My Laws

A few months ago, I posted a reply on social media with a comment that I called "My Law #271".  "There’s a precursor event to every disaster, if anyone is paying sufficient attention."  A friend, taking me seriously (big mistake) asked to read the other 270, which didn't really exist.  

After a little thought, I decided it would be worthwhile to make a list of my life lessons and insights.  Some are original, but more are life lessons I learned from others, in person or through reading.  Some of these might seem cynical, obvious or trivial.  As another friend often says, your mileage may vary.  But for what it's worth, here is the list of My Laws.

1)  All human problems can be solved with enough knowledge, money, social cooperation and time. 
        Social cooperation and time are usually the limiting factors.
                -  Modified from David Deutsch

2)  On a beach of white seashells, the dark shell is the prettiest.  On a beach of dark seashells, the white one is the prettiest. 
      The sunset is beautiful because it is brief and different than the other colors of the day. 

3)  Objective truth exists and is generally accessible to everyone.

4)  Progressive risk-taking always ends in trouble or disaster.
        Examples of progressive risk-taking include:
        > “We’ve taken chances before, and it’s always worked out all right.”
        > “We’ve launched the Space Shuttle successfully twenty-four times; what can go wrong?”
        > “You can always fit a car through a narrower space than you expect” - until you can’t.
        > “Well, you didn’t get pregnant the last time”.
        > “You can go farther than you think on a tank of gas” - until you can’t.  This is especially important in small airplanes. – Modified from FAA Accident Report, circa 2009

5)  You have to learn to cooperate when paddling a canoe.

6)   There is no rewind button on life.
Kasparov makes an analogy to the chessboard.  You have to play the position on the board, regardless of your own prior errors or unexpected moves by your opponent.  Omar Khayyam also had something to say about the moving finger that writes and moves on. 

7)  We should judge God according to standards of reason and justice.
           If we determine that God is not reasonable or just, why should anyone believe in God?
                      - Modified from David Deutsch.

8)  Thinking based on false premises cannot be expected to yield good conclusions or decisions. 
            This is why I reject religion and spirituality, despite some positive aspects of these beliefs.

9)  The existence of war causes me to question the existence of nations as an organizing principle for humankind.

10)  Borders are not for keeping people out; they are for keeping rules in. 
- Steve Robbins (son)

11)  Kindness is best and most needed when it is completely unexpected.

12)  Humans are a uniquely improbable, intelligent and capable species with no known analogs in time and space. 
There is no evidence of another sentient and capable species in the 4.5 billion year history of earth.  Cephalopods did not develop technical intelligence in nearly 500 million years of evolution.  Dinosaurs did not evolve technical intelligence in 170 million years of evolution.   There is no evidence of another sentient species in the galaxy. 

We should make the most of our abilities.  We are unique, and have the opportunity to become something better than we are today.

13)  I live in the Middle Ages, a time of war, disease, superstition and ignorance.
The Middle Ages will end when humankind is no longer organized into nations, when infectious disease is conquered, when most people no longer believe in spiritual beings and when education provides understanding, instead of belief and knowledge.

14)  It’s critically important to know when the rules have changed.
         People in 1930s Europe didn’t realize that the rules had changed.

15)  If you don’t have a better idea, it’s time to shut up.
When someone is objecting to the solution to a problem, ask them for their alternative.

16)  Three out of six people are completely honest. 
          Two out of six will bend the rules to their advantage.
          One out of six people will simply cheat.
      - From experience as an internal auditor, an unscientific sample.

17) The great ethical debate of the next century will be what rights to give to sentient machines. 
        The great ethical debate of the following century will be what rights to give to sentient humans.

18)  Justice delayed is injustice.

19)  You can’t mop the floor clean with dirty water.
        -Steak ‘n Shake manager, 1972.
        Ends and means are the same.  There are no good ends achieved though bad means.
         - Modified from Jacob Bronowski.

20)  Celebrate people who are different.  Accept people you don’t understand.  Tolerate people who are somewhat annoying.  Confront people who are evil.

21)  No one is solely responsible for their own success.  Everyone is helped by other people along the way, and by the schools and institutions that enable them to succeed.
No business is solely responsible for its own success.  Every business is only successful because society has created a landscape of fair opportunity, physical and commercial infrastructure and a legal framework that enable the business to succeed.
Successful individuals and businesses have a responsibility to pay forward the profits of their success, so that others can also succeed.

22)  Anything worth doing requires practice.

23) You improve what you measure.
        - Ralph Dartez 

24)  You can’t write unless you have something to say.
        Decide what to say before you write.

25)  Say the most important thing first.
                   - Ed Buchwald

26)  Everything you write will be improved by an editor.

                       - Renee Frazee, former secretary 

27)  Get rid of commas and extra words whenever you can.

28)  Explanations matter.
Science is a matter of finding explanations.  An explanation is the identification, observation, measurement and communication about some process that changes physical reality.  Explanations follow the structure of language, with subjects, objects, actions and descriptive modifiers.

        - Synthesis and expansion after David Deutsch, Jacob Bronowski and Ed Buchwald.

29)  Empiricism isn’t science; it only works within the range of previous experience. 
A good explanation has reach; it works outside the bounds of prior experience and extends to unexpected domains.

                        - Modified from David Deutsch and Jacob Bronowksi.

30)  Nassim Taleb’s Black Swans represent events outside of the previous range of experience.
“The Envelope” is the term used by test pilots to describe the range of previous testing parameters for an airplane  Unexpected behavior often occurs outside of the envelope.  Empiricism only works within the envelope of prior experience.  Good explanations are needed to anticipate outcomes outside of the envelope of prior experience.

31)  Doing something and doing enough are entirely different things.

32)  People think and identify in dualities.
Examples: Communism or Democracy, mountains or seashore, truth or falsehood, good or evil, Republican or Democrat.  Reality is more complicated.

