I have always wondered this since teens:

[Mr. Pedantic]

Must be nice living in your magical world. I guess in NZ cars appeared with stereos, fuel injection, airbags, and horsepower rated in the hundreds of horses. Here in America, our cars started with no stereo, carburetor, and you sat on top like a carriage. The safety equipment consisted of 'jump quick if the shit hits the fan' which wasn't entirely unreasonable since they only moved at human running speed.

Gee, look how far you've moved the goalposts.

All this is to say that technology moves in stages, and you don't get advanced notice. Btw, Moores law isn't a law. It's just an interesting saying that works more times than it doesn't. You might as well cite Murphys law for your proof ;^)

It's not magic to predict that things will get better over time.

 

[brianmanahan]

the ones who came before can do it in assassin's creed

so yeah

 

[lxskllr]

Gee, look how far you've moved the goalposts.

I haven't moved the goal posts anywhere. I said you can open your browser and see behavioral tracking this instant. You came back and basically said it's not state of the art finished product. I thought that was ridiculous, because I never claimed it was. I used a ridiculous analogy to match your ridiculous misrepresentation of what I wrote.

Fact is you're being tracked, and everything you do digitally will soon be kept forever by corporations and governments. That's a matter of record. You don't even have to travel to the more, erm... "esoteric" corners of the web to get that information. Denying it is being willfully ignorant, and careless with your identity.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I haven't moved the goal posts anywhere. I said you can open your browser and see behavioral tracking this instant. You came back and basically said it's not state of the art finished product. I thought that was ridiculous, because I never claimed it was. I used a ridiculous analogy to match your ridiculous misrepresentation of what I wrote.

Fact is you're being tracked, and everything you do digitally will soon be kept forever by corporations and governments. That's a matter of record. You don't even have to travel to the more, erm... "esoteric" corners of the web to get that information. Denying it is being willfully ignorant, and careless with your identity.

This is what you actually said:

Yes, and that's why it's dangerous to feed the data machine. Prediction is currently primitive, but it'll get better over time, and people who shouldn't have the data in the first place will know everything about you, and will be able to predict future actions.

How do you figure? It's already being done. You don't have to do anything other than open your browser to see it in action. Technology isn't stagnant. Today's impossible is next year's routine. Who knew when I was booting my first computer off a floppy drive, I would some day be able to store GBs of data in a chip smaller than my pinky nail?

Edit:
I've posted this video a few times now, but it's worth posting again, and should be watched by anyone that uses technology...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKOk4Y4inVY

I know that web browsers currently track user information. However, this isn't what you claimed. From your text I can't tell if you were claiming 1) that web browsers can currently track everything about you, or that 2) soon people will be able to know everything about you through your web browser, but I would take issue with both of those.

 

[lxskllr]

I know that web browsers currently track user information. However, this isn't what you claimed. From your text I can't tell if you were claiming 1) that web browsers can currently track everything about you, or that 2) soon people will be able to know everything about you through your web browser, but I would take issue with both of those.

Rolling eyes. Seriously?! I figured we're all adults here, and I wouldn't have to spell everything out for you. You can consider the browser tracking as a primitive proof of concept you can easily check yourself, since you said...

This is unrealistic and naively paranoid.

Obviously it isn't "unrealistic" or "paranoid" since it's fuckin' happening NOW.

 

[UberNeuman]

I love pondering stuff about the future.

Now, human mind and behavior is impossibly complex and sophisticated right? But isn't something complex only until we have the capacity to map it out?

Just like we have fully mapped human gnome and super data centers already archive all the tremendous data they have of us (Gmail as a bad example), isn't it only a matter of time until we completely PREDICT human behavior?

Since birth, combination of nature & nurture, who you are is a product of quadrillions of internal and external factors.

Isn't it only a matter of time we map out every possible factors of your daily life & physiological workings- then document and calculate real time which will allow it to PREDICT your next action?

Sure it will be a rough fuzzy logic at first. But as with anything, in time we will be able to predict everything you will do with great accuracy. They'll know what you'll have for lunch, what you will say, what fight you'll have, what 'unpredictable' thing you'll try to do- they'll even call that.

What are your thoughts?

add random events into the equation... You'll never be able to map out those random events that will change the equation and steer it into other areas...

 

[Zeze]

add random events into the equation... You'll never be able to map out those random events that will change the equation and steer it into other areas...

? Why not.

I'm talking about a device that absorbs ALL external events of every millisecond, and ALL internal physiological & biological events in the brain & body of every millisecond. Then it documents and calculates constantly.

 

[UberNeuman]

? Why not.

