2100.org

Scenario for the next century

The feasibility of science foresight. What are the priorities?

Abstract: A sceptical approach should be adapted towards long-term forecasting in the field of science: paradigm shifts during the 20th century ñ such as those associated with relativity, genetics and fractals ñ could not have been predicted, so how can we presume to predict those of the 21st century? But, if we accept the general premise that a global change is occurring in our civilisation, namely a secular shift from an industrial society to a cognitive society, we can reasonably assume that mechanics, physics and chemistry ñ key disciplines of the industrial world ñ may well be displaced from the central position they occupy by the cognitive and life sciences. It should also be noted that the cognitive paradigm takes metrology as the starting point for the cognitive social process, leading to a post-scientific representation of knowledge, in which the diversity of recognition and exchange among several different subjects requires more attention than so-called ìobjectivityî which relates to a single process of acquiring and validating knowledge.

Common sense dictates that any science forecasting exercise should be approached with a prudent degree of scepticism. How can we hope to forecast developments in science, when the discoveries of the 20th century have been a series of such extraordinary surprises that even specialists think that they would have been totally impossible to predict?

What is more, some of those discoveries ñ relativity, wave mechanics, the genetic code, fractals and undecidability theorems, for example ñ have radically transformed the way we see things. They are paradigm shifts that affect not just one specific area of science, but the publicís perception of the most fundamental questions: the origin of the world and the nature of life.

Some groups of scientists have nonetheless attempted to outline some future developments. In some cases, where a discipline-by-discipline approach has been taken to foresight exercises, they do no more than relay their colleaguesí consensus view of the future. In so doing, they are expressing the contemporary viewpoint of ìnormal scienceî , in Kuhnís sense of the term, precisely the viewpoint which new and original ideas will challenge.

We should add, too, that over the past fifty years science has become institutionalised. Today, enormous sums of money are at stake. Consequently, much of what we hear about the future of science, especially from those directly concerned, is far from disinterested and that is precisely where the problem lies. Often, so-called ìforesightî exercises are no more than a series of ìself-servingî arguments, aimed at putting the case for one discipline or another rather than at taking an objective look at trends in knowledge.

Two qualities are essential in any attempt to forecast developments in science. The first is the ability to keep a totally open mind and to be completely unswayed by the influence of any scientific lobby. The second, and the most difficult, is to have an understanding of the factors that will shape the development of the sciences and a clear vision of how to put them in perspective.

For that matter, there is more than one way of viewing the development of the sciences: after Kuhn, we could mention that of Gilles Gaston Granger, who was interested in the ìstylesî of scientific approach, or that of Bruno Latour who compared the epistemology of social groups in different societies. For Latour, the cognitive behaviour exhibited by biologists resembled that of any other ìtribeî, from aborigines to corporations.

Interesting as these views may be, they still do not provide us with a basis for forecasting developments. In what follows, I do not claim to solve the problem. I merely point to some avenues that may lead to a ìrational accountî, as ethnomethodologists would say, of science in the future,.

The first point I would like to make is that modern technology is generally considered to be the daughter of science. But technology is also the mother of science in that all sciences depend on aa single technology, namely metrology. The Hubble telescope and large particle accelerators are measuring instruments. Pasteurís biological research required the use of the microscope. Modern biotechnology is dependent on measuring and calculating instruments that enable us to identify proteins and the genome. Measurement is the basis of science and the indispensable instrument for confirming the validity of theories.

In fact, for two centuries metrology has always advanced in the same direction: greater precision and greater complexity. It has produced more than just measurements. It has also enabled us to see hidden structures (ultrasound, and thermography for example) and to record movement (video, fast scan cameras, stroboscopy, etc.). Assisted by these new tools, the development of new disciplines such as ethology (the study of animal and human behaviour) has been enhanced and accelerated.

Moreover, the most recent advances in measuring time, particularly those by Nobel Prize winners Chu and Cohen- Tannoudji, offer hope that advances on a similar scale will be made in the measurement of many of matterís most intimate phenomena. For example, we can conceive of measurements to the nearest femto-second (10-15), which will enable us to film chemical reactions (femto-chemistry), including reactions in living matter. Similarly, arranging molecules to build computers or robots the size of a pin-head, for example, is another possibility.