33)  Scientists come in two types, experimentalists and theoreticians. 
Consider Aristotle vs. Plato, Galileo vs. Newton, Michelson vs. Einstein, Edison vs. Tesla.  Neither can progress without the other. This is another example of a simplified but useful duality.

34)  People think either in terms of what is seen and experienced, or in terms of underlying causes.  It is difficult for the two types to communicate.
This difference corresponds to the “sensing” or “intuitive” types in the Myers-Briggs personality system.  The sensing individual believes only what he’s seen and doesn’t look for underlying causes.  The intuitive individual seeks to understand what he hasn’t seen and expects underlying causes.  This distinction seems to represent the some of the biggest differences in human outlook, including political orientation.

35)  There is a hierarchy in the ways that people comprehend the world: experience, belief, knowledge and understanding.  Understanding is the highest level of comprehension, and fails less often than experience, belief, or knowledge.  Experience is necessarily limited.  Belief is without basis beyond historical precedent.  Knowledge implies learning from authoritative sources, and is generally limited to outcomes.  Understanding implies that you know how things work; you comprehend the physical processes producing a higher level result.

36)  People hate to let go of knowledge they learned as a child.

37)  Any number is meaningless without another number for context.

38)  Anyone or anything of sufficient intelligence should be able to independently derive the golden rule.  Some animals are sufficiently intelligent.  Some people are not.

39)  People who don’t give respect don’t deserve respect.

40)  Democracy and free enterprise are the best known systems for political and economic organization, but these institutions only work in societies with high integrity, fairness and regard for truth. This is concerning for the United States in 2020.

41)  Rome didn’t fall in a day.

42)  Anyone who won’t face the world without a gun is either a bully or a coward.

43)  Being a manager is largely about being a life counselor.

44)  At any given time, one out of ten people is in an existential crisis, and has told somebody about it.  Another one out of ten people is in crisis but hasn’t told anyone yet.

45)  Being a manager is like being a custodian.
        You stay at the office after everyone else has gone home and clean up the mess that people made during the day.

46)  Always learn the name of the custodian and thank them by name.

47)  Always greet people by name.

48)  People who think like dogs make great employees. 
        People who think like cats wind up in prison.

49)  Every small child is a genius in terms of learning, memory and creativity.

50)  Every small child instinctively understands that this moment will never come again.
Adults mistakenly believe that there’s time to do things later.

51)  Amateur music is good training for life. 
        You learn to appreciate the good notes and ignore the bad ones.

52)  It’s always darkest just before you stub your toe and fall down the stairs.

53)  People are at their greatest risk of a tragic accident when they are on vacation or having fun.

54)  The enjoyment of a bit of food is often inversely proportional to its size.

55)  When you’re hiking up a mountain, most of the way you can’t see the top.

56)  Always minimize the weight you are carrying when hiking. 
You will enjoy the hike much more.  But in dry country, always carry enough water.  You can make that a life metaphor if you like.

57)  It’s best to start hiking uphill and come down on the way home.
Also, start biking, canoeing or kayaking into the wind, and return with the wind at your back.

58)  Always check the gas when you start an engine.

59)  People consciously and unconsciously signal their status to other people.
One of our strongest signals is gender identity. 

60)  Women usually wear mittens.  Men usually wear gloves.
Nothing they say about it actually explains the dichotomy. 

61)  If it’s important, write it down now.

62)  The more hours I spend outdoors, the better I sleep.

63)  For every proverb, there’s an equal and opposite proverb.
Examples:     A) Look before you leap. B) He who hesitates is lost.
                      A) A penny saved is a penny earned.  B) You can’t take it with you.
        – Steve Robbins (son)

64)  A good question carries with it the key to its own solution.
        – source unknown

65)  When a reporter asks you for a comment, they’ve already decided what you are going to say.

66)  If you are a public figure, no reporter is ever really your friend.

67)  Propaganda works. 
Confirmation bias is a very powerful force.  Confirmation bias combined with propaganda forms a feedback loop leading to unreasonable denial of truth.

68)  Most people are not interested in seeing both sides of an issue.

69)  Most politicians only know how to get elected and have no idea how to govern.
- Peggy Robbins

70)  It is impossible for a politician to remain completely independent of the interests of his campaign donors.  This is the reason for campaign finance reform.

71)  When there’s only one way to say the truth, that’s how you have to say it.
- Modified from Ed Sneed.

72)  Truth is necessarily an approximation, operating over a given domain, and with a degree of uncertainty.  But uncertainty does not mean falsehood. Objective truth (not absolute truth) exists.

73)  Art is the deliberate creation of something that produces an emotional response in another person. Art is an intentional form of communication.  Art requires an artist and an audience. 

74)  People come in distinct, different personality types, easily recognizable according to various systems (Briggs/Myers INTJ, etc.; Thinker/Doer/Socializer/Empathizer; Authority Centered/Peer Centered/Ego Centered; Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, etc.).  Bu personalities are not fixed, but vary with time and context.  A leader in the office may be a follower in the family, and yet another type in a social club.

75)  The personality of a dog usually says something about the personality of its owner.

76)  Everyone working a full-time job deserves to earn a living wage.  A living wage is enough to comfortably raise a family.  

77)  Dog owners will never understand that the dog’s behavior toward a stranger is different than the dog’s behavior toward its family.

78)  All cats are alike, which is why tigers will sit in boxes. 
This is concerning because the biggest cats would like to eat you.

79)  Every database has errors.  The larger the database, the more errors there are.

80)  Every question from a vice-president begins with “what” or “how”.  Every question from the president begins with “who”.

81)  The potential return from cutting costs is one-fold.  The potential return from growth is unlimited.

