Teotwawki: Okay If We Confirm That Tomorrow?

But what if we cannot? What if the respect we pay to the science of prediction is respect to a fictive process and little more? What if the untrained human mind is unable to tell the difference be­t­­w­een 바카라�science and its counterfeit바카라� (just as it is unable to tell the difference between magic and its counterfeit, sleight-of-hand [essentially, between one counterfeit and its counterfeit])?

In predictive mechanisms (as in just about everything else today), the problem is that of boundaries. The demarcation problem in the philosophy of science seeks to address what is science and what is non-science (including anti-science, pse­udo-science, beliefs, the arts and literature). This article disdains, by virtue of what it focuses on, anti-scientific predictive mechanisms. By virtue of the same, it must therefore depend upon Larry Laudan바카라�s prescription that 바카라�above all, to have science one must have apodictic certainty.바카라� (바카라�The Demise of the Demarcation Problem바카라�, in Cohen, R.S.; Laudan, L., Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum)

In effect, science must have, as both witness and ­componentry, the character of the evidence upon which it stands. As ever, Aristotle beat us to it: αποδεικτικό χαρακτήρας (바카라�apodíctico charaktíras바카라�) translates as 바카라�the character of evidence바카라�. It refers to clearly demonstrable or clearly undemonstrable propositions. In predictive science, the character of evidence is important, seeing as how evidence of a future predicted will work backwards to establish the verity of the evidence used to predict that future.

And this is where we come to the crux of the problem: The future, being what it is­바카라�an enigma behind a veil across a sea of suppositions and desires바카라�is also clearly undemonstrable. But is the future, though broadly knowable, specifically ­unpredictable? Perhaps, just like the past, the future is hidden by a swirling storm of pixellated data.

There is little point here in placing the tatters of Nostradamus under an electron microscope (the usual one having failed to spot anything convincing). Nor is there any point in pushing the Mayan Weltenende scenario, which, having failed to polish hum­ankind off in 2012, has now been reread to mean 2047.

Except that 2047 deserves a mention: It is the year (give or take a year or two) when everything is set to change irrevocably. The planetary climate regime: the finding of Camilo Mora of the Uni­versity of Hawaii that climatic temperature will be 바카라�unprecedented바카라�.  In The Singul­arity, Ray Kurzweil has runaway AI pegged at 2045­바카라�and it probably won바카라�t be all good, although it probably might, who knows. Certainly, oil, acc­ording to a BP prediction, will last us until 2047. After that year, everything seems up for grabs. The problem with this is specificity­바카라�and the fact that previous scientific predictions have all bombed. Take oil:

• In 1914, the US bureau of mines predicted a consolidated future production limit of 5.7 billion barrels of oil바카라�a 10-year supply.

• In 1939, the department of the interior predicted that oil reserves in the continental United States would last no more than 13 years.

• In 1951바카라�12 years later바카라�the dep­artment of the interior바카라�s oil and gas division extended its oil-end doomsday prediction by another 13 years.

• In 1972, within three years of its founding, in its significant publication, Limits to Growth, the Club of Rome predicted: 바카라�The world will run out of oil by 1991.바카라�

• In 2007, BP바카라�s Statistical Review of World Energy showed that the world had enough 바카라�proven바카라� res­erves to last another 40 years, at current rates of consumption.

Nobody who is not a right-wing nut or has not financially benefited from the open-handed largesse of oilcos is in any doubt that these catastrophes lie in wait in humankind바카라�s fut­ure. But, equally, nobody knows when it will all come to pass.

***

TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It) is an absolute favourite of science fiction writers, readers, environmentalists, political scientists and wuthering wonks. It is also a favourite of data-believers such as I: We know the end of the world is nigh; we just don바카라�t presume to know when 바카라�nigh바카라� is.

In an issue of Wired magazine (April 2000), Bill Joy, co-f­ounder and chief scientist, Sun Microsystems, predicted the end of humankind by 2030, at the outside. The very cutting-­edge technologies that Kurzweil has exampled as components of the Singularity­바카라�genetech, robotics, nanotech­바카라�Joy marked as harbingers of the human extinction event.

There is solid scientific grounding for the essential nonsensicality of prediction models. In their 2006 paper, 바카라�Callimac­hus: Avoiding the Pitfalls of XML for Collaborative Text Analysis바카라� (Literary and Linguistic Computing)바카라�the conclusion of 바카라�Callimachus: A Virtual Archivist for Electronic Markup Projects바카라�­바카라�Jeff Smith, Joel DeShaye and Peter Stoicheff managed to shoot down predictive models as inherently hamstrung by their reliance on past data to generate future data.