I'm talking about a device that absorbs ALL external events of every millisecond, and ALL internal physiological & biological events in the brain & body of every millisecond. Then it documents and calculates constantly.

Then you assume that everything is predestined to occur - Chaos Theory would go against this idea of yours...

 

[Zeze]

Then you assume that everything is predestined to occur - Chaos Theory would go against this idea of yours...

What.

 

[UberNeuman]

What.

That you have a "machine" or something that sees or predicts the all the acts of a future yet untold....

You're assuming that history has been already laid out - like a highway, like a track for trains....

\the random events will always disrupt those notions....

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I love pondering stuff about the future.

Now, human mind and behavior is impossibly complex and sophisticated right? But isn't something complex only until we have the capacity to map it out?

Just like we have fully mapped human gnome and super data centers already archive all the tremendous data they have of us (Gmail as a bad example), isn't it only a matter of time until we completely PREDICT human behavior?

Since birth, combination of nature & nurture, who you are is a product of quadrillions of internal and external factors.

Isn't it only a matter of time we map out every possible factors of your daily life & physiological workings- then document and calculate real time which will allow it to PREDICT your next action?

Sure it will be a rough fuzzy logic at first. But as with anything, in time we will be able to predict everything you will do with great accuracy. They'll know what you'll have for lunch, what you will say, what fight you'll have, what 'unpredictable' thing you'll try to do- they'll even call that.

What are your thoughts?

Neither the human genome nor computer-archived data are predicted.

 

[JulesMaximus]

I love pondering stuff about the future.

Now, human mind and behavior is impossibly complex and sophisticated right? But isn't something complex only until we have the capacity to map it out?

Just like we have fully mapped human gnome and super data centers already archive all the tremendous data they have of us (Gmail as a bad example), isn't it only a matter of time until we completely PREDICT human behavior?

Since birth, combination of nature & nurture, who you are is a product of quadrillions of internal and external factors.

Isn't it only a matter of time we map out every possible factors of your daily life & physiological workings- then document and calculate real time which will allow it to PREDICT your next action?

Sure it will be a rough fuzzy logic at first. But as with anything, in time we will be able to predict everything you will do with great accuracy. They'll know what you'll have for lunch, what you will say, what fight you'll have, what 'unpredictable' thing you'll try to do- they'll even call that.

What are your thoughts?

I'm just waiting for them to make a device that cooks rice for me without me even having to move a muscle. I should just have to think of rice and instantly a bowl of hot rice is in front of me.

 

[WHAMPOM]

I love pondering stuff about the future.

Now, human mind and behavior is impossibly complex and sophisticated right? But isn't something complex only until we have the capacity to map it out?

Just like we have fully mapped human gnome and super data centers already archive all the tremendous data they have of us (Gmail as a bad example), isn't it only a matter of time until we completely PREDICT human behavior?

Since birth, combination of nature & nurture, who you are is a product of quadrillions of internal and external factors.

Isn't it only a matter of time we map out every possible factors of your daily life & physiological workings- then document and calculate real time which will allow it to PREDICT your next action?

Sure it will be a rough fuzzy logic at first. But as with anything, in time we will be able to predict everything you will do with great accuracy. They'll know what you'll have for lunch, what you will say, what fight you'll have, what 'unpredictable' thing you'll try to do- they'll even call that.

What are your thoughts?

Shit no! Human behavor is pretty much just ring bell and salivate.

 

[Soundmanred]

fully mapped human gnome

 

[tcsenter]

You can map-out a representative brain but only on a macro function scale. There is too much random or pseudo-random development on a micro scale to do one for every individual. It would be like predicting what your fingerprints are going to be. Or predicting the individually unique features of one's iris. Well, at least its a LONG way off, anyways.

 

[Jaskalas]

"Random" and "flaw" are as subjective as well. (I guess "random" does have some good mathematical basis though, but it is commonly used in a subjective way.)

Random flaw in the brain: It may merely appear to be random because you don't have all the information.
"Wow, that was unexpected! What a random event!"
It may only have been random to you because you didn't see what preceded it.

You're still working under the false assumption that the brain would be processing and storing information accurately, or even in a consistent way. I assure you it does not.

Even if you could map the current state of degradation accurately, it would continue to change and evolve its current state after the scan.

 

[Jeff7]

You're still working under the false assumption that the brain would be processing and storing information accurately, or even in a consistent way. I assure you it does not.

Even if you could map the current state of degradation accurately, it would continue to change and evolve its current state after the scan.

