine you somehow come into possession of a sheet of paper on which are printed a list of three things that will happen in the future. These are accurate predictions, things that definitely will happen. For purposes of this illustration, we will allow that such predictions are somehow possible.

The first item on the list tells you that in two years, a landmark peace agreement will be reached in the Middle East and that the Israelis and the Palestinians will cease hostilities and live in relative peace, prosperity, and justice for the next 400 years. Well, right off, you have to wonder what exactly is going to happen after those 400 years are up? You can't help it — a prediction like this one practically begs you to ask that question. But other than that knee-jerk response, how do you react to this prediction? You're glad, of course. Relieved. Depending on how close to this situation you are and/or how much you've worried about it, you might be very glad indeed. Only the worst kind of extremists and agitators (of which there are unfortunately plenty) would take this as bad news. You'll probably view it as good news for the world. You will think of the lives that won't be lost or wasted in hatred and strife. You will think of the resources that can now be freed for more productive pursuits. It's wonderful news.

The next prediction is that there will be major breakthroughs in the fields of nanotechnology and biotechnology over the next ten years leading to the elimination of almost all diseases and the extension of the human lifespan to more than twice what it currently is. More good news! This one might hit a little closer to home. Everybody has some kind of connection to or association with the Middle East, however indirect. But we all have a direct interest in our own lifespans. Sure you'll think of others, those who are close to you who are sick or aging — what will this news mean to them? And we think of yourself. You're going to live twice as long! What will you do with the time? Can you still retire on schedule? How will the new technology allow you to feel as you advance through these later years? Will you look like you're 150 years old?

And you'll give a thought to society as a whole. What will it be like having all these super-old people running around? What will this do to Social Security? What will it do to the population of Florida? What impact will this have on friendships, families, marriages? What will it do to the economy? It sure sounds like good news for the planet in general and for you in particular, but there may be some downside and the whole thing bears looking at very carefully.

Unless you live in the Middle East or have friends or family that do, it is hard not to regard this second prediction as the more important of the two.

That's why a discussion about "the future" as often as not ends up being a discussion about "your future" or "my future," by the way. We can't help it; we're in it. Talking about "the future" means talking about setting. Talking about "my future" means talking about character and plot.

Which leads us to the third prediction. It says that you will be dead in three weeks. That's all.

Here's the thing. Those other two predictions deal with major breakthroughs for the world, the kind of changes that you might think of as marking the beginning of a new era, a new age in the history of humanity. But this last one is the truly big news.

Hold on a minute. It's only about one person. So what's the big deal?

Well, first, it's not just some person, for crying out loud. It's you. You're going to die. Who cares about everybody else getting to live twice as long, you're going to be dead in three weeks. You won't live to see the Middle East thing happen. Hell, you won't even be around to see who wins the Superbowl.

You're going to die.

Secondly, while both of the events named could be viewed as a threshold to a new era for humanity, I don't think many of us would tend to look at them as the ultimate fate of humanity. The third prediction, on the other hand, represents your ultimate fate. It's the end of the world, the end of time, for you. And even if you believe in an afterlife, it's the end of this world. It's over. Finished.

This is all a matter of point of view. There are a number of POVs to consider. We can borrow a few from Creative Writing 201 to shed some light. First there is the one that none of us actually has, the Omniscient View. This is the one that gives us The Future™. Only an Omniscient Being could actually see the world from this view, but we refer to it all the time as though we were intimately acquainted with it. It's the point of view in which you can see everything going on at once and in which these events are not colored by individual perceptions and desires.

Everybody who makes general statements about the world is relying to some extent on the Omniscient View. In the preceding statement, I relied upon it. This doesn't mean that I'm claiming Omniscience, it just means that underlying my statement is the assumption that it's possible to make true statements about the assumptions that underlie true statements. And by "true statements" in the second instance, I mean these generalized objective statements about reality.

In fact, another — and probably more familiar — name for the Omniscient POV would be the Objective POV. We all know about the Objective point of view. "Let's be fair," we might say or even "let's be objective." In arguments, objective is always what you're trying to be but that the other person apparently has no concept of. It's what scientists and journalists aspire to. Honest ones, anyway. Effective salesmen and virtually all politicians, on the other hand, use it without actually aspiring to it. They talk about objective reality, and in fact talk from the standpoint of objective reality, but don't really believe in it and would have no interest in it or use for it if they thought it did exist.

So this Omniscient POV relies on the assumption that there really is a real reality "out there." In other words, true statements can be formulated about the universe. The universe is not just a bunch of perceptions, it's a thing and it has its own existence outside of our minds. I'm sure this idea doesn't strike anyone as being particularly big news, and I run the risk of getting into all kinds of philosophical stuff that I hadn't planned on by bringing it up, but it is important to understand the Omniscient POV and its distinction from the other POVs if we are to make any headway in our thinking about the future.