The Callimachus project at the University of Saskatchewan was conceived as a way to merge 바카라�the robust scalability of formal database technologies with the expressive power and humanist-friendly accessibility of HTML and XML schema바카라�. It was first applied to a hypertext of William Faulkner바카라�s The Sound and the Fury.

바카라�Callimachus was designed to allow the possibility of using a true database application to mark up Faulkner바카라�s 1929 novel (The Sound and the Fury) on a token (or word) level.... With this custom database and interface, we can discover when and how a concept appears in the novel. We can discover which characters dwell on what concepts and to what extent. We can discover how many words (how much narrative space) characters use when talking or thinking about specific topics. We can display relationships with charts and graphs computed with any combination of variables.... Faulkner, telling this part of the story through the mind of an idiot, normally provides only obscure clues to mark the mnemonic flashing from one event to ­another. The narrative does not follow the chronological ­sequence of events in the novel. However, using HTML and JavaScript to tag each event, we built an interface that links events in the narrative sequence with events in a chronologically correct version of the text. For the first time, readers could reorient themselves in the chronology by clicking a button, leaving behind the much more confusing original narrative. The hyp­ertext edition helped us clarify our understanding of the novel and yielded some surprising results. We knew that the idiot narrator, named Benjy, would relive an event (such as his grandmother바카라�s death), would trigger a ­seq­uence of flashbacks, and would often repeatedly return to that initial event. Benjy바카라�s memory of his grandmother바카라�s death is interrupted 17 times by other flashbacks. When we isolate this event from the interruptions, we notice that it is transmitted chronologically. Hidden in the chaos of so many rel­ived events are small, coherent, chronological narratives.바카라� (Vincent Neyt, Review of Stoicheff, Muri, Deshaye, et al (eds): The Sound and the Fury: A Hypertext Edition; Literary and Linguistic Computing, 2004)

It reads all good바카라�except that two years after this review was published, Smith, DeShaye and Stoicheff went on to coin the now ubiquitous term, 바카라�the fallacy of prescience바카라�. It means that the Callimachus project used iffy predictive mechanicals바카라�making inferences about ideas and micro-narratives yet to be 바카라�discovered바카라� in order to build the very schema, the mechanism, needed to describe them.

In other words, the mechanism of prediction predicts the future. If the basis of the mechanism is ballsed-up, one can expect the reading of the future to be muddled, too. (It gets worse if we bring into the picture Big Data, the much-glorified basis of predictive science today바카라�­because few things muddle the statistical waters like Big Data.)

The fallacy of prescience, of course, has illustrious foreparents, all of them applicable, in one form or another, to speculative fiction and non-speculative, 바카라�predictive바카라� science. The fallacy of circular reasoning (circulus in probando) ends where 바카라�the reasoner begins with what he or she is trying to end up with바카라�. The fallacy of the irrelevant conclusion (ignoratio ele­nchi) is an argument that prima facie seems to address an issue head-on but, in fact, dodges and ducks like crazy. It is a standing favourite in the social media. This fallacy partakes hungrily of the gambler바카라�s fallacy, which holds that because something has occurred often within a given period, it will not in future; or because it has not occurred frequently, it is bound to happen. Murphy바카라�s law of the raw deal바카라�바카라�If something rotten can happen, it will바카라�바카라�is an extension of the gambler바카라�s fallacy. As is the 바카라�extinction event prediction바카라�, which holds that because there have already been five extinction events, another (the Homocene, or Anthropocene, event) is just about here.

In a paper, 바카라�Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction바카라� (Science Advances, June 2015), the editors, including Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich, wrote that 바카라�the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear바카라�. The paper went on to emphasise: 바카라�These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, ­indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way.바카라�

But, as ever, arithmetic does us no good. In the paper quoted above, positing a period­바카라�which is nominal, anyway­바카라�of 바카라�bet­ween 800 and 10,000 years바카라� is equal to scientific whatiffery. There is no denying that something earth-altering is under way바카라�geosocietal anecdotal evidence is on firmer ground here than scientific evidence바카라�but there is no saying what shape it will eventually take or when it will happen.

This is where another fallacy­바카라�a superfallacy, by any yardstick바카라�comes into play: Nassim Nicholas Taleb바카라�s 바카라�Ludic Fallacy바카라�바카라�explicated in his 2007 book, The Black Swan바카라�which is 바카라�the misuse of games to model real-life situations바카라�. This is something that Taleb figured out on the back of an envelope in a casino. Not unsurprisingly, then, Taleb called his Ludic Fallacy the act of 바카라�basing studies of chance on the narrow world of games and dice바카라� (which, being one of a kind with Einstein바카라�s huffy, 바카라�God does not play dice with the universe바카라�, makes one wonder if scientists are not, fundamentally, gamblers).

