Predicting the Future [Paperback]

Predicting the Future examines humankind's obsessive urge to look beyond the present in the hope of controlling events in the days to come.Auguries, oracles, omens & and software simulation. From antiquity to the electronic age, Predicting the Future examines humankind's obsessive urge to look beyond the present in the hope of controlling events in the days to come with contributions from such well known authors as Stephen Hawking and Don Cupitt.Auguries, oracles, omens & and software simulation. From antiquity to the electronic age, Predicting the Future examines humankind's obsessive urge to look beyond the present in the hope of controlling events in the days to come with contributions from such well known authors as Stephen Hawking and Don Cupitt.Whether there is a future to predict is not a question many people care to think about too deeply, though the process of predicting the future has itself a history. We did not always predict from the same assumptions as we do now, or for the same reasons. Today, on the basis of empirical observation and scientific theory, accredited experts and specialists forecast the economy, the social consequences of medical innovation and even what will happen to the universe in billions of years time. In the past soothsayers, priests, oracles and comets foretold the future on the basis of religious ideology and traditional authority. In a remarkable series of thought-provoking essays the authors examine both approaches and their consequences and chart our continuing attempts to see beyond the present.Introduction: predicting the future Leo Howe; 1. The future of the universe Stephen Hawking; 2. Chaos Ian Stewart; 3. Comets and the world's end Simon Schaffer; 4. Predicting the economy Frank Hahn; 5. The medical frontier Ian Kennedy; 6. Divine providence in late antiquity Averil Cameron; 7. Buddist prediction: how open is the future? Richard Gombrich; 8. The last judgement Don Cupitt; Notes on contributors; Acknowledgements; Indelc›