When aimed toward the future, the Omniscient POV is all about the big picture. While it (theoretically) provides the ability to peak into individual feelings and motivations, it is generally not used for this. There are too many Big Truths to be addressed. Individuals become abstractions, part of a greater statistical whole. This is the point of view of the Foundation and of psychohistory.

The next POV is Third Person Limited. It's the one that provides our future as opposed to the future. Third Person Limited was the recommended point of view for writing serious fiction when I was taking creative writing classes back in college. It means that you can see the world around a particular character. If he can't see it, neither can we. The word "limited" is a very important part of the name of this POV. Consider the following passage from a novel about a guy named Harry written from the Omniscient point of view.

Harry removed his shoes and, too exhausted for even the simplest effort, collapsed still dressed onto the bed and fell immediately into a fitful sleep. As he slept, a light burned late into the night from the window of a luxury apartment building far across town. Annette sat at her antique mahogany desk and poured over the ancient text, hoping to find another way out, unwilling to accept the thought that it could all end this way. Meanwhile, aboard the cloaked Mother ship that hovered silently over the same building, Gnyzt thought longingly of the muddy green pools of his homeworld, trying to hold back for now his ravenous hunger and the sweet anticipation of the feast of human flesh and blood that the morning would surely bring.

How would the same passage read if written from the Third Person Limited POV?

Harry removed his shoes and, too exhausted for even the simplest effort, collapsed still dressed onto the bed and fell immediately into a fitful sleep.

You can't have any of that stuff about Annette or Gnyzt because the point of view is limited to what Harry can see. Also, I believe I mentioned that this is a POV used by writers of Serious Fiction, so you're not allowed to have ancient texts, Mother ships, or bloodthirsty aliens, anyway. They aren't serious. Now maybe if Annette is frantically reading ancient texts not in an effort to save the world, but as a way of avoiding the deep, gnawing ambiguity she feels towards life, particularly her mother, we might be on to something. Gnyzt is a bit more of a problem, but maybe we can say that he isn't really an alien, he's a tax attorney. And the Mother ship is his apartment, one floor above Annette's. But the bloodthirsty part is real, because he's a total psycho.

Um, no. Nope.

I don't like it.

Let's just leave the story pretty much intact, keep the Third Person Limited POV, and see how we can fix the whole thing by having Harry stay up just a tad longer:

Harry removed his shoes and, too exhausted for even the simplest effort, collapsed, still dressed, on the bed. He reached over to the nightstand and picked up the phone. He slowly dialed the number, straining with the effort to punch each digit.

"Hello?" Annette answered.

"It's me," he gasped. "I've made it home. I'm all right."

"Harry, thank God," she said. "I'm coming right over."

"No," he said. He tried to catch his breath. "Not safe. I'll wait for daylight and then find you."

"But by then it might be too —"

"Don't say it. We have time."

"I have the scroll, Harry. The ancient text. Father gave it to me before he…before he…oh, Harry…" she sobbed.

With a tremendous effort, Harry pushed himself up to a sitting position.

"I heard about your father, Annette, and I'm sorry. But listen to me. We're going to make it out of this. I swear it. At sunrise, it'll be safe to move around again."

"I know," she choked, "I know, Harry. And I'm not giving up. I can read the scroll, almost as well as father can. Could."

She paused for a moment, seeming to steady herself.

"And I won't give up, Harry. I'll keep looking. There has to be another answer."

"Yes, keep looking." Harry slumped back down in the bed. "Keep looking…the answer is there…" he murmured.

"Yes. I'll keep looking. And, Harry, I want you to know that I—"

"I know," he answered softly. "Tomorrow. Tell me tomorrow."

He hung up the phone and fell immediately into a fitful sleep. In his dreams, he saw a cloaked Mother ship that hovered silently over Annette's building. On board the ship, the Alien thought longingly of the muddy green pools of his homeworld, trying to hold back for now his ravenous hunger and the sweet anticipation of the feast of human flesh and blood that the morning would surely bring.

You'll notice that in addition to getting longer and even hokier, our story has become very specific in how it tells us things. It gives us information not necessarily from Harry's point of view, meaning that the words that we're reading are not meant to be his thoughts, but from the point of view that Harry could have. What we know about what Annette is doing is what Harry learns from talking to her. What we know about Gnyzt is what Harry imagines in a very prescient dream. Outside of the bounds of what Harry can know, the world is not knowable.

The Third Person Limited POV gives us our future, assuming that we're talking about an "us" that just includes ourselves and our immediate sphere. It's kind of a small town compared to the future provided by the Omniscient Point of View. As I pointed out, the Omniscient POV assumes that there's a real reality out there. The Third Person Limited has less use for that; it's more interested in you and your little world.

That's okay: it's a much smaller pond and you therefore get to be a much bigger fish.

Granted, we can use the phrase "our future" to refer to the future of the planet earth or the human race or some other such grandiose collective We, and that's okay by me if that's the way you want to do it. But in the parlance I am introducing here, that would be correctly referred to as the future, relying as it does on the Omniscient point of view.

