In 1970 the futurologist Alvin Toffler published Future shock … a book about signs of the time and of times ahead, times in which the (increasing) speed of scientific and technological progress oversteps the pace of the human heartbeat. It becomes too much for many to digest and a sense of discomfort rather than techno-enabled comfort sets in.

Few people remember – hey, I wasn’t even born yet – that in 1972, a documentary version was made of the bestselling book, narrated by Orson Welles. Although over 30years old, there remains a contemporary relevance to the story being told. Some might even see a few parallels between “the future shock” phenomenon and “the singularity”.

Sit back and enjoy the movies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Via Smashing Telly

Liberman & Trope, two researchers from the Departments of Psychology of Tel Aviv and New York University respectively, recently published an article in Science magazine, entitled “The Psychology of Transcending the Here and Now” .

“People directly experience only themselves here and now but often consider, evaluate, and plan situations that are removed in time or space, that pertain to others’ experiences, and that are hypothetical rather than real. People thus transcend the present and mentally traverse temporal distance, spatial distance, social distance, and hypotheticality. We argue that this is made possible by the human capacity for abstract processing of information. We review research showing that there is considerable similarity in the way people mentally traverse different distances, that the process of abstraction underlies traversing different distances, and that this process guides the way people predict, evaluate, and plan near and distant situations.”

Robin Hanson over at OvercomingBias reflects upon this fascinating topic in his blog articles Abstract/Distant Future Bias and A Tale of Two Tradeoffs. Check them out!

Via TheLongNow

Like any truly disruptive technology, the web changed the world in myriad ways. Can you remember times before the internet? Surely the medical world can. Before the internet the amount of patients showing up at the doctor’s with a binder full of ‘mediknowledge’ downloaded from the internet and demanding answers, challenging the knowledge of the expert, was definitely smaller than in today’s world. For a long time medical and pharmaceutical knowledge was the domain of a select group of people and organizations. They were the one and only point of reference. This has all changed. As access to specialist information and specialist tools increases, many of the walls separating the medical world and the rest of us come tumbling down.

In the ‘old’ model, research in terms of diagnostics or cures, was – and often still is – ruled by the cult of numbers. Many rare diseases are considered too costly in view of limited statistical impact, hence considered ‘economically  uninteresting’  to investigate, leaving groups of individuals with rare diseases or developing countries out in the cold. 

Wired magazine tells the story of Hugh Rienhoff. Reminiscent of Lorenzo’s oil, the article shows the admirable and moving quest of a parent in search for an explanation for his daughter’s genetic problems and the difficult relationship with the inner culture of the medical world as he pursues his journey. Rienhoff launched a website mydaughersdna.org to share his experience with parents fighting the same battles, exchanging insights gained, problems encountered, etc.

The medical and pharmaceutical world is changing … from within and under the influence of outside pressure. Increasing numbers of individuals start their own research journeys thereby co-setting the agenda, the pricetag for full-genome sequencing is falling, increasingly medical cases are being documented in – many times open – online shared databases (e.g. DECIPHER) leading to exponential increases in insights gained, pharmacogenetics promise the arrival of truly personalized medicine, previously specialist lab technologies are coming within reach of individuals.

Like with any opening up of previously closed ecologies of information, there is the issue of quality of information and interpretation on which ‘knowledge’ depends, the spectrum with on the one end experts, on the other quacks. Could a p2p model work in the medical world? Especially in complex areas such as genetics it already is leading to massive change. Could a more open model of knowledge exchange benefit the medical profession and humanity in general? Surely, there are advantages to be gained, yet also requiring new mechanisms to be put/grown in place and new challenges to be tackled.

Yesterday’s news headlines put cancer in pole position as the primary cause of death in the Netherlands. Amongst families of cancer-patients, the frustrating question of ‘why on earth, with all the amazing technological capabilities we have and the dozens of daily new insights gained, do people still need to die of cancer?’ is like an ever-returning mantra. To some in the field it’s a lack of knowledge which prevents us from major progress, according to others the paradigms by which we investigate cancer, describe it, categorize and treat it are flawed and we are in desperate need of a paradigm shift.

A recent cover story in Wired Magazine “The Truth about Cancer“ urges to increase efforts in detecting cancer early instead of trying to fight it later. Early detection could increase survival rates to 90% according to some. 

TechnologyReview looks at new developments in treatment – which could be classified as regenerative medicine - which train the body to recognize the killer cells as cancer and trigger the immune system to fight them off once again.

