Editorial February 5, 1996 Issue

Knowledge for the future

William E. Moody

Do you know all you need to know about what's ahead of you? Sometimes! Other times we may feel that we know is woefully inadequate and that we simply don't have enough facts or foresight to cope with the future. Even some of the brightest and most capable people can miss the mark. Consider, for example, the chairman of IBM in 1943, who predicted "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Or an issue of Popular Mechanics in 1949 proclaiming "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."

These two examples were highlighted in a sidebar to a recent magazine article dealing with some of the difficult challenges confronting people in the information age. According to Nobel prize winner Arno Penzias, who is quoted in the article: "We are the first generation in human history where knowledge will change more than once in a lifetime. In the past, with each new generation, knowledge was gained and torch was passed. What haven't figured out yet is what happens when your knowledge becomes obsolete at age 38" (see "Paved With Fool's Gold?" by Gayle M. B. Hanson, Insight, Sept. 25–Oct. 2, 1995).

Yet even if we can figure out how to cope with the rapid increase in information and the consequences that this is having in every aspect of human experience, we still will not have found the real security we need. It will never be fully satisfying to know only physical data and facts; and as the chairman of IBM discovered, the ever-changing future doesn't always lead where these "facts" would direct us.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

Spontaneity and healing