Our third POV option is the First Person point of view:

I removed my shoes and, too exhausted for even the simplest effort, collapsed still dressed on the bed. I reached over to the nightstand and picked up the phone. I slowly dialed the number, straining with the effort to punch each digit.

"Hello?" Annette answered.

"It's me," I gasped. "I've made it home. I'm all right."

"Harry, thank God," she said. "I'm coming right over."

"No," I said. I tried to catch my breath. "Not safe. I'll wait for daylight and then find you."

The last thing in the world I needed or wanted at that moment was to see Annette. I knew I would have to find her in the morning, we would have to save the world, and then I was going to have to somehow let her know about what had happened between Ruby and me. Not that I owed her any explanations. There was never anything between me and Annette, after all. Her old man kicks, the world starts coming to an end, and suddenly she discovers she has feelings for me. Well, it's just a little too damn late, sweetheart. Anyway, I certainly didn't have the strength to deal with it right then.

"But by then it might be too—"

"Don't say it. We have time."

"I have the scroll, Harry. The ancient text. Father gave it to me before he…before he…oh, Harry…" she sobbed.

With a tremendous effort, I pushed myself up to a sitting position.

"I heard about your father, Annette, and I'm sorry. But listen to me. We're going to make it out of this. I swear it. At sunrise, it'll be safe to move around again."

Anyway, at least the Old Guy was out of the picture. What a pain in the ass he had been.

"I know," she choked, "I know, Harry. And I'm not giving up. I can read the scroll, almost as well as father can. Could."

She paused for a moment, seeming to steady herself.

"And I won't give up, Harry. I'll keep looking. There has to be another answer."

"Yes, keep looking." I slumped back down in the bed. "Keep looking…the answer is there…" I murmured. I knew the scroll would probably tell us something, but that in the end this whole thing was coming down to me kicking some major alien butt.

"Yes, I'll keep looking. And, Harry, I want you to know that I—"

"I know," I answered softly. Keep her from using the "L" word at all costs."Tomorrow. Tell me tomorrow."

I hung up the phone and fell immediately into a fitful sleep. In my dreams, I saw a cloaked Mother ship that hovered silently over Annette's building. On board the ship, the Alien thought longingly of the muddy green pools of his homeworld, trying to hold back for now his ravenous hunger and the sweet anticipation of the feast of human flesh and blood that the morning would surely bring.

I woke for a moment, startled by the though that hey, if he got to her first, it would sure save me a lot of trouble.

The first person POV is the one that allows us to think and talk in terms of my future. Harry is interested in what's going to happen to him. It's not a coincidence that his desires are at odds with the expectations that the earlier versions would have led us to expect. The Omniscient POV gives us a story about the impending end of the world and two heroic people doing what they can to stave it off. Third Person Limited gives us a tender story of two people who care for each other caught up in the whirlwind of an alien invasion. First Person gives us the story of a man who really wants to get some sleep and who will deal with a few annoyances (breaking it off with a woman, saving the world) when he wakes up.

Did you notice that somewhere between POVs, Harry became a self-centered jerk? That's what the First Person Point of View is all about. You don't have to worry about the fish-to-pond size ratio anymore; now you are the pond.(Paradoxically, Harry also became more interesting, even more likable.)

Let's go back and look at the earlier example, in which we got to peak into the future. It is obvious that the first prediction, the one about the Middle East, is very much about the future, and it requires that we look at the world from the Omniscient POV. The second prediction, the one about nano- and biotechnology, is also definitely about the future, but it immediately spins us off into thinking about our future. What will this mean to me? That's a question that you never have to ask in the case of the third prediction, the one about dying in three weeks. In fact, this third prediction will require us to think about our future, about how this news will impact those around us. But our initial response to it is very much from the First Person POV. It is clearly a prediction about my future.

So to whom does the future belong? It depends on which future, which POV, you're talking about. In some sense (although there are severe restrictions to any such generality) it is fair to say that my future belongs to me. We can then carry on and say that our future belongs to us and that the future belongs to The — or possibly to the world or to God if you're uncomfortable with the entire future belonging to the definite article. There are good approaches to the future from each of the POVs.

One's ability to influence the future from a particular POV will be the topic for next week's TTT.

* Which is not to say that I don't have any use for the collectivist approach, or interest in developing something like Asimov's psychohistory. I think real progress will come towards this kind of capability not from the social sciences, but from analysis of financial markets. The recent flap over a futures market in terrorism got people thinking about the applicability of the predictive power of markets to future events in general. I think there is definitely something there. Also, check out what Ray Kurzweil has to say about using computers to evolve highly accurate systems of market prediction. (Unfortunately, I can't find a reference online, although you might try for yourselves at KurzweilAI.net. However, he explains this concept in some detail in the book named below.) If such systems can be evolved for financial markets, couldn't they also be evolved for markets that deal in general future events?

I'll be examining these issues in greater detail in later installments of TTT, but right now we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves. Which is okay, because, you know, we're talking about the future.

Posted by Phil at August 18, 2003 11:46 AM | TrackBack