“One of cancer’s cleverest tricks is its ability to hide from the immune system. A new approach to cancer treatment called immunotherapy could spare patients at least some of the grueling battery of chemotherapy treatments by retraining the body’s own defenders–the cells of the immune system–to recognize and destroy tumors. Now researchers at Harvard University have developed a simple way to do this inside the body: a polymer implant attracts and trains immune-system cells to go after cancer.”

The fight against cancer or for knowledge about it, does not only take place in medical labs or our bodies. The known or presumed influence of environmental factors on the occurrence of cancers, also leads to efforts to geotag cancer occurrences and correlating their spatial spread with other layers of knowledge using GIS systems (e.g. NCI, Turkish effort)

Image courtesy of National Cancer Institute

The Rotman School of Management dedicates its winter issue (pdf) to wicked problems, a concept not unknown to futuregazers. Jeff Conklin of the CogNexus Institute once characterized wicked problems as follows:

1. The problem is not understood until after formulation of a solution.
2. Stakeholders have radically different world views and different frames for understanding the problem.
3. Constraints and resources to solve the problem change over time.
4. The problem is never solved.

Aside from an interview with him, the magazine is chock-full of insightful articles on topics such as Confronting the World’s Most Important Strategic Challenges: The End of Oil, Strategy as a Wicked Problem, Peter Senge et al. on The Next Industrial Imperative: The 80-20 Challenge, Creativity, Improvisation and Organizations, The Designful Company, IDEO’s Fred Dust and Ilya Prokopoff on Designing Systems at Scale, Managerial Algorithmics: Thinking Strategically About Thinking Strategically, Artistry for the Strategist. Muhammad Yunus shares his ‘point of view’. There are Q&A’s with Prof. William Duggan on strategic intuition, reverse brainstorming etc., with Prof. John Broome on the ethics of climate change, with Prof. Sarah Kaplan on the origin of our cognitive frames, with Nigel Cross on the differences between abstract and concrete thinking, with Prof. Lucy Kimbell on the importance of a ‘design attitude’, with Prof. Dolly Chugh on the human foibles of bounded willpower, bounded awareness and bounded self-interest, with Prof. Ingo Walter on new alternatives for microfinance institutions, with Cary Fowler on protecting the world’s food supply via the Global Crop Diversity Trust. Prof. Heather Fraser shares insights on tackling wicked problems in healthcare.

In other words: an issue to devour.

NewScientist recently reported on some amazing new discoveries using advanced fMRI technologies (see also here). The team of Yukiyasu Kamitani at Japan’s ATR’s Computational Neuroscience Laboratories …

“[...] has used an image of brain activity taken in a functional MRI scanner to recreate a black-and-white image from scratch. “By analysing the brain signals when someone is seeing an image, we can reconstruct that image,” says Kamitani. This means that the mind reading isn’t limited to a selection of existing images, but could potentially be used to “read off” anything that someone was thinking of, without prior knowledge of what that might be.”

What if one could use it to communicate with people with lock-in syndrome? What if ‘design thinking’ or ‘thinking a design’ would be enough to prototype? What if future privacy laws would include the privacy of one’s mind and thoughts? It is not hard to image many uses … yet also abuses of such a technology as it matures.

Image courtesy of Neuron/Cell Press via NewScientist

In 1975 Ernest Callenbach published Ecotopia (revisited by NY Times here), a novel which quickly gained cult status (see also video). Three years later, fascinated by the book, architect Craig Hodgetts (of Hodgetts+Fung Design) crafted a set of amazing drawings depicting some of the scenes and concept envisioned in the book, eager to produce Ecotopia for the big screen. Imagine retro-yet-ever-so-futuristic balloon generators over San Francisco Bay, solar-powered high-speed mag-lev trains, helium-filled mylar balloons to lift and orient a wind-powered generator, …

Callenbach said it right: “It is so hard to imagine anything fundamentally different from what we have now, but without these alternate visions, we get stuck on dead center.” 

Inspired by TheArchitectsNewspaperBlog

… ironing shirts, wasting energy, shortening the lifespan of your shirt’s cloth. The Swedish brand Eton shirts has developed a coatingless cotton-fibre which returns to its original shape after washing. In fact bodyheat is enough to iron your shirt as you wear it. The fibre responds to heat – not unlike shape memory alloys) – to maintain its form.

