|
|
<DOCTYPE html>
|
|
|
<html>
|
|
|
<head>
|
|
|
<title></title>
|
|
|
<meta charset="utf-8">
|
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../style.css">
|
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">
|
|
|
</head>
|
|
|
<body>
|
|
|
<div id="content"><h1 id="long-time">Long Time</h1>
|
|
|
<h2 id="six-sigma-fortune-telling">Six Sigma Fortune Telling</h2>
|
|
|
<p>The future cannot be predicted with certainty, but our current
|
|
|
understanding in various scientific fields means we can predict some
|
|
|
far-future events, if only in the broadest outline. These fields include
|
|
|
astrophysics, particle physics, evolutionary biology, plate tectonics
|
|
|
and sociology. The far future begins after the end of the current
|
|
|
millennium, in 3001 CE, the start of the 4th millennium, and continues
|
|
|
until the furthest reaches of future time. This timeline includes
|
|
|
alternative future events that address unresolved scientific questions,
|
|
|
and is, in fact, not six sigma accurate at all.</p>
|
|
|
<p>This timeline (based on Wikipedia’s <a
|
|
|
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future">Timeline
|
|
|
of the Far Future</a>) claims to make accurate predictions far into the
|
|
|
future at timescales that are difficult to comprehend; beyond our
|
|
|
lifetimes, beyond the death of the earth, beyond the death of atoms. The
|
|
|
scientific method claims to have an intense relationship to the material
|
|
|
world which is “orders of magnitude” more accurate than other ways of
|
|
|
interacting with and understanding where we are. The scientist often
|
|
|
pits themself as “against” the fortune-teller, the tarot reader, or the
|
|
|
mystic, and yet they make even bigger claims about our collective
|
|
|
future. Is there any way to disprove the scientist’s method in their own
|
|
|
mind?</p>
|
|
|
<p>This web-based game attempts to highlight the uselessness of this
|
|
|
approach. Sometimes a human can have no effect on the extreme truth that
|
|
|
science offers, or to put it more usefully, sometimes, science has
|
|
|
nothing to offer humans. This timeline uses scientific and objective
|
|
|
distance to avoid the most inevitable and obvious event in the future:
|
|
|
your own death. Death is non-relational: no one can die in one’s place,
|
|
|
and we cannot understand our own death through the death of others
|
|
|
(Heidegger, 1962). Just like the scientist, the philosopher doesn’t have
|
|
|
much to offer solace here. So where do we go to talk about death?</p>
|
|
|
<figure>
|
|
|
<img src="long-time-2.png" alt="Screenshot from the game" />
|
|
|
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">Screenshot from the game</figcaption>
|
|
|
</figure>
|
|
|
<div class="centered-image">
|
|
|
<figure>
|
|
|
<img src="long-time-3.png" alt="The future isn’t coming" />
|
|
|
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">The future isn’t coming</figcaption>
|
|
|
</figure>
|
|
|
</div>
|
|
|
</div>
|
|
|
</body>
|
|
|
</html> |