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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:10,620 --> 00:00:12,000 I'm going to leave it at that. 2 00:00:12,200 --> 00:00:17,020 It's now my great pleasure to introduce Maynard Orm, who's the president and CEO 3 00:00:17,020 --> 00:00:20,040 of Oregon Public Broadcasting, who will introduce Mr. Burke. 4 00:00:29,270 --> 00:00:34,230 Thank you, Terry, and welcome to this inaugural lecture series of ICEP. 5 00:00:35,110 --> 00:00:40,050 I can't go on any further without just saying a great big thank you to Terry 6 00:00:40,050 --> 00:00:41,890 Bristol for organizing this once again. 7 00:00:42,030 --> 00:00:42,990 We're just really thrilled. 8 00:00:48,420 --> 00:00:53,980 It is a special privilege for me tonight to introduce our speaker, James Burke. 9 00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:55,960 Why is that so? 10 00:00:56,720 --> 00:01:00,820 It is because he is one of the very few who is able to take difficult and 11 00:01:00,820 --> 00:01:05,600 sometimes abstract ideas, put them into context, and translate their meaning for 12 00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:06,980 mere mortals like me. 13 00:01:06,980 --> 00:01:11,440 I cherish the nights when, sitting in a darkened room with the glow from the TV 14 00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:17,060 set, I heard our speaker present an idea that excited me so much I couldn't stop 15 00:01:17,060 --> 00:01:20,580 thinking about it and unfortunately didn't get very much sleep that night. 16 00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:26,600 His tangential and integrated thinking has classified him as a, quote, one of the 17 00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:31,240 most influential and intriguing minds in the Western world, end quote. 18 00:01:31,240 --> 00:01:36,900 For over 30 years, this prolific man has produced, directed, written, and presented 19 00:01:36,900 --> 00:01:41,300 award-winning programs for the BBC, PBS, and the Learning Channel, 20 00:01:41,300 --> 00:01:42,140 to name a few. 21 00:01:42,740 --> 00:01:49,520 His mind-transforming series like Connections 1, 2, and 3, After the 22 00:01:49,520 --> 00:01:54,360 Warming, The Day the Universe Changed, The Real Thing, and Tomorrow's World, 23 00:01:54,360 --> 00:01:57,080 to name a few, have influenced us all. 24 00:01:57,080 --> 00:02:01,580 He is currently working on the Burke Knowledge Web, a large interactive website 25 00:02:01,580 --> 00:02:04,320 due to debut in late 2002. 26 00:02:05,180 --> 00:02:08,700 Burke holds an MA from Oxford as well as two honorary doctorates. 27 00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:14,620 His talk tonight asks the question, is the internet redefining knowledge? 28 00:02:15,180 --> 00:02:19,760 I'm assuming that if the answer was no, he wouldn't be giving this presentation. 29 00:02:20,640 --> 00:02:24,140 Please welcome our special and celebrated guest, James Burke. 30 00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:43,260 Well, that will have exhausted you. 31 00:02:44,340 --> 00:02:45,300 No, I shall. 32 00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:48,520 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. 33 00:02:48,640 --> 00:02:49,880 It's jolly nice to be back in Portland. 34 00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:51,280 The weather is so nice. 35 00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:54,220 It hasn't rained since I got here. 36 00:02:56,660 --> 00:03:02,680 As you've heard, and as you may know, I have wasted the last 35 years of my life 37 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:07,440 as a science historian and journalist doing TV programs and writing books and 38 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:10,620 magazines and stuff about technological change and its social effects. 39 00:03:11,140 --> 00:03:14,040 And in order that you get into proper perspective of what I want to say tonight, 40 00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:21,300 which is really about, well, a number of things, least of all what the title is, 41 00:03:21,580 --> 00:03:25,600 let me remind you of what the late great Mark Twain once said when he might have 42 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:27,120 been talking about people like me when he said it. 43 00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:30,940 He said, in the real world, the right thing never happens in the right place at 44 00:03:30,940 --> 00:03:31,740 the right time. 45 00:03:31,740 --> 00:03:36,220 It is the task of journalists and historians to rectify this error. 