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.220 The Computerized WorldIt isn't hard to imagine ourselves asking for the population of Ascunción, Paraguay, and having a computer sort through population statistics in some central data bankand giving us the answer.We can ask more subtle questions and obtain references to textbooks, research papers, monographs, popularizations.We can have particularreferences reproduced on a television screen or transcribed on paper and, having investigated what we receive, we can ask the question again in a more refined anddetailed way, or move on to subsidiary and tangential questions.After all, in order for civilization to survive, the birth rate will have to drop and the age pattern of humanity will continue its present shift in favor of a larger percentage ofmature individuals and a lower percentage of young ones.If we are to prevent the older segments of the population from being a dead weight that will crush thediminishing base of youth and innovation, we must make education a universal opportunity for all and not for young people alone.The computerized library and teaching machine will make it possible for anyone at any age to investigate anything and go as far as he or she likes in any intellectualdirection, whether deeply or trivially, either intensely or dilettantishly.This could result in a world in which the general level of intellectual curiosity and liveliness would be greatly enhanced and in which people of any age would have themental sprightliness we tend to associate with only the young now.Will the preoccupation with computers, whether for games or for solid education, produce a society of isolates who will forget how to talk to human beings? Idescribed such a society in my novel The Naked Sun, but it doesn't have to be so.It is quite possible, after all, for people to lose themselves now in books, in record-players, in television.Computers would offer nothing new in this respect.Remember, too, that there is another side to the coin.There are thousands of people so fascinated by the television program "Star Trek," for instance, that it begins tofill a substantial portion of their lives, yet it does not necessarily isolate them.Instead, it can drive them to seek out others like themselves, to form fan groups, to holdfan conventions, and so on.In short, what seems at first to be a force for isolation can become a pull toward human interaction.To play games with a computer may drive one to test one's skill against other human beings; to learn by means of a computer may drive one to try to educate others.Imagine a world in which no two people move in quite the same computerized-educational direction and almost all are afflicted with at least some missionary zeal.Wecould have an intellectual ferment such as the world has never seen.Part 3Will computerization of the world merely affect the surface of society, just liven things up a bit and make life more intellectually stimulating?Actually, it could make it possible for human knowledge to take enormous leaps forward.Consider this, for instanceHuman knowledge has gained most where simple problems are involved.In astronomy, we deal in large part with matter that we can consider as simple points, movingunder the influence of a gravitational force in a way that can be described in a simple equation.In physics, we deal with moving bodies and with other forms of energythat can also be described in fairly simple equations.Chemistry is a little more complicated, but can still be handled.There is enough of the simple in the movements of stars, planets, billiard balls, and atoms to make those who deal with the physical sciences look pretty good.What of those, though, who try to deal with more complicated systems? What of biologists who try to deal with the complex behavior of molecules in living tissue, andwith the behavior of organisms in evolution and in social structures? Psychologists, who must deal with the human brain, the most complex structure we know, areworse off still; and sociologists and economists, who must deal with human societies, are even further in the mire.It is not surprising that the social sciences are so badly off in comparison with the physical sciences, and that social advance seems to lag so far behind technologicaladvance as to make modern technology a potential death-trap for our still primitive societies.Nor will things ever improve as long as we have no tool to aid the mind that is better than those we have had before computers came along.221222 The Computerized WorldAs better and more elaborate computers are developed, it should be possible to solve ever more complicated problems ever more quickly.(This is not to say thatevery problem is exactly and generally soluble, even by the best computer.Even then, however, approximate answers can be obtained and approximations may beadvance as to make modern technology a potential death-trap for our still primitive societies.Nor will things ever improve as long as we have no tool to aid the mind that is better than those we have had before computers came along.221222 The Computerized WorldAs better and more elaborate computers are developed, it should be possible to solve ever more complicated problems ever more quickly.(This is not to say thatevery problem is exactly and generally soluble, even by the best computer.Even then, however, approximate answers can be obtained and approximations may besufficient for immediate purposes.)The computers to come may aid in the determination of technological side-effects.It often happens that some technological change that looks perfectly useful turns outto have unexpected side-effects that could prove exceedingly harmful.A dam, much needed for irrigation, may irretrievably damage the ecology of a region in otherways; a certain method of fertilizing the land may introduce a long-term deterioration of the soil; and so on.These things can't always be easily predicted, but if we can work out relationships that govern the various items in the picture, we might allow a computer to produce asimulation that it can then follow through time [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]