Let’s extrapolate such a development for a second: imagine a world in which no shirts need to be ironed any longer. Consequences: significant decrease of energy usage since irons no longer need to be heated, presses are no longer necessary, thereby also increasing the lifespan of the shirt since the cloth is spared from several aggressive interactions. Combine that with a waterless washing machine such as Electrolux’ Airwash system. In terms of saving the environment. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen how energy- & eco-efficient the production of the special cotton fibre (and the rest of its lifecycle) is before we can truly assess its impact. From a socio-economic perspective however – like any technological development which renders human (inter)action obsolete – the no-iron cotton fibre – if used on a large scale – might put extra stress on or obliterate ironing shops.

On a higher level of abstraction: think of all the kind of products which nowadays, because of their systemic or material makeup, require labour (implying usage of all kinds of other resources) in order to remain functional, usable etc. Windows need to be washed, houses need to be heated or cooled, etc.

What if … changes at the material/systemic level of these products, which nearly all of us use, could make these ‘wasteful cycles’ of energy. If employed at a large scale, effects (both positive and negative) of these changes can often be exponential in nature as they work their way through the chain of reactions linked to the lifecycle of the product. They alter the system of their ‘ecology’, their context (whether bio-, techno- or homosphere). Glass can be self-cleaning, houses can go without or using a minimum of heating/cooling energy, etc.

For about two years already we have been a core partner in setting up “Plan C”, a transition management experiment in Flanders, aimed at catalyzing the societal shift to a world in which materials are managed in a sustainable way.

In a long term oriented participatory process seeded by OVAM (the Flemish Public Waste Agency) and guided by Pantopicon, Resource Analysis & the Center for Organizational and Personnel Psychology a possible future for sustainable materials management in Flanders was envisioned. Smart, creative, entrepreneurial minds from knowledge institutions, business and industry, ngo’s, government agencies etc. formed new alliances and have been smashing heads and hands together to come up with opportunities for radical innovation and structural change. 5 transition teams self-organized into 5 themes:

• closing the loop: cradle2cradle & beyond
• waking up society: towards a behavioral change
• at your service: from products to services
• tailored materials: making ‘making’ different
• sustainable plastics: towards a new basis

Each of these teams has defined a series of experiments they wish to set up and conduct in view of catalyzing structural change in the way deal with materials.

On October 15th, the current Plan C network members (60-80 heads strong) launches its vision, presents its experiments and invites fellow smart, creative and daring heads and hands to join in at a network-mindsstorm event in Mechelen (Belgium) (note: meeting will be in Dutch).

Spread the word and do join in!

Forget microfilm, here is the nanobook. Together with the Nano Imaging Facility of Simon Fraser University , artist Robert Chaplin created the world’s first nanobook “Teeny Ted from Turnip Town”, measuring a mere 69 x 97 microns. And yes, the book has an ISBN number.

Nanotechnology is not only inspiring many artists and designers, also the scientists and technologists are starting to see the potential of art and design to catalyze dialogue between the labworld and society at large. In similar fashion, the belgian nanotech player IMEC teamed up with our friends over at AddictLab a while ago. The project, named “in.tangible/scape.s” aims to bring the fascinating yet often obscure world of nanotechnology to life through art and design, a wonderful way to breathe life into yet nonexisting futures. An inspiration book on the results of the joint research project is under publication.

Together, both partners also set up NanoDesignAwards, of which the first edition will take place in 2009.

Think about it … We use the notion of time to classify events in the world around us according to whether they have already occurred (the past), are occuring (the present) or still need to occur (the future). Does time really exist or is it but a construction of our mind to help us deal with the world? Does time exist beyond of what we make of it through our perception?

Quantum physics is ‘timeless’. Professor of physics at the University of Marseille, France, extends the understanding of ‘no time’ (reminds me of my Uchronian friends) to our everyday experience suggesting, it is but a construct we use to simplify the world. He uses the following example:

“Take the example of a teacup, sitting on a table, which then falls and smashes into several pieces on the floor. There is nothing surprising about this sequence of events for us. But the idea that the pieces could fly back together and become a whole teacup again seems entirely impossible.
But it’s not actually impossible. There is nothing in the laws of physics that would make such an event impossible–it is only very improbable. It is only because of our limited view of the world, Rovelli argues, that we reject highly improbable future propositions and turn them into impossibilities.”

His colleague, Robin Le Poidevin, professor of philosophy at Leeds University, UK, sees it slightly different.

“He believes that there is a flow of time, although it is not one that moves independently from past to future. Instead, it is made up of a causal chain, with each cause having an effect that leads to another, and so on.
In other words, we cannot see a future where the teacup gets back together if there is no obvious cause for it. “

To both however, human perception is the key factor in how we interpret time.

Fascinating thought experiment. So maybe the future already happened …

Read the full article published by Forbes here as well as their other articles concerning the topic “What is time?”.