46 00:03:41,340 --> 00:03:43,780 So I want to put in a bit of rectification. 47 00:03:43,940 --> 00:03:48,260 I want to put into general historical context this evening that some of the 48 00:03:48,260 --> 00:03:52,520 processes exercising people's minds these days, what the technology coming down the 49 00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:56,100 pike is going to do to us, how you best prepare for it and why that has not been 50 00:03:56,100 --> 00:03:57,300 easy up until now. 51 00:03:57,520 --> 00:04:01,640 And I want to argue that the high rates of innovation we live with today and the 52 00:04:01,640 --> 00:04:06,760 historical difficulty we've had predicting innovation accurately up until now and 53 00:04:06,760 --> 00:04:11,780 finally the opportunities that the coming technologies will offer to take a 54 00:04:11,780 --> 00:04:15,860 radically different approach to knowledge management all spring from the same 55 00:04:15,860 --> 00:04:21,640 creative moment about 500 years ago when somebody triggered all this with a 56 00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:26,440 solution to a small local contemporary problem that went on to change the world. 57 00:04:26,440 --> 00:04:30,220 But let me start with predicting the future because if you get that right, 58 00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:31,280 you've got it made. 59 00:04:32,940 --> 00:04:37,540 The unfortunate thing about the future is, if you think about it, it hasn't happened 60 00:04:37,540 --> 00:04:38,340 yet. 61 00:04:39,360 --> 00:04:41,760 And never will, if you get my drift. 62 00:04:43,720 --> 00:04:48,640 The great Danish quantum physicist Niels Bohr on the subject once perspicaciously 63 00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:52,680 said, prediction is extremely difficult, especially about the future. 64 00:04:53,560 --> 00:04:56,900 Now, I don't think that was just Danish humour. 65 00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:00,040 Well, you never know. 66 00:05:00,580 --> 00:05:04,580 I think, rather, he was talking about the humongous number of variables involved in 67 00:05:04,580 --> 00:05:07,980 any change and those variables multiply through history. 68 00:05:08,360 --> 00:05:10,680 Once upon a time, decision making was extremely simple. 69 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:15,360 You could have any colour, Model T Ford you liked, as long as it was black. 70 00:05:16,620 --> 00:05:19,980 Today, by the time you get round to reading the manual, there's been an 71 00:05:19,980 --> 00:05:20,360 upgrade. 72 00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:24,100 If you can read the manual in the first place. 73 00:05:25,180 --> 00:05:28,360 By the time the high schools are teaching what they need to teach to keep up with 74 00:05:28,360 --> 00:05:31,920 innovation, their material is already out of date. 75 00:05:32,540 --> 00:05:36,720 And as a consequence, the reaction of the average person in the street to the flood 76 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:41,320 of new technology that overwhelms us every day always reminds me of the story of the 77 00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:44,860 depressive who gets a couple of days off from the clinic where he's being treated, 78 00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:46,960 goes to the beach to get himself a tan. 79 00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:50,780 The next day, his psychiatrist back in the hospital gets a postcard. 80 00:05:51,520 --> 00:05:54,660 The message on the card reads, I think, very much like the average 81 00:05:54,660 --> 00:05:59,020 person's reaction to the present high rates of innovation because the message on 82 00:05:59,020 --> 00:06:03,000 the card from the holidaying depressive reads, having a wonderful time, 83 00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:03,980 why? 84 00:06:10,500 --> 00:06:15,860 Let me start with one of the reasons that happens, why it has been so difficult for 85 00:06:15,860 --> 00:06:20,560 us so far to second guess change, to recognize, for example, what unlimited 86 00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:25,440 bandwidth and technological convergence is going to do to almost every aspect of our 87 00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:25,960 lives. 