82)  There is value in redundancy.  Redundancy provides resiliency, optionality, innovation and quality control.  These benefits usually outweigh the costs.

83)  There is value in diversity – of people, of systems, of approaches to problems.  Like redundancy, diversity provides resiliency, optionality, innovation and quality control.   

84)  People make work for other people.  Larger organizations have greater scope and flexibility, but less efficiency.

85)  Every system has friction and inefficiencies.  A rigorous program of eliminating inefficiencies may impair the primary function of the system.

86)  The benefit of a risk decision should first be weighed against the impact of the potential loss, without regard to probability.

87)  There’s a precursor event to every disaster, if anyone is paying sufficient attention.
Problems with the Titanic’s rivets were known before it hit an iceberg.  Problems with the Shuttle O-Rings were known before the Challenger disaster.  Problems with the Shuttle heat tiles were known before the Columbia disaster.

88)  The most common cause of failure for risk appraisal models is correlated risk. 
This was the cause of the financial crisis of 2008.  The second most common cause is neglected experience.

89)  The universe will keep teaching you the same lesson until you learn it.  
- Michelle Turner

90)  In your previous life experience, you have never found the limit of how good or how bad a situation can be. 
“You only think you’ve found the endpoint of the lowest quality oil in the Gulf of Mexico.”   
            – Vic Beghini, President of Marathon Oil. (Note: Beghini was right.).
In any distribution there’s always a possible realization beyond what you have sampled.
In any situation, it’s always possible for things to be worse.  

91)  Variables in one dimension have a normal distribution.  Variables in multiple dimensions (either physical dimensions or the product of one-dimensional variables) have a skewed, log-normal distribution.  The greater the skew, the more likely the variable is due to multiple-parameters.

92)  Most real-world distributions are log-normal in the middle, but distorted on the tails. 
Distribution tails may be truncated by physical limits or fattened by some parameter outside of basic model.

93)  No one can properly assess very low probability or very high probability events. 
This is partly due to sampling theory, party human nature, and partly due to uncertainty about    distribution tails.  Strategic planning for these events should focus on scenarios rather than probabilities    .

94)  Truly random events happen in streaks.

95)  There are more ways for things to go wrong than right. 
This accounts for the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (entropy), Murphy’s Law, and Tolstoy’s aphorism about happy and unhappy families. 

96)  It is in the nature of the human brain to sometimes make mistakes. 
Thinking is a statistical process, involving thousands of synapses modulating thousands of others.  The process is generally correct, but not always.  –  after Jacob Bronowski and Daniel Kahneman

97)  Today’s geologists will spend the first half of our careers trying to get carbon out of the ground.   We will spend the second half of our careers trying to put it back.
                            - Me, circa 1990

98)  Regarding climate change, if we all do a little, we will only do a little. 
    Large scale solutions are needed.
        - modified from David MacKay

99)  Climate change solutions need to be efficient (affordable) scalable and timely.  As of today, no such solutions exist.  -  Dr. Charles Hall, SUNY, circa 2009
More than a decade later, we are only a little closer to efficient, scalable solutions, and we are running out of time.

100)  Risk factors are not all equal.
The risk on an oil prospect is calculated as the product of several component risks – source rock, reservoir rock, seal, trap, and timing.   However, the risks are not of equal scope.  The lack of a source rock condemns a basin; lack of reservoir, seal or poor timing condemns a play; lack of a trap condemns only a prospect.  Risk factors occur in a natural hierarchy and should not be regarded as equal in developing an exploration program.

101)  The main criterion for judging prospects should not be the chance of success on the exploration well, but the probability that if the exploration well is successful, the project will be successful.  Delineation risk should be managed during the prospect generation and selection process.

102)  A good prospect should have five elements.  These elements constrain delineation and development risk.  (AKA Robbins’ Rules.)
        >  A prospect should be simple.
        >  A prospect should be big (enough to be clearly economic if successful, and have a meaningful commercial impact to the company).
        >  A prospect should be seismically visible.
        >  A prospect should have a laterally continuous reservoir.
        >  A prospect should be developed according to a conceptual model.

103)  Every list in a business presentation starts with the author’s personal agenda, followed by several things that everybody knows and ends with the boss’s personal dogma.  (See list above.)

104)  The productivity and wealth of a nation depends on its energy usage and level of integrity.   
Per capita GDP correlates very well with an index weighting energy usage by 2/3 and integrity (from Transparency International) by 1/3.  See the “Wealth of Nations” post on my blog, Wonky Thoughts.
https://dougrobbins.blogspot.com/2011/08/wealth-of-nations.html

105)  Your reputation is your most important asset.
- Steve Robbins (father, b. 1923)

106)  No one can ever take your education away from you.
            - Steve Robbins (father, b. 1923)

107)  A contract is meaningless without mechanisms for enforcement of its terms.
           - Ralph Dartez

108)  Buying and holding a low-cost stock index is the most effective investing strategy.
This is due to several simple truths: 1) you can’t time the market, 2) a broad portfolio performs best, 3) gains on held stocks compound without tax, and 4) you will minimize management fees.

109)  If you have an investing idea but aren’t sure that you are right, do half of what you originally considered.  This prevents inaction.

110)  My grandfather dropped out of school at the age of 14 and started a real estate business with his older brother.  He retired at the age of 89.  He said that 75 years in real estate had taught him three things.
        1) Every house has cracks.
        2) Every house eventually sells.
        3) Something is only worth what someone else will pay you for it.
                When I became older, I wondered if he meant this to be an analogy to people.
        1) Every person has flaws.
        2) There’s a suitable partner for every person.
        3) Your value as a person is measured by what you provide to others.