The adjective ludic originates from the Latin noun ludi (games) and ludus (play, sport, pastime). Ludus also means prank, jest, and diversion, so 바카라�the ludic fallacy바카라� might actually be more critical in both intent and content than is usually presumed.

In an earlier book, Fooled By Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and the Markets (2001), Taleb had pretty much definitively established that predictive qualities are often perceived바카라�but not present바카라�in 바카라�random patterns바카라�, formed by pure chance.

Explaining Taleb, François Daniel Sicart, founder-chairman of Tocqueville Management Corporation, wrote (2007) that 바카라�a generalisation such as 바카라�all swans are white바카라� merely means that, up to now, only white swans have been observed. But it is enough for one black swan to appear for this conclusion to become ent­irely false. The odds of encountering a white swan are then irrevocably altered. Unfortunately, until a black swan has been observed, no amount of information collected about white swans can help us assess the odds of there being black swans.바카라�

And there바카라�s the point: Until black swans were 바카라�discovered바카라� in Australia in 1697, no one knew they existed, because nob­ody had seen them before. Thereafter, however, Cygnus atratus became part of바카라�of all things바카라�European culture: black swans became emblematically common. Suddenly, everyone knew someone who knew someone who had seen or kept a flock.

Taleb set a fox among the hens. He ripped apart the book on predictive science. He separated scientific predictability from its prime motivator: human expectation. And he established the 바카라�non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods바카라�.

Taleb바카라�s prescription worked, even in hindsight. In December 1995, in a well-known piece for InfoWorld, Melancton 바카라�Bob바카라� Metcalfe predicted that, in 1996, the internet would collapse under 바카라�gigalapses바카라� caused by massive data traffic jams. As co-founder of the Ethernet and founder of 3Com, Metcalfe wasn바카라�t fooling around with rubbish doomsaying: the state of the Net had, indeed, raised flags among the Big Data doyens of the digitalverse.

And, yet, no collapse came to pass. If anything, the internet only grew stronger. Among other things, the internet arrived in India on August 15, 1995.

And, at the Sixth Annual World Wide Web Conference in 1997, Metcalfe ate his words바카라�literally, by putting his article in a blender and downing it.

***

Almost everything in modern society is about predictive analysis, or how to beat the odds: education (what must I study today to land a good job a decade hence?); jobs (what must I do today to ensure promotivity to a great position five years hence?); health (what vitamins must I pop to be in perfect health when my peers are falling like ninepins all around me?); marketing (I gotta go intercontinental two years from now, so what data do I gather and how must I cru­nch it?); human expansion (next stop Mars: where바카라�s the astrophysical data?); population (if the census is so exact, why is it always wrong?); development policies (why can바카라�t I get the right data to formulate working decadal policies?). Et cetera.

All these hairy decisions require some degree of data-­crunching. The problems become hairier when the data bec­ome too many and the crunching too complex. All development macro-policies are, in essence, predictive: they need, and utilise, mountains of data in order to ensure relevancy sans cesse: and, yet, development policies always imp­lode, because Big Data바카라�which policies depend upon for direction, formulation and execution바카라�haven바카라�t served them well in terms of predicting the future.

For, the issue with Big Data are small data; the issue with small data are micro-data. And the Achilles바카라� heel of micro-­data is Datenfälschung바카라�data-falsification, whether deliberate or inadvertent. A smidgen of data-diddling can cause an avalanche of falling dominoes. What the world is facing today is바카라�to use the word immortalised by Bret Swanson바카라�an 바카라�exaflood바카라� of both raw and doctored data. Meanwhile, Big Data has been getting a proper knocking as a vehicle for, well, anything.

Speaking before the US House of Representatives Sub­committee on Technology, Information Policy, Inter­govern­m­e­n­tal Relations, and Census (March 25, 2003), Jen Que Louie, president of Nautilus Systems Inc, had pointed out four data-mining fallacies:

1. Data-mining tools set free will accomplish everything. (No such autopropelled data-mining tools exist.)
2. The data-mining process works independent of human oversight. (It doesn바카라�t. No software does­바카라�yet.)
3. Intuition can be built into data-mining software. (Not yet, and perhaps never.)
4. Once set loose, data-mining pays its own way. (It doesn바카라�t: It needs periodic infusions with upgrades.)

Add to these fallacies two others:

1. Data-mining will automatically identify the problems with databases. (It won바카라�t. It is not designed to.)
2. Data-mining can clean up fuggled databases. (It cannot. Data-mining works with what it has on what it is given.)

In effect, nothing바카라�no data, no science, no help from (putative) gods바카라�quite helps predict the future. Humankind is stumbling forward more or less blind.

(Kajal Basu is a senior journalist.)