88 00:06:27,220 --> 00:06:31,240 The challenge of how difficult it can be to get prediction right was once amusingly 89 00:06:31,240 --> 00:06:34,520 illustrated by the great modern philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. 90 00:06:34,900 --> 00:06:38,120 He's the guy, you know, who ruined corporate communications because he once 91 00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:42,040 said, if anything can be said at all, it can be said clearly. 92 00:06:43,720 --> 00:06:47,860 Anyway, somebody once went up to Wittgenstein and said, what a bunch of 93 00:06:47,860 --> 00:06:51,460 morons, we must have been back 700 years ago in the days before Copernicus told us 94 00:06:51,460 --> 00:06:55,260 how the solar system worked, to have looked up in the sky and to have thought 95 00:06:55,260 --> 00:06:58,600 that what we were seeing up there was the sun going round the earth. 96 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:01,780 Well, as any idiot knows, the earth goes round the sun and you don't need to be 97 00:07:01,780 --> 00:07:03,080 Einstein to get that. 98 00:07:03,660 --> 00:07:06,560 To which the great man is said to have replied, as philosophers will do, 99 00:07:06,900 --> 00:07:08,260 yeah, yeah, he said. 100 00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:13,140 But he said, I wonder what it would have looked like up there if the sun had been 101 00:07:13,140 --> 00:07:14,240 going round the earth. 102 00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:17,420 The point being, of course, it would have looked exactly the same. 103 00:07:18,540 --> 00:07:21,900 What he was saying was that in any decision you're constrained by your 104 00:07:21,900 --> 00:07:23,860 knowledge context, what you know at the time. 105 00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:25,400 You're in a box. 106 00:07:26,020 --> 00:07:27,920 And science and technology are no exception. 107 00:07:28,700 --> 00:07:33,680 As an astronomer, if you think the universe is made of omelets, you design 108 00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:36,600 instruments to find traces of intergalactic egg. 109 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:41,500 And if you don't find any, no problem, instrument failure. 110 00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:48,920 And not, of course, that your view of the cosmos is wrong, because at any time the 111 00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:52,800 contemporary view, the view from inside the box, the company view, is the only 112 00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:55,120 right one or there would be anarchy. 113 00:07:55,720 --> 00:07:59,060 We have to have a general agreement on how to think that we can all stick to at any 114 00:07:59,060 --> 00:07:59,720 one time. 115 00:08:00,580 --> 00:08:02,560 Conformity is a security matter. 116 00:08:03,580 --> 00:08:06,980 Trouble, however, about being in this box, and you may know this already, 117 00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:11,540 is that it dictates how you see the future and plan for it and act on that plan. 118 00:08:11,940 --> 00:08:17,060 And the problem is, the view from inside the box is not always what turns out. 119 00:08:17,360 --> 00:08:20,900 Principally, as I want to show, because the future is almost never a 120 00:08:20,900 --> 00:08:23,800 simple linear extension of the present. 121 00:08:24,340 --> 00:08:28,380 Now, this can become very soon very embarrassingly obvious to people like 122 00:08:28,380 --> 00:08:31,600 Gutenberg who thought he'd print a few Bibles and that would be that. 123 00:08:33,060 --> 00:08:37,160 Or the head of IBM 50 years ago who said, take it from me, the world will need five 124 00:08:37,160 --> 00:08:37,840 computers. 125 00:08:41,450 --> 00:08:45,650 Or Popular Science magazine the same year saying, take it from us, those computers 126 00:08:45,650 --> 00:08:48,030 will never weigh more than one and a half tonnes. 127 00:08:49,550 --> 00:08:55,810 Or my favourite prediction, Bill Gates in 1984, 640k ought to be enough for anybody. 