111)  Human values inform the decisions and behavior of individuals and societies.  There are first-order core values, and second-order values which logically follow from core values or the intersection of core values.
The following is a list of my values.
        > Empathy – Kindness, Compassion, Human Understanding, Care, Generosity
        > Truth – Honesty, Integrity, Accountability
        > Equity – Fairness, Justice, Respect, Diversity, Human Dignity, Opportunity, Democracy, Shared Prosperity
        > Service – Work Ethic, Humility (do the little things), Productivity (produce more than you         consume).
        > Progress – Science, Exploration, Technology, Physical Understanding, Globalism, Economic Development, Social Development, Peace
        > Responsibility – Ethics, Family, Community, Care and Provision for Future Generations
        > Conservation—Care and preservation of Nature for its own sake
        > Liberty – Individual Freedom, Self-determination
        > Self-regard – Courage, Reputation, Self-reliance, Challenge, Legacy, Productivity, Creativity

112)  Here is a list of values I reject.
        > Faith
        > Patriotism
        > Nationalism

113)  The creative personality is one that looks on the world as fit for change, and on himself as an instrument for change – Jacob Bronowski.  

114)  Creativity is a deliberate process used by clever people to solve problems, or for the pure joy of creation.  There are many similarities between technical creativity and artistic creativity.

Here is a list of creative processes.
> Creativity begins with deep expertise in a field.
> The next step involves reframing the problem or the paradigm.  A good question carries with it the key to its own solution (Law #54).
> Creativity often involves inversion of some part of the problem – or asking what would happen if you try exactly the opposite of what you’ve been trying to do.
> Visualize the problem from different vantage points, or before and after a process.
> Abstract thought (visualization) should alternate with analytical thought (measurement and calculation) in an iterative cycle.
> Depending on the problem, multiple solutions may be generated and evaluated before selecting an optimal solution, by some criteria.
> The creative work may come as a single inspiration, or a set of incremental innovations.
> The final step of any creative process is the realization and validation, through publication, construction or performance of the creative enterprise. – Modified after Betty Edwards

115)  Here is a list of laws about photography.
> Avoid back-lighting.  Put the subject of the photo in the best light, and focus on the subject.
> Try to achieve a range of brightness in the subject.
> Underexpose the photo; never overexpose. For landscapes, set the light setting by focusing on the sky.
> Check the background for distracting elements.
> Check that the horizon is horizontal.
> Never put the subject in the middle; follow the rule of thirds.
> Direct movement, facing and gaze toward the center of the photo.
> In landscapes, put an object in the foreground to create depth in the photo.
> Find complimentary colors.
> Look for patterns diverging or radiating from a point; look for repeating shapes or patterns at different scales.

The Next 100 Years

The New Year is a time to look forward, backward, and to contemplate the passage of time.  In that spirit, I wrote a list of predictions for the next 100 years.  I also asked my son and a good friend to write similar lists.  When I compared the lists, I was amazed at the convergence between our forecasts.  We envision sweeping changes that span the range of human experience; life in 100 years will be quite different than life today.  But for the most part, our forecasts represent the extrapolation of trends that are apparent today, using knowledge that we already possess or are actively seeking.  In general, this post is drawn from predictions that at least two of the three forecasters had in common.

I believe that we already have much of the knowledge that will change life in the next hundred years.  The fabric biplanes of 1917 foretold the Boeing 747 jetliners which were built 50 years later. Einstein’s publication of E = MC² in 1905 foretold the atomic bomb in 1945.

It is clear from current trends that the scientific and technological achievements of mankind have just begun.  In one hundred years, society will have a ten-fold increase in its ability to produce wealth, but it will struggle with equitable distribution and meaningful employment, as it does today.  Our ability to produce technological advancement greatly exceeds our ability to produce social, political, and economic advancements.  In other words, our ability to build new gadgets is much better than our ability to work together, to avoid conflict, and to share our wealth.  Most of the positive developments of the next hundred years will come from technology.  Most of the scary stuff will come from social problems.

Science is just beginning to solve deep mysteries of reality and life.  The technologies which might result from these discoveries will fundamentally change how people live on earth, and where we go from here.

This post is organized into four parts: Technology, Environment, Society and Science.

 Technology

Energy

• A breakthrough technology will make energy much cheaper than today, and enable the reversal of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere.  The breakthrough may be fusion energy, or solar power, in combination with advances in storage and transmission technology.  Cheap energy should enable huge strides in global prosperity, but results will depend on how wealth is distributed.

Transportation

• Self-driving cars will be the norm; only hobbyists will own drivable cars.
• Domestic airline travel will soon reach a gridlock limit; alternatives of high-speed rail and/or hyperloop tube transport will be built within 50 years between American cities.  Trans-ocean hyperloops will be built by the second half of the century.
• Sub-orbital passenger aircraft will briefly compete with hyperloops, but will be less economical.

 Health

• Most cancers will be curable within 50 years, possibly sooner.
• Spinal cord injuries will be curable, as well as other injuries requiring cellular regeneration, such as blindness, deafness, and paralysis. 
• Mechanical aids will be better integrated with human bodies through bio-engineering, solving a variety of human illnesses.  Implanted mechanical aids will also offer the possibility of enhanced human performance for military or other purposes.
• Lifespans will (potentially) be much longer.  Science will decisively solve the mechanisms of aging, and develop effective therapies to extend healthy life.  Availability of those therapies may be limited by cost and affordability of extended life.
• Global population will not peak at 9 billion in 2050, as currently predicted, but will grow throughout the century due to extended lifespans.

 Biotechnology

• Genetic therapies will be available to cure genetic diseases, especially in children.  
• Genetic selection or modification will be available to create designer children, but with limited legality.  The topic of genetic child improvement will be as socially intractable as the abortion debate today.
• Hybrid and synthetic life forms will offer solutions to some problems, but will be the subject of sharp ethical controversy.
• All standard consumer meat will be synthetic.  Synthetic meat and food will provide healthier diets in developed countries, and eliminate malnutrition in currently undeveloped countries.
• A number of Pleistocene extinct species will be restored, including wooly mammoths and mastodons.  There will be an ethical argument about restoring Neanderthal and Denisovan people –they will not be restored.
• Biotechnology will emerge as the major threat in terrorism, assassination, and warfare.