As has been shown, our awareness of our planet, our ecosystem, our society, our behaviour etc. changed dramatically from the moment we were able to observe Mother Earth from the outside, from space. We could suddenly link what we experienced ‘down here’ with what we saw from ‘up there’. Our outer and inner perspective suddenly became linked as we were looking at the bigger pictures of ourselves from outer space. It are these kinds of feedback loops which propell human insight forward.

Norbert Wiener, father of cybernetics, recognized such feedback loops as core to all intelligent systems. His findings formalized the notion of feedback and influenced a wide variety of fields ranging from engineering to computer science, from biology and philosophy to social sciences looking at the organization of society.

In his latest TED talk, neuroscientist and inventor Christopher deCharms shows how his company Omneuron is using advanced fMRI technologies to look at the happenings inside our brain in real time, in 3D. The sheer possibility of looking at what we think, feel, do ‘up there’, opens up a whole new era of discovery and remediation (e.g. chronic pain control). Psychiatry, pharmaceuticals, surgery were three major categories of treatment. Now there is a fourth. Check out the video here.

Advances in neurofeedback technologies and treatments have already shown some of the ways in which increased awareness of our brains’ activities can be used to enhance training, revalidation and for other purposes as well (e.g. gaming).

Think ahead. Imaging techniques are advancing rapidly and molecular imaging is all the hype now. Think about zooming in from brain to brain area to cell level. Which new pathways does this open up?

Image courtesy of the University of Oxford’s FMRIB Centre

The European association of plastics manufacturers, Plastics Europe, … commissioned UK futurist Ray Hammond to write a book about the world in 2030, with a special focus on the challenges for plastics.

Changing demographics, extreme weather conditions, peak-oil, resource-conflicts, surveillance society, hyperreal leisure time, robots, sustainable globalisation, healthcare revolution, virtual companions, biodigital interfaces, the global brain, new retailing, …

A summary of the book including a first response of the plastics industry on the challenges ahead, can be found here.

Regenerative medicine is gaining momentum. The Department of Defense announced the launching of a new 5-year initiative to boost developments in the field, entitled “the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM)”.

“The newly established Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, known by the acronym AFIRM, will serve as the military’s operational agency for the effort [...]  A key component of the initiative is to harness stem cell research and technology in finding innovative ways to use a patient’s natural cellular structure to reconstruct new skin, muscles and tendons, and even ears, noses and fingers [...]“

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, S. Ward Casscells, expects full functional regeneration of fingers and toes within 5 years. AFIRM is a partnership between the University of Pittsburgh’s McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Both will act as co-leaders in the initiative and receive half of the total grant of $85 million to develop new treatments for wounded soldiers. The teams working on the project include collaborators from 15 other institutions. Director of the McGowan Institute, Allan J. Russell, will co-direct AFIRM (see Alan’s inspiring TED talk here).

Several medical fields are aiming for regenerative solutions to avoid rejection of foreign tissue, prostheses, etc. In the field of oral care for example, UK-based Odontis is searching to grow entire replacement teeth. Other initiatives, such as that by Prof. Sally Marshall at the University of California are looking for solutions to remineralize parts of teeth (see here).

The road is long but every small success, because of its profound impact on the quality of lives of people, will revolutionize the medical field in the broad sense.

In 1995 Robert B. Silvers published a little book entitled “Hidden histories of science”. The book is actually a collection of essays, some by the hand of prolific authors such as Oliver Sacks, R.C. Lewontin, Daniel Kevles etc. One of these, entitled “Ladders and Cones: Constraining Evolution by Canonical Icons” written by Stephen Jay Gould, dealt with the dominance of certain images, visualizations of concepts such as evolution in scientific literature and the effects of this on the scientific discourse.

It would be very interesting to learn how different conceptualizations of time and thus also concepts of past, present and future, influence the way in which people look ahead (does ahead still make sense in a circular world?), think about things that are not there yet, the future etc. We know that ‘images’ of time are culturally biased. While we grew up with a ‘timeline‘, some Eastern cultures have a more cyclical image of time, also spiral notions exist.

In his lecture for the Long Now Foundation, “Embracing Uncertainty – the secret to effective forecasting”, Paul Saffo talked about the way in which the future is cone-shaped, as uncertainties grow as we look further ahead, widening the cone. He also mentions how our expectations are often linear, yet change is not. New technologies come in S-curves.

I would very much like to hear from people who use or know of different conceptualizations of time, different images of the future. Hence you are invited to leave a comment or send a note.