This post -- my last, prior to launching into the real business of Blaugury -- concludes my message of welcome and self-introduction. The paragraphs below will attempt to lay out a coherent methodology for the trend analyses to follow. (If only to convince myself I have one. If the reader is convinced as well, so much the better.) I also will say a bit about myself and why I’m interested in doing these analyses in the first place.
In a usage common to both math and physics, a vector is an expression of magnitude and direction, but not position. Familiar examples from our 2- and 3-dimensional Euclidean spaces include velocity and acceleration; in studies of electromagnetism vector calculus is used to analyze the strength and gradient of magnetic fields. Other disciplines have their own ideas about how to use vectors, but most (with the possible exception of biology) still endeavor to describe different kinds of forces mathematically.
Now, for the reader to visualize my proposed methods I need to introduce a word almost as arcane as augury: i.e., vector. With primary roles in mathematics and physics, and wide applications (and very different meanings) in fields as diverse as biology, business and computer science (among others), vectors are extremely versatile tools for visualizing and calculating interactions among real phenomena, as well as among more abstract notions, in both physical and virtual systems.
Math phobes needn’t worry. My forthcoming discussions of social, political and technological trends won’t aspire to the rigor of the “hard,” nor even the “soft” sciences. Nevertheless, on occasion I’ll likely refer to one subject trend or another as a vector -- mostly because it’s a convenient analog for concepts that don’t readily lend themselves to clarity of expression, especially in informal discussions among lay persons. Perhaps it’s just the illustrator in me, but I find it easier to think and talk about ideas when something essential about them can be expressed through the simple expedient of a picture. When something is distilled down to the point one can draw a rational representation of it -- on a chalkboard, on paper, or on a computer screen -- it’s possible to develop and share deeper understandings about what it is and how it acts.
Vectors do that in spades. A vector’s arrowhead indicates the direction a force (or trend) is going; the length of a vector line indicates the magnitude (or speed) of the force (or trend). The picture truly is worth a thousand words. Given that starting point, it’s not too much of a stretch to extend the analogy by using vectors to characterize the speed and direction of technology developments. Or social changes. Or political movements. Or the result of all of them interacting together.
Instead of calculating geometrically complex products, or even taking simple vector sums, we’ll confine our manipulations to some flippant hand-waving to dismiss the “show-your-work” rule of mathematical proofs. Instead of conducting lab experiments or double-blind clinical studies, we’ll search out and embrace our “gut feelings.” Of course, we’ll still try and get to the same places the experts do -- or at least understand a bit better why they come to their particular conclusions. We will focus on what those conclusions mean to us, in the long run, both as individuals and as a civilization.
There’s more to follow, after the picture -- in this case a rendering of vectors in the wild, posing problems in addition and subtraction.
Blaugury is a reflection of my concerns for humanity’s future -- as a biological species, and as a socio-politcal organism. Not surprisingly, these are exactly the concerns that birthed my science fiction/fantasy series “The Merlin Protocol.” At this point in time bringing along the two in parallel seems at once crucial and inevitable.
The speed of technological change is making writing science fiction more challenging every day. A meeting I attended the mid-90s may help illustrate this: I was a member of a technology think tank for a multinational financial corporation. It was the dawn of the Internet Age, and our little group was discussing a number of then-current and near-future threats to online banking security. (A number, I should add, that has grown exponentially, during the past two decades.)
Midway through what had been a boisterous and freewheeling exchange, a colleague and friend of mine had chimed in to the effect that “quantum computers could defeat even the strongest encryption schemes.” As I recall, utter silence greeted his remark. Quantum computers, we all seemed to be thinking, are at best only theoretical! Why are we wasting time talking about science fiction?
When someone finally spoke again, it was only to nudge the conversation in a completely different direction. And the sudden, palpable sense of relief in the room made it clear my friend had been the only one at the table who’d considered the idea even remotely possible in our lifetimes. Even the least technical among us understood computers pretty well. We’d been hired to be forward-thinking, but working for a gigantic bank, we also were expected to recognize certain practical limits. My friend was not simply dreaming, he was hallucinating.
(Remember, in 1995 the Internet had only recently escaped from its governmental wombs and academic midwives and gone feral. Desktop computing was barely a decade old, and the largest supercomputers were little more than massively parallel versions of their little PC brothers -- extremely powerful, but still limited by semiconductor technologies, fundamentally unchanged since the invention of the transistor in 1947. Quantum computing -- using “spooky interactions” among atoms or photons to perform multiple simultaneous operations on data -- was little more than . . . science fiction.)
We're not quite there yet, but quantum machines are already much more science fact than fiction. Quantum computing has already been demonstrated -- if only on a tiny scale -- in the lab. How many more years will pass, do you imagine, before no encryption scheme will be enough to keep our most private and well-guarded secrets from prying eyes? Because there are so many technical problems yet to be solved, the answer to that question is unclear; but it’s now very likely that we’ll see large-scale quantum computing in our lifetimes. (Which, of course, means my friend wasn’t hallucinating, and the rest of us in the room that day were woefully shortsighted.)
There are many more examples of changes that once seemed impossible, but are now real (or at least reality-adjacent). So, rather than fight a losing battle against developments that appear to be hurtling toward Kurzweil’s human-computer Singularity, at a rate approaching a significant fraction of c, I’ve decided to embrace them. I'm writing “The Merlin Protocol” as series of eBooks, and the science fiction in them is as realistic as I can make it. That means I spend a lot of time reading about the bleeding edges of science and technology, and extending what I learn in ways that I hope will attract and withstand scrutiny from the highly intelligent, notoriously well-informed audiences who devour science fiction in every medium available to them.
To be sure, with a nod to the mysticism that suffuses the Arthurian legends, my story also has elements of fantasy -- most of them rationalized by numerous quasi-scientific conceits -- enough to propel my work into the speculative fiction sub-genre. I’ve long been fascinated by the weave of future possibility, present reality and mythic past. The works of Roger Zelazny, in my youth, and now, Charles Stross, have inspired me to explore our uncomfortably near future in fiction, through the lens of characters and situations that constitute the bedrock of Western romantic traditions. Again, a welcome to those who join along the way.
* * *
I closed my last post with vague assurances that whatever enlightenment Blaugury might provide, it won’t be dimmed by my own meager supply of candles. Many of my arguments will be abridged restatements of those made by the brilliant thinkers and subject matter experts of our time, who have made and are still making outstanding contributions to their respective fields of study. They are Technologists. Futurists. Sociologists. Writers whose grasp of the thrust of world change far outstrips my own, but whose ideas have fired my imagination. Others will reflect the influence of some of the extraordinarily smart people I’m lucky enough to know personally. Collectively their analyses of important social, technological and political trends have reshaped the way I look at our world. But since I haven’t yet articulated any positions that require bringing in these “big guns,” I’m going to hold the artillery support in reserve for next time.
I hope to see you then.
photo credit: M. E. Mendrygal
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