 Computer Technology

• Quantum computing will be as common as flash memory is today.   There will be huge progress in miniaturization and efficiencies.  Artificial intelligence will eliminate many jobs.  Deep technical problems in mathematics and computing will be solved.  [For example, my son informs me that the NP-complete solution will be discovered – whatever that is!]
• Artificial sentience will not yet be a reality, but technologists will have a much clearer idea of what would be required to produce a sentient machine.

Space (Solar System)

• Thousands of people will be living and working off-world.
• Manned missions to Mars will be routine, but a permanent base will not yet exist.
• A permanent base will exist on the moon, but will be fully dependent on support from Earth.
• Asteroid mining will be a reality in the asteroid belt.  Projects will be underway to place asteroids into Earth orbit, lunar orbit, or Lagrange points.  The first sustainable colonies away from earth will revolve around asteroid mining activities.  International tensions will flare over the ownership of asteroids and the rights for colonization.
• Simple life will be discovered in the solar system, with the possibility of fossilized multicellular life on Mars.

Space (Interstellar Exploration)

• Interstellar probes will be returning the first data from other stars.
• Planning will be under way for a manned interstellar voyage.
• Signals from a distant alien civilization will be detected, but so far away (and long ago) that communication is impossible.

Environment

Wilderness and Wildlife

• Many extinctions will occur due to climate change and pressures from a larger human population. 
• Environmental degradation will be extreme in China, India, Africa and Latin America by mid-century.  Efforts to restore the environment will be a high priority by the end of the century.
• New large park systems will seek to re-establish wilderness ecosystems, including large predators and herd animals which are now extinct or will become extinct.
• Wilderness areas will be greatly diminished globally, and wildlife will be similarly diminished. 

Oceans

• Wild fish stocks will be recovering from severe depletion due to overfishing.  Commercial fishing will be illegal; fish for human consumption will be raised in fish farms.   Restoration projects for coral reefs will be underway, after the near-extinction of most reefs on earth. 

Climate Change

• Sea level will be 1 to 2 meters higher than today, sufficient to cause flooding in many coastal cities and communities, and abandonment of some communities.  Substantial melting will be occurring from the Greenland and Antarctic ice-caps.  Rising sea level will be accelerating and inexorable, with the greatest impact expected in the second hundred years. 
• Drought and desertification will spread northward and southward from the lines of 30 and -30 degrees of latitude as atmospheric convection cells grow stronger.  Areas affected will include Southwest and south-central United States, southern Europe, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, parts of China, Argentina and southeast Australia.  Famines are likely to occur in affected areas.  The extent of the problem will depend on how quickly mankind can implement low-CO2 energy technologies.  

Society

Economy

• The world will endure a severe global financial meltdown, based on failure of credit systems.  The crisis will cause an extended depression, and result in re-organization of political, economic, and financial systems. 
• Fewer than 15% of American workers are now working in industries with physical products.   Robots and artificial intelligence will continue to replace workers, as capital is more cost-effective than labor in many industries.
• Automation of the economy will leave the majority of people unemployed.  This will cause significant civil unrest and conflict.  The world will be divided into three groups: 1) the talented elite who work; 2) a minority of people who own capital, do little and earn much, and 3) those who do not own capital, do little, and earn very little.
• Sustained productivity growth of 2% to 2.5% annually will result in 7x to 12x total growth.  If distributed equally, average household income in the United States would increase from $52,000/year to about $500,000/year, adjusted for inflation.  Wealth inequality can be expected to grow for the foreseeable future, resulting in an extremely wealthy aristocracy and a moderately well-off middle class. 
• The problems of what people will do for employment and how wealth is distributed will be the root cause of most social conflict in the next century.

Politics

• The United States, as we know it, will be greatly changed or no longer exist.  The political organization of states will be changed, and the external borders will probably change.  There will be a slow regional consolidation of North America; economic integration will be followed by political integration.  Other megastates will also form, in Europe, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet Union. 
• A third (or fourth) political party will emerge in the United States, winning substantial power in Congress and the Presidency.  One or both of the existing political parties will expire or be completely changed in a political transformation.  

International Relations

• Most of Africa will be economically developed.  The African Union will exist as a meaningful political and military bloc.
• There will be conflict between the major nationalistic interests (China, Russia, USA) and major trading block associations.   China will be involved in a major war against one or more of its neighbors. 
• There is a high probability of another World War.  The war will involve many advanced weapons (AI, drones, space-based weapons, and computer warfare), but probably not nuclear warheads.

Natural Disaster

• A global epidemic will result in up to 30% population loss.  
• A solar flare will devastate electrical infrastructure, electronic communications and satellites.  Rebuilding the lost infrastructure will be uneven, and will require most of a decade.
• Major earthquakes with huge damage and loss of life will occur in Turkey (south of Istanbul), California, Oregon, Italy, Chile, Japan, and Indonesia. 
• The Mosul dam in Iraq will fail, with large loss of life downstream.
• One or more meteors will hit the earth with enough power to obliterate a city.

Terrorism

• A major terrorist attack will occur causing tens-to-hundreds of thousands of deaths.  The incident may spark a major war, possibly along the Christian/Muslim divide.  The incident will increase global surveillance and eliminate most privacy protections around the world. 