Then your scan was simply incomplete, lacking the proper resolution - at least as far as it can go, until it finds itself hitting the limitations of the Uncertainty Principle. That's about all that would stand in the way of a complete scan. (Besides our own technological limitations at this time - we'd need one heck of a good MRI/microscope/temporal-impression-imager/whatever-itron machine to get this scan.)
In any case, it's just an electrochemical computer. Its future state changes are a function of its present state, inherent inaccuracies and inconsistencies included. If you could capture that entire state, you could theoretically predict its future actions - again, limited only by the Uncertainty Principle, which may well make a world of difference in the accuracy of a model. Or it may be as feeble an influence as the flapping wings of a butterfly against the force of a freight train, at least over short periods of time.
The real brain would continue to change state, and the simulated one would experience the same change. (Also assuming identical inputs - but that's expected. Change the inputs, and you can very reasonably expect different outputs. Unless that's what you were referring to in the first place....)

 

[tcsenter]

You would still need a few to several dozens of scans under varying conditions in order to capture how the individual brain responds to different stimuli or input, for which a predictable model has already been proven (necessitating millions of scans to form the basis for).

Even then, you're not going to get the exact same changes across all brains for a given experience or stimuli. e.g. here are two brains, each before and after 90 days of equally intensive immersion in learning the same musical instrument, or a traumatic near-death experience. There are going to be lots of similarities, and differences as well. You're never going to define a model for every input or stimuli that holds true for every brain. The possible permutations are just too many and varied.

Well, I guess I do hate using the word never, but.....

 

[Jeff7]

You would still need a few to several dozens of scans under varying conditions in order to capture how the individual brain responds to different stimuli or input, for which a predictable model has already been proven (necessitating millions of scans to form the basis for).

Even then, you're not going to get the exact same changes across all brains for a given experience or stimuli. e.g. here are two brains, each before and after 90 days of equally intensive immersion in learning the same musical instrument, or a traumatic near-death experience. There are going to be lots of similarities, and differences as well. You're never going to define a model for every input or stimuli that holds true for every brain. The possible permutations are just too many and varied.

Well, I guess I do hate using the word never, but.....

I'm talking about something that goes down to the atomic level, or maybe below - as far as you can go before Uncertainty limits you. This wouldn't be a "watch the system and see how it reacts" type of model. This would be a "simple" physics model.

It'd have to be a more detailed scan than we can do now, and a more sophisticated computer to do the modeling than anything we've got now. I think that eventually, it'd be roughly analogous to a Nintendo emulator. You can do a state save, and as far as the game's concerned, it's operating inside a normal NES unit. You know its state at any one time (the key to the whole thing), you know its configuration, and so you could predict how it will respond to inputs.
The possible permutations are just too many and varied - for today's computers. I can't properly forecast where computers might go from here, anymore than someone working with the first germanium diode could have seen where semiconductors would lead. We do seem to have a habit of coming up with some pretty impressive ways of storing, processing, and compacting information.

 

[Gibsons]

I'm talking about something that goes down to the atomic level, or maybe below - as far as you can go before Uncertainty limits you. This wouldn't be a "watch the system and see how it reacts" type of model. This would be a "simple" physics model.

It'd have to be a more detailed scan than we can do now, and a more sophisticated computer to do the modeling than anything we've got now. I think that eventually, it'd be roughly analogous to a Nintendo emulator. You can do a state save, and as far as the game's concerned, it's operating inside a normal NES unit. You know its state at any one time (the key to the whole thing), you know its configuration, and so you could predict how it will respond to inputs.
The possible permutations are just too many and varied - for today's computers. I can't properly forecast where computers might go from here, anymore than someone working with the first germanium diode could have seen where semiconductors would lead. We do seem to have a habit of coming up with some pretty impressive ways of storing, processing, and compacting information.

But if you map a brain down to the atomic level, you still might not be able to predict which potassium channel fires how many times and exactly when. Or which DNA repair process goes wrong in which cell. Maybe that's the uncertainty principle at work or just quantum probabilities. Either way, take the first errors in the prediction, however small, and it limits how far ahead you can predict.

On top of that, you can't predict if they'll get sick, or slip on a patch of ice, outside events that can make dramatic changes in the state of the system.

 

[Zeze]

That you have a "machine" or something that sees or predicts the all the acts of a future yet untold....

You're assuming that history has been already laid out - like a highway, like a track for trains....

\the random events will always disrupt those notions....

I think you misunderstood what I wrote.

No one knows the future, of course. This isn't fortune telling. I'm saying the device only documents EVERYTHING that happens to you both biologically and externally. Using the unimaginable data, it makes endless real time calculations. With that, they can predict your next course of action.