128 00:09:00,590 --> 00:09:02,730 He claims he didn't say it. 129 00:09:03,550 --> 00:09:07,750 But the trouble with second guessing the future lies partly in the process of 130 00:09:07,750 --> 00:09:12,010 change itself and the only thing you can say with certainty about change is that it 131 00:09:12,010 --> 00:09:16,610 is uncertain because, as Niels Bohr said, of the variables involved. 132 00:09:17,030 --> 00:09:20,350 Because while you're in your box planning on bringing about change with some new 133 00:09:20,350 --> 00:09:24,490 idea or some new gizmo, at the same time in lots of other boxes you don't know 134 00:09:24,490 --> 00:09:27,190 about, other people are doing precisely the same thing. 135 00:09:27,370 --> 00:09:31,650 So even as you decide on your straight pathway to the future, somebody out there 136 00:09:31,650 --> 00:09:33,330 is putting a bend in the road. 137 00:09:34,090 --> 00:09:39,130 Let me illustrate how nonlinear the process of change can be with a not very 138 00:09:39,130 --> 00:09:42,570 serious sequence of events from the history of technology that end in the 139 00:09:42,570 --> 00:09:48,870 modern world with a modern innovation that I assure you every single person in this 140 00:09:48,870 --> 00:09:52,350 room, in this theatre tonight is intimately acquainted. 141 00:09:52,850 --> 00:09:55,790 So you should get there, as you were, before I do. 142 00:09:56,810 --> 00:10:03,310 One dark and stormy night in 1707 off the south-western coast of England an English 143 00:10:03,310 --> 00:10:09,450 admiral called Sir Cloudsley Shovel I had to change my name is bringing the Great 144 00:10:09,450 --> 00:10:14,710 British Fleet home to England, decides to turn right and only one of the 145 00:10:14,710 --> 00:10:18,810 44 navigators in the fleet says don't do it, so he does. 146 00:10:19,390 --> 00:10:24,370 They hit the rocks, the entire British fleet sinks, all the British fleet sailors 147 00:10:24,370 --> 00:10:26,950 drown, and so does Admiral Shovel. 148 00:10:27,430 --> 00:10:31,930 This stimulates the British Parliament to offer a large prize for better navigation 149 00:10:31,930 --> 00:10:38,990 techniques, thus prompting a clockmaker called Huntsman to go looking for better 150 00:10:38,990 --> 00:10:40,430 steel for a clock spring. 151 00:10:41,070 --> 00:10:45,930 Now, this is because those of you who sail will know that if you're going east-west, 152 00:10:46,050 --> 00:10:49,590 the most important thing you can know is the exact time back at base. 153 00:10:49,670 --> 00:10:53,430 If you know that, if you have a clock on board that tells you that, you know 154 00:10:53,430 --> 00:10:57,470 precisely how much later or earlier one of the heavenly bodies came up over the 155 00:10:57,470 --> 00:11:02,170 horizon, and that tells you where you are, time zone-wise, if you like, the problem 156 00:11:02,170 --> 00:11:03,050 of longitude. 157 00:11:03,350 --> 00:11:07,370 Now, this is a serious matter to us Brits at the time because we are sailing over 158 00:11:07,370 --> 00:11:09,530 here to exploit you guys. 159 00:11:11,270 --> 00:11:14,830 We saw nothing wrong with taxation without representation. 160 00:11:17,390 --> 00:11:18,530 What's changed? 161 00:11:26,580 --> 00:11:30,740 Now, the steel that guy Huntsman finds for his clock spring is perfect for clock 162 00:11:30,740 --> 00:11:32,860 springs and, as it turns out, for cutting other metal. 163 00:11:33,420 --> 00:11:39,100 So an ironmaker called Wilkinson uses it to bore out thin-walled water pipes and 164 00:11:39,100 --> 00:11:43,040 then thin-walled cannon barrels, which, in spite of the fact that we are at 165 00:11:43,040 --> 00:11:45,760 war with both of you at the time, he sells to you and the French. 166 00:11:46,080 --> 00:11:46,880 Nothing changes. 167 00:11:48,540 --> 00:11:52,400 A little bit later on, Napoleon uses these very lightweight cannon barrels to develop 168 00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:56,580 something called mobile horse artillery and wins all his battles, except the last 169 00:11:56,580 --> 00:11:57,080 one. 170 00:11:58,420 --> 00:11:58,940 Sorry. 171 00:11:59,420 --> 00:12:05,560 In 1810, Napoleon sets up a prize for encouraging French inventors and a 172 00:12:05,560 --> 00:12:08,280 champagne bottle called Apier steps forward with a brilliant idea. 173 00:12:08,860 --> 00:12:12,520 Put food into the champagne bottle, put the cork in and boil it up and kill 174 00:12:12,520 --> 00:12:15,520 all the germs that nobody knows exist and preserve the food. 175 00:12:