Civil Rights

• In the United States, the trend of acceptance of alternative lifestyles will continue.  Some structural change will occur in a small percentage of American families, equivalent to the legalization of gay marriage.  The change may be in terms of polygamy or polyamory, limited marriage contracts, three-parent children or children raised by communities instead of families.  In other words, something weird by today’s standards.
• A number of forces, including the threat of terrorism, will challenge the principles of privacy in most countries.  Most people in the world will live in what we consider to be surveillance states.
• Racism will diminish as genetic mixing makes the separation of races less distinct.

Science and New Technology

There will be at least one completely revolutionary discovery in physics in the next century, which will enable some transformative new technology.  In the last century, most of the science for 20^th century technologies was already known by 1917 (airplanes, E = MC^2, etc.).  Application and implementation of that knowledge produced the new technologies which changed the world.  Likewise, I believe that we already have the science for the technologies of the next century.  The breakthrough scientific discoveries of the next one hundred years will produce the transformative technologies of the following century. 

The first list shows potential revolutionary scientific discoveries, in order of likelihood.  All of the items on the list are areas of current research.  I excluded potential discoveries which are outside the boundaries of known physics, such as faster-than-light travel or telepathic telekinetic dragons.

The second list is of potential technologies which might result from such discoveries and completely transform human life and human destiny, also listed in order of likelihood.

Potential Scientific Discoveries

• Full understanding of the processes of human aging.
• The discovery of a habitable planet orbiting a nearby star.
• Full understanding of gravity, and how it produces distortion of space-time, or the discovery that gravity is an emergent phenomenon, i.e., a product of other, more fundamental forces.
• The ability to alter time for small, table-top objects: to accelerate or decelerate time; to reverse time, or to put objects into a closed time-loop.
• The discovery and proof of sentient machines.
• Discovery of intelligent alien life.
• Discovery of how to manipulate space-time. 
• Proof that we live in a multiverse.
• Proof that reality is non-material.

Potential Transformative Technologies

• Cheap fusion power.
• Asteroid mining and orbital manipulation.
• Permanent, independent, communities in space.
• A practical and efficient space-drive which does not require thruster propellant.
• Artificial Intelligence smarter than people, and capable of self-design with improvements.
• A cure for aging. 
• The ability to generate localized, focused artificial gravitational fields.
• Faster-than-light communication, using separated quantum entangled particles.
• Sentient machines.
• Terraforming planets in our solar system.
• Manipulation of planetary orbits.
• Teleportation of physical objects.
• The ability to adjust current reality, in terms of modifying physical laws, physical objects or actions, or past events, based on a new understanding of reality.
• Communication with parallel universes.

The Black Swan

Most of the predictions in this post are consensus ideas, given by at least two of the three forecasters.  But life-changing developments may be completely unexpected, in the sense of Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan events. (Even if, as Taleb writes, the Black Swan events are completely predictable in hindsight.) 

It is therefore worth noting a few of the non-consensus predictions. 

• Science will find evidence that the human soul exists beyond death.
• Marine archeology will discover ancient civilizations flooded by sea level rise, dating back to 30,000 years or more.
• Society-wide panopticon surveillance will challenge and possibly end the liberal, democratic, rule of law society of the west.
• Wealth inequality will bottom out, having reached a nadir in about 20-40 years, and be improved in 100 years compared to today.

It is entirely appropriate that these last predictions are about what we are, who we have been, and how we will live.

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References and Credits

Many thanks to Steve R. and Greg B., whose thoughtful correspondence enabled me to write this post and in other ways enrich my life.

Bill Gates, February 2016, interview with Charlie Rose, https://charlierose.com/videos/23144

David Deutsch, 1997, The Fabric of Reality, 390 p.

David Deutsch, 2011, The Beginning of Infinity, 496 p. 

Jacob Bronowski, 1973, The Ascent of Man, 448 p.

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Coda

The Boeing 747

Not long ago, I watched a Boeing 747 airplane take off from our local airport – that was the inspiration for this post.  The 747 is a massive airplane, and appears to hang in the air as it is gaining altitude.  The 747 has been in service since 1970 – nearly 50 years.  The plane’s startling size immediately garnered nicknames: jumbo jet, queen of the skies, and my favorite, the aluminum overcast.  Recent versions of the plane are still among the largest passenger planes in the world.   

Despite the fact that the plane has been in service for 46 years, the sight still inspires awe.  It made me wonder what people would have thought, if they had seen this aircraft one hundred years ago.  The year 1916 was the midpoint of World War I, and airplanes were still crude novelties made of fabric and wood.   The idea of an airplane weighing nearly one-half million pounds, capable of carrying up to 600 passengers, or another half-million pounds of cargo, would have seemed beyond comprehension.  And yet within little more than 50 years, such planes flew. 

The sight of this plane made me wonder what the world will see in the next one hundred years.  What technologies will become commonplace in our grandchildren’s lifetimes that are beyond our comprehension today?

The Scientific Method, Redefined

Introduction

In this blog post, I criticize two of my idols in science, physicists Neil Degrasse Tyson and David Deutsch.  Both of them have written or spoken about the scientific method, and both of them have missed the mark.  Dr. Tyson says that science is all about prediction, and not about explanation.  Dr. Deutsch says that science is about explanations, but gives an unsatisfactory definition of what qualifies as an explanation.  In this post, I set out my own definition for the scientific method. 

The scientific method is a search for truth through objective reasoning.  We use the scientific method to solve scientific problems, and step-by-step, we improve our understanding of reality.  When we apply the scientific method, the end product should be a good explanation for the phenomenon we are investigating.  The idea of "a good explanation" was put forward by David Deutsch, but without clear criteria for what makes a good explanation.  I think a good explanation has the following attributes:  

A good explanation must define a process which changes some aspect of reality.

The process must be observed in action.

The process must be measured and quantified.

The explanation must reconcile theory and observation.

The work must meet standards of objectivity for scientific research. 

