[Barry Tilton]

Clearly the ultimate theme of Tomorrowland jibes well with the spirit and intent of Project Hieroglyph.  For those who don’t know the history of Disney’s real creative vision, I suggest you look in Wikipedia under the EPCOT heading and read.  The film’s exhibits from the World’s Fair (they were actually there…) were the seed for an idea that was the theme of EPCOT when it opened, that the future could be manufactured if given the right impetus.  The BEST ride for future visionaries at the park’s opening was Horizons,  which explored the tag line “If you can dream it, you can do it”.  which took the visitor on a tour of future undersea, desert and LEO space habitats (like a forward version of the Carousel of Progress…).  [See https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/happy-birthday-and-rip-to-disney-worlds-best-ride-ev-1429773180 for an obituary]

When I came upon Hieroglyph and joined the site (all of a week ago), I was reminded of those early visits to EPCOT, where all of the best new-tech of the day was laid out in the CommuniCore – which was essentially an unending version of the World’s Fair.  Sadly, the need to be an amusement park has replaced much of the tech will traffic friendly and character-filled standard Disney fare (don’t get me wrong, I enjoy that too – but I truly miss the chance to experience to visit the future).

I work in the technology business (sensors mostly) and have always looked to SF to inspire suggestions of NEW – especially when the physics seems to be a stretch.  I fully support the core belief of the project and CSI, but even in the Dystopian I have often found seeds of NEW which helped me shape requirements and “asks” from the tech community.

I end with an observation – there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of motion on the public part of this site, but I implore those who started the endeavor to keep it going.  Our future will be more exiting (and possibly more assured) if you do.

 

[Barry Tilton]

There is something important, and frankly scary about Pascal’s response to your inquiry, Erik.  I am VERY new to this site – two days in, and should probably be trolling about a bit more before diving in, but I myself am working on a technical paper about technology adoption for geospatial inquiry by millennials, and found myself thinking about the education process for their successors.

I am an Electrical Engineer (licensed, with a Masters), a certified Project Manager, and a reasonably well read person.  I am a lifelong learner, with side interests from music to history to pure science, so I think I can reasonably consider myself to be in the upper quarter of the population in terms of general education – BUT – if I were to find myself in any sort of apocalyptic scenario (you name it – anything that shuts the power grid down, massively disrupts the food supply, etc…) I would be completely unable to re-establish the technological baseline of even the early 20th century, much less the 21st.  I suspect that with proper introspection MOST people would have to say the same.  In many ways, although I comfortably adopt the available technology, it is for all intents and purposes part of Clarke’s Law…any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I have three children that I have so far done my best to educate/enlighten on the world we live in, but I couldn’t begin to tell you whether on the technical side I have picked the right things to show them.  We are on the cusp of direct 3-D printing of graphene based carbon computers and such – how can anyone know enough to contribute more than a sliver in such a world.

As to the inception issue – the one thing I can say with certainty is that within several years, even the most discriminating observer is unlikely to be able to effectively differentiate real from virtual – the human mind is connected by ever-better-understood sensory organs to the outside world. Once our sensors are fully mimicked, there will be no practical differentiator to apply. This is either wonderful (allows for unlimited exploration) or frightening (the worst aspect of “the Matrix”…).

I’m not sure any future pedagogy will be able to keep pace with the technology and science growth curves we are currently on, so maybe the best you can do is build out your cyber-training construct on basic cognition and physical skill development, then let the trainees adapt to advance.

Willing to discuss further if you are interested.

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