james burke

• "if as an astronomer, you believe that the universe is made of omlettes, you build instruments to search for traces of inter-galactic egg. and if you don't find any? no problem: instrument failure, not ofcourse because your view of the cosmos is wrong.
  
  because at any time, the contemporary view, the view from inside the box, is the only right one. or there would be anarchy. we have to have a general agreement from time to time on how to think, on which way is up, that we can all stick to.
  
  conformity is a security matter.
  
  trouble with being in this box however is, that it also dicates how you see the future and plan for it and act on that plan and you are all doing it right now. the problem is the view from inside the box, as you may also have experienced yourselves, is often not right.
  
  principally as i want to show, because the future is almost never a linear extension of the present. this can sometimes become embarassingly obvious. to people like guttenberg, who thought he'd print a few bibles and that would be that. or the head of ibm who 50 years ago said: "take it from me, the world will need 5 computers." or the same year, 1940something, popular science magazine said: "take it from us, none of those will ever weigh more than 1.5 tons". and my favourite prediction, bill gates, 1984: "640k ought to be enough for anybody."
  
  the trouble with second-guessing future, i think lies partly in the process of change itself and the only thing you could say with certainty about change, is that it is *un*certain. because as neils bohr said about those number of variables involved. because while you're in your box, planning to bring about change with some new idea, new theory, new gizmo, at the same time in a lot of other boxes that you don't know about, other people are doing precisely the same thing.
  
  so even if you decide on your straight pathway to the future, somebody out there is putting a bend in the road."