The explanation must be verified through successful prediction of experimental results or observations of real-world changes.

The explanation will often explain other phenomena in areas unrelated to the initial inquiry.
The explanation must be subjected to peer review, and published in a reputable journal.

The Scientific Enlightenment

In general, science is the modern way that we search for truth and develop useful technologies for civilization.  The deliberate practice of scientific investigation began in the mid-1600s.  Science greatly accelerated human progress in terms of technology, understanding of the earth and the cosmos, literacy, health, prosperity, government and all other aspects of civilization.  We are living in an age of scientific enlightenment, the longest continuous period of enlightenment in history. 

The scientific method is critical to that enlightenment.  The process of objective reasoning is essential not only to science, but to most other aspects of civilization, including government, law, economics, journalism, education and medicine.  Objective reasoning is a social process, involving not just individuals, but represents how society comes to conclusions about various issues.  Objective reasoning requires academic and political freedom, free discourse and argument, unrestricted access to data and information, and equality in public debate.

We were all taught the basics of the scientific method in middle school.  According to the Oxford Online Dictionary, the scientific method consists of “systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses”.  That sounds pretty close to what I remember from middle school. 

But I now think that this description is incomplete.  What place is there in this process for human intuitions, guesses, and thought experiments?  How do we choose what to observe and measure?  What does it mean when we form a hypothesis, and where does it come from?  Where is the part about free access to primary data?   Where is the part about replicability of experiments?  Where is criticism and peer review?  Where is the part about absence of conflict of interest?  Where is publication and dissemination of results? 

I would like to convene a team of the greatest scientists to rewrite the scientific method.  I would like to enlist not only giants of scientific accomplishments, but those who have the gift of explanation of complex issues.  I want to enlist polymaths, those who have a sense of the broader meaning of objective reasoning for all humanity.  I want to ask Richard Feynman, Jacob Bronowski, Stephen J. Gould, Carl Sagan and David Attenborough.  But Feynman, Bronowski, Gould, and Sagan are all gone.  We will have to do our best without them. 

Looking further in the past, it would have been interesting to hear the opinions of Albert Einstein, Nicola Tesla, Neils Bohr and Enrico Fermi; but especially those who did not receive equality in research or recognition:  Lise Meitner, Marie Curie, Barbara McClintock, and Rosalind Franklin, but who made civilization-altering discoveries anyway.  We will also have to imagine what they would have said.

Finding Truth

In a sense, the scientific method began with the ancient Athenians.  Socrates and others advocated a process of discourse and argument to find truth.  Finding relevant truth is the goal of science. 

From that premise alone, we see that science is intrinsically democratic and egalitarian.  Conclusions must always be subject to challenge and debate.  For that there must be freedom to replicate experiments and calculations.  There must be unrestricted access to primary data, in order to review others’ work. 

Very early in my career as a geologist, I made a presentation in which I gave my interpretation of a geologic problem.  After the presentation, a wise mentor corrected me.  I learned that I must never give my conclusions in the first person.  Instead of “I say that the conclusion is X”, one should say, “The data says that the conclusion is X.”  The best analysis is always when the data speaks for itself.

The premise is that objective truth exists, and that it is accessible by everyone.  The scientific method is the process by which we analyze the world around us to illuminate objective truth for ourselves and others.

Explanations, Empiricism, and Mathematics

Physicist David Deutsch writes about the scientific method in his books “The Fabric of Reality” and “The Beginning of Infinity”.  I like Deutsch’s view, that the purpose of science is to make good explanations.  I agree with Deutsch that explanations matter. 

Empiricism is one way to make successful predictions about future events, but it is conceptually empty.  Empirical results are limited, by nature, to the specific conditions under which precedents have occurred.  As Deutsch explains, Empiricism lacks reach.  Empiricism will never take us outside the envelope of prior experience.  By extension, all forms of science which rely on empirical results are also limited.  Without explanation, we cannot know the bounds of our models, and we cannot transfer our understanding into new realms, with new insights. 

I was horrified to read an interview of celebrity physicist Neil Degrasse Tyson, in the book “But What If We’re Wrong”, by Chuck Kloosterman.  The passage is as follows:

“In physics, when we say we know something, it’s very simple.  Can we predict the outcome?  If we can predict the outcome, we’re good to go, and we’re on to the next problem.  There are philosophers who care about the understanding of why that was the outcome.  Isaac Newton [essentially] said, ‘I have an equation that says why the moon is in orbit.  I have no fucking idea how the Earth talks to the moon.  It is empty space – there’s no hand reaching out.’  He was uncomfortable about this idea of action at a distance.  And he was criticized for having such ideas, because it was preposterous that one physical object could talk to another physical object.  Now, you can certainly have that conversation.  But an equation properly predicts what it does.  That other conversation is for people having a beer.” 

NO, Dr. Tyson.  Just no.  Explanations matter.  Equations without explanations are empty, and their predictions limited.  It matters whether the unseen force causing action at a distance is made of gravitons, or if the action is caused solely by the curvature of space-time. It is precisely because Newton was unable to provide an explanation for gravity's action at a distance that the science was incomplete.  Einstein's gravity is an improvement in providing an explanation for how gravity works, but is probably not the final word on the matter.

 In college hydrology, we empirically derived equations for the flow of water through a pipe at different velocities.  Were we finished, and “on to the next problem”?   Of course not.  The equations represented processes within the pipe with physical meaning.  Only after we had observed the flow of liquid with dye tracers in transparent pipes could we assign meaning to the equations.  We could assign names to processes we observed, such as laminar flow and turbulent flow.  And those explanations give rise to practical new predictions, such as the erosion rate in the production tubing of an oil well, depending upon the velocity of the flow, and the flow regime of the fluid. 

