Understanding and dealing with the future
Edwin's Do-It newsletter #40 - An examination of possible and impossible futures
Happy New Year everyone,
It is the typical time to look forward and contemplate what we want to achieve this year. To do this accurately, it's useful to understand what we're going against when facing the future. That's why today we'll explore the difference between impossible, intractable, unpredictable, and unknowable futures. All that then remains is pure and untapped potential. Let's dive in,
If you wish to apply the principles in this article directly, consider using my Life Goals OS Notion template. It helps you set, track, and achieve killer goals. You can get 25% off the paid version in January with code
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Impossible futures
Some actions, states, and therefore futures, are outright impossible because they violate the laws of physics:
Intractable (practically unpredictable) futures
There's a difference between actions that are impossible to predict and actions that are too resource-intensive to predict. We call the latter intractable, which means that the prediction could be calculated if the information, energy, and/or time required weren't impractically large.
This can be the case for rendering highly complex environments with many moving parts, but even this can still be overcome with powerful enough classical computers. The last frontier of intractability is that of quantum computation. Until we have powerful quantum computers, it is intractable to factorize large numbers, brute-force find a solution among many options, or accurately simulate the behavior of quantum particles.
Unpredictable futures
Chaotic effects
Technological advancement is downstream of predictive scientific knowledge. We use it to calculate the required strength of a bridge or to decide on the most aerodynamic shape of a car to have. This works because the range of parts and relevant variables are contained. The same applies to the motion of planets in our solar system (to a significant approximation). However, most actions are not neatly contained and know countless parts, paths, and variable durations. These actions, such as predicting the weather or what number a roulette wheel will land, are actually impossible to predict. We observe in those cases that even with perfect information about the particles and their trajectories, it would produce different outcomes each time. That's because each interaction that takes place has minuscule random deviations from the predictable motions and positions. These minor deviations compound exponentially with each new interaction (for instance between air molecules) to the point where a prediction of the exact outcome is impossible.
However, just because we can't predict the exact outcome doesn't mean that we are powerless. We can still make a realistic rendering of the system that can prove tremendously useful. Rendering a roulette wheel is simple, and it provides us with the likelihood of where an item will fall. The same goes for our renderings of weather systems, where we already get a useful approximation of how bad the weather will be in our location. We will never know exactly where the roulette ball will land or where the raindrops fall, but we don't have to if we play (or don't play) the odds.
Other random effects
At the quantum level, it is impossible to know a particle's exact position and momentum. This leads to the subjective randomness in a particle's exact position and momentum, which also causes the run-off chaotic effects discussed in the last paragraph. However, reality is full of random effects to consider. Some are truly random, and others are so complex they might as well be random. Genetic mutation in evolution is a purely random process of trial and error, and so are natural disasters. Likewise, there are random man-made systems that we interact with every day, such as financial markets, traffic flows, or lottery draws.
The takeaway for dealing with random systems is that we cannot predict them, but we can and should prepare for impactful outcomes.
Unknowable futures
The limitations discussed so far would suffice to explain reality if it weren't for one pesky factor: human creativity. This may sound like another example of the future being random, but it is quite the opposite. New human knowledge actually makes the world less random. By solving problems and understanding how the world works, we can make more and better predictions. It is also a focused and intentional act to solve a problem, not a random one. However, the first and second-order effects of this new knowledge are inherently unknowable in advance. We do not know what new understanding or technological advancement will be made beyond those right around the corner because if we did, we would already have them. The faster human knowledge grows (as it has been doing since the Enlightenment), the more difficult it is to predict the future. This is why planning too far out into the future is unwise in a dynamic society. The way forward is to continue adopting (and creating) new technologies and using them to your advantage.
Possible futures!
Now, we have all the ingredients to express what can happen in reality. Namely, everything that does not violate the laws of physics and impossible actions described above. All that remains is physically possible and can be understood, predicted, prototyped, rendered, or built.
Of course, practical limitations (unsolved problems) remain. For example, we know we can have practically infinite clean and safe energy once we develop nuclear fusion reactors. We know this because fusion happens elsewhere in the universe, including our own sun and our laboratories. However, we are still figuring out how to apply this locally, reliably, and continuously.
Therefore, the set of possible actions does not just refer to new knowledge and technologies that we create but also to everything that currently exists. Figuring out how our consciousness operates or how life originated is a solvable challenge to overcome. No aspects of reality are beyond human comprehension simply because no such law of nature has been theorized or discovered (yet).
5 more resources on understanding the future
1) 📺 TEDxBrussels - David Deutsch - The Unknowable & how to prepare for it
A rational, optimistic, and encouraging talk was given by David Deutsch on the exact topic of this newsletter. I highly recommend it.
🔗 Link to the YouTube video
2) ✉️ A methodology to deal with risks to our planet - A letter by Nassim Taleb
Nassim Taleb's work focuses on various aspects of randomness and the unknowability of the future. In this letter, he distills his insights into practical and useful (albeit challenging to understand) principles for dealing with the future.
🔗 Link to the letter
3) 📖 The Science of Can and Can't - Chiara Marletto
A nice read for those interested in the future of science. Marletto takes the perspective of possible and impossible actions a step further. She suggests that by reasoning from this perspective, as opposed to the orthodox view of laws of motion, we can make progress in understanding the future frontiers in scientific knowledge. This perspective also boldly incorporates non-reductionist properties of a systems (and not just the parts) into physics.
🔗 Link to the book on amazon.com
4) 📖 The Fabric of Reality: Chapter 5 Computation - David Deutsch
I re-read This chapter in the Fabric of Reality probably ten times while writing this article. It's a thorough description of the various types of impossibility, and I recommend it to everyone who wants to explore this topic further.
🔗 Link to the book on amazon.com
5) 🎯 Life Goals OS - A method and Notion template for setting killer goals
This is the distillation of my research on how best to factor in the future when deciding your own direction in life. The template guides you through ideating, defining, tracking, and accomplishing your goals. You can get 25% off the paid version in January with code: Jan2024.
🔗 Link to Life Goals OS
That’s a wrap.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can leave a comment on Substack, send me a private message, or reply to this e-mail. See you next week!
, Edwin