It is also possible that the completion of on-going studies on ìdecoherenceî will resolve the conflict between relativity and wave mechanics. This will not be just a theoretical breakthrough. Once the wave-like nature of all physical matter, including ourselves, is clearly established, our representations of the world around us will inevitably change.

This should be seen in relation to changes in technology and society as a whole. Our foresight exercise, which involved hundreds of researchers in the 1980s and 1990s, reached one key conclusion: we are witnessing the beginnings of a new global technology system. In other words, there will be a lot more than just a few inventions. We will see a system-wide transformation that will affect every technology. The previous transformation was the industrial revolution, which was accompanied by an upheaval in our social structures and culture on a scale that the world had not seen for more than 500 years.

What is in store is change on a similar scale. Just as in the 18th and 19th centuries, Europe evolved from an agrarian society to an industrial society, we believe that in the coming century the whole world will change from an industrial society into a cognitive society. Why ìcognitiveî? By analogy with the cognitive sciences, which will be central to future research. These are the sciences that study cognition as a phenomenon and as an area of research. They are based on neurophysiology but also involve information technology (can we simulate cognition?), ethology and linguistics. They also have much closer links with philosophy than in the past (What is knowledge? Socratesí ìKnow thyselfî).

Why should the central role given to the physical sciences in the industrial society now be taken over by the cognitive sciences? The answer is because the nature of work and employment is shifting in exactly that direction. In industry, employees attend to machines. They feed raw materials into them and monitor their real-time operation. As the cognitive system becomes more established, industrial plants have fewer and fewer workers. Employees simply attend to other machines, machines for communication or even programmed machines (robots), which are replacing the workers of earlier times.

The essence of technology, as philosophers would say, is changing. In 1953, Heidegger, at the height of the industrial society, wrote that the essence of modern technology (at the time) was ìge-stellî or ìstanding reserveî. Under the pretext of meeting the needs of mankind, nature was used as a standing reserve and, in order to exploit it, man was used in the same way. A contradiction arose because man felt no need to serve as a standing reserve, explaining Hiedeggerís assertion that man was not the master of technology. On the contrary, man was, in a way, collectively shaped by the essence of technology, ìge-stellî, or ìstanding reserveî .

To me, it seems that the transition to a cognitive society is being accompanied by a change in the essence of technology. In the era now approaching, the essence of technology is no longer a ìstanding reserveî but ìpro-grammingî, or, according to the etymology of the word, ìwriting in advanceî. Indeed, microprocessors can perform operations in only nano-seconds (with tomorrowís optical computers, in femto-seconds), which is much faster than neurons can process information. Therefore, inevitably, people will have to programme computers and ìwriting in advanceî will become the determinant of the essence of technology.

I should add that that the mechanisms of living things also fall within the ambit of ìpro-grammingî. A genetic code is a program. The analogy with computers is so striking that the phrase ìcomputer virusî was soon coined to describe parasite lines of code capable of reproducing, breaking through hostile defences (analogous to immune defences) and causing substantial damage in the memory of their computer host.

While the industrial system was based on the twin components of matter and energy (we know since E=mc2 that they are one and the same thing), time/living organism will be the twin components of the cognitive system. Computers are compressing time scales (to nano-seconds and soon femto-seconds) and in the next century will approach the speed of living functions, to such an extent that we can already foresee the possibility of creating ìintermediateî (neither animate nor inanimate) entities, as announced by Philippe QuÈau in ìMÈtaxuî, He saw in his creations a new form of art and also, probably, of combat.

Upstream of the industrial system was mining, the extraction of raw materials for processing by industry. Upstream of the cognitive system is metrology, the collection of data to be processed by cognitive processes. Industry is about production, aimed in theory at meeting the needs of man. The cognitive system is completely different. It is about consciousness and aims at meeting quite different needs, first, but not solely, the need for knowledge. Hence, the role of science, which in this case goes far beyond providing support for industrial progress, becomes more socially important.

In this regard, I will mention only one fact, to help understand the relationship between changes in scientific paradigms and changing outlooks, as historians would say. We have known, since Watsonís discovery of the genetic code thirty years ago that life from ìthe amoeba to the elephantî (J. Monod), and of course human life, is one and the same phenomenon.