As David Deutsch puts it, good explanations have reach.  “Reach is the ability of some explanations to solve problems beyond those for which they were created to solve.”  Thus, Newton’s theory of gravity solved the rate at which objects on earth fall to the ground, and it also solved the problem of the orbital paths of the planets. 

Observation, Theory and Experiment

There is a duality in scientific work that has existed throughout history.  Scientists come in two types: theorists and experimenters.  We can contrast Plato, for whom truth is found in the mind and imagination, with Aristotle, for whom truth is found through objective observation.  Theorists include Copernicus, Newton, Einstein ,Tesla and Feynman; observers/experimenters include Darwin, Tycho, Galileo, Edison and Fermi.  The two sides are mutually dependent, neither can make progress without the other. 

Our textbook definition of the scientific method is “systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses”. 

But where do we begin?  What informs our first observations?  Some scientists, including Deutsch and Stephen J. Gould, have emphasized the importance of human intuition and inspired guesswork.  These authors suggest that theory precedes observation.  I am skeptical of this claim.  It seems to me that theory must always address a problem posed by an observation.  Einstein never acknowledged the importance of the Michelson-Morey experiment as inspiration for the theory of special relativity.  But he must have been aware of this landmark experiment, which proved, against all expectations, that the speed of light is constant in all directions.  From that fact, it is possible to develop the theory of relativity.  Without that experiment, however, there is no problem to solve, and no reason to develop the explanation.

However observation begins, the scientific process must alternate between theory and experiment.  Theory shows what observations are necessary and informs experimental design.  Experimental results pose problems which new theories must solve. 

Ancillary Elements of the Scientific Method

• Data must be freely available, for re-calculation and verification by others.
• The process of gathering the data must be clearly identified, so the data may be critiqued as well as the analysis.  Data gathering must be replicable by other researchers.
• Sources of funding must be identified.  Potential conflicts of interest identified, and if possible, eliminated.
• Results should be subject to formal peer review before general release to the press or public.
• Results should be published in reputable journals to make the information available to other researchers.
• Problems encountered in the research should be clearly revealed. 
• Hypotheses should be framed in a way that allows refutation through further work.  

These ancillary processes of the modern scientific method are important, and must be observed if the results of a study are to be considered “scientific”.

Process, Observation, Measurement, Quantification, Validation

David Deutsch makes a wonderfully clear case about how the scientific method is about finding good explanations for scientific problems. The explanation of phenomena is the end goal, and it supersedes empiricism and mathematical modeling as the goal of science. 

But Deutsch falls flat when defining what makes a good explanation.  According to Deutsh, a good explanation is: “hard to vary, while still accounting for what it purports to account for.”  That’s it.   That’s the best definition given.  Deutsch gives several good examples of good explanations, and contrasts those with bad explanations, but still, the definition is weak.  There is no measure for what makes a definition hard to vary, and what the explanation should account for is left undefined.

But let’s pursue the idea of a good explanation as the goal of the scientific method.   A good explanation should answer a scientific problem.  That explanation should identify a process which transforms or changes some aspect of reality.  The process must be observable.  We should be able to measure and quantify the process.  And finally, we should be able to validate the process through experiment, or through verified predictions of some other behavior of the natural world, or both.  That’s it.

I have a former colleague who does not believe in human-caused climate change.  In his view, the world has been warming since the end of the last ice age, and the current warming of the globe is just a continuation of that trend.  Is this a good explanation?

Of course not.  This explanation has not identified any process for warming the planet, only the fact that some warming has occurred at some time in the past.  There is no observation of a current process, which is a continuation of the former process, and no measurement, quantification, or validation that the process which ended the last ice age is still operative. 

In contrast, the process of how greenhouse gases warm the earth is observed.  The buildup of greenhouse gases is observed, and the amount of heat retained by these concentrations of gases has been measured.   The total heat retained by greenhouse gases has been quantified, and can be compared to expected changes in air temperature, water temperature, volumes of melted ice and rising sea level.  Additional predictions have been made and confirmed regarding the behavior of trade winds and the frequency of extreme weather events.  This explanation has reach, and accounts for large-scale changes in the biosphere, in terms of gardening zones, movement of microclimates and timing of animal migrations.

The explanation of climate change by human emissions of greenhouse gases is a good explanation.  It is a good explanation because it identifies a process.  The process can be observed, measured, and quantified.  The measured process can be compared to predictions from theory, and verified by successful prediction of changes in the atmosphere and ocean.  And the explanation has reach in terms of explanation of seemingly unrelated phenomena. 

Conclusion

The scientific method is a search for truth through objective reasoning.  We use the scientific method to investigate problems in our understanding of reality.  Our goal is to develop good explanations which resolve these problems. 

The scientific method includes a number of ancillary processes to ensure the integrity of the investigation and the results.  We have made progress in understanding reality when we find a good explanation for our problem.  A good explanation meets the following criteria. 

A good explanation:

• Must define a process which changes some aspect of reality.
• The process must be observed in action.
• The process must be measured and quantified.
• The explanation must reconcile theory and observation.
• The work must meet the standards of objectivity listed above as ancillary elements of the scientific method.
• The explanation must be verified through successful prediction of experimental results or observations of real-world changes.
• The explanation will often explain other phenomena in areas unrelated to the initial inquiry.
• The explanation must be subjected to peer review, and published in a reputable journal.

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References

Isaac Asimov, 1988, The Relativity of Wrong, 225 p.

David Deutsch, 2011, The Beginning of Infinity, 487p.

David Deutsch, 1997, The Fabric of Reality, 390 p.

Richard Feynman, 1998, The Meaning of It All, 288 p.

Richard Feynman, 1999, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, 144 p.

Stephen J. Gould, ??, in an essay I can no longer locate.

Chuck Kloosterman, 2016, But What if We’re Wrong, 272 p.