The fact is that for thousands of years, religions and philosophers have been tirelessly repeating that man is a being apart, whose innate superiority to animals, gives him dominion over nature. This view, still predominant today, is being covertly refuted by science. The new vision has a steadily growing public voice. What we are seeing is the slow but inevitable rise of so-called ecological concepts, the only really new political trend in the latter half of this century.

However, it is also inevitable that science apply to itself the paradigms that is has created. Probably some time will be needed for the new ìworld visionî to percolate through to other disciplines and be absorbed by the body of society as a whole. To get some idea of this, we simply have to examine the successive interpretations of the Darwinian paradigm in economic, social or even scientific (Latour) ideologies for example. Liberalism and socialism both laid claim to Darwin, demonstrating that even opposing social principles are necessarily based on the dominant interpretation of life.

The cognitive paradigm should be understood as including both what we call the cognitive sciences and the innermost mechanisms of living organisms, along with the exploitation of the potential of the genome, immune defences (which as VarÈla noted are the starting point for recognition, and consequently for the cognitive) and the as yet little-known processes for ìreprogrammingî.

This paradigm contains the seeds, in my view, of the end of scientism. Indeed, the implicit assumption is that science, as we know it, is one vast abstract subject in which knowledge is accumulated. It is this subject that scientists are referring to when they say ìit is known thatÖ it can be said thatî or even ìit cannot be said thatî. Thinking about it, it seems to me that the vantage point from which the scientific community is speaking (its use of the impersonal) is like the last avatar of the concept of an omniscient, but relativist, God since the knowledge in question is falsifiable, to borrow the epistemologists term, in other words, can be refuted by experience.

The cognitive paradigm should be able to refute the notion of one vast subject, by basing itself on a real principle: there are several subjects. The difficult part is to find out the common denominator between what these different subjects perceive and how they communicate. From that point on, entire universes of beliefs and influences, which we had been accustomed to keeping at armís length, become part of scienceís domain. Science must see itself as an emanation of life and derive its value from serving life.

In the 20th century there was too much science without ethics. I foresee that in the coming century, scientists will have to debate ethics and prove to the public that they adhere to ethical principles. Those who fail to do so may even run the risk of finding themselves facing legal problems.

Recommendations: Given the foregoing, the position that science holds in society can be expected to change. The 20th century was the century of World Wars, including the Cold War. The field of science concerned worked under the seal of confidentiality. Science as a whole maintained a distance between itself and the public, whereas in Pasteurís time both had been very close.

1. Every effort should be made to bring science closer to the public, by disseminating knowledge and also by choosing research subjects that are closer to everyday life. The cognitive sciences should be given their rightful place and conclusions for education should be drawn from them. Measuring and testing systems for the needs of everyday life should be developed worldwide: consumer and environmental protection, metrology for small business and the self-employed.

2. It has become apparent that multinationals increasingly tend to appropriate essential constituents of the future economy through patents or authorís rights, namely software, which has become de facto standards, or genomes. Researchers and legislators will have to help the public and small businesses to free themselves from such abuses of the law and of dominant position.

3. Lastly, it would be advisable to foster research and discussions on ethics and science in every continent, of relevance to the civilisations living in each continent, in the context of both the present and the future.

Annex

The knowledge tree illustrated below attempts to show the future shape of scientific research in the next century. The transformation of the current system of technology will also transform the research landscape.

The first prediction that we can make is a qualitative increase in precision and complexity. Precision as regards time: measuring time down to the femto-second and, the development of femto-chemistry, for example, which will open up the possibility of being able to view elementary chemical reactions such as those generating proteins in our bodies and the possibility of constructing computers out of suitably arranged organic molecules.

The corollary of this forecast is a parallel increase in complexity, which radically undermines the former paradigm of science itself. The 20th century had demonstrated the limits imposed by the nature of language on theory and calculability (Gˆdel and T¸ring). The trend in the coming century should be towards overcoming this apparent obstacle by developing holistic but rigorous intellectual approaches centred on the cognitive sciences, ethology, descriptive sciences and simulation techniques.

This classification, which will be modified and improved, is shown as a tree as a reminder that science, as does every manifestation of life, grows from the bottom up like a bush unfolding its leaves to the energy of the sun.

May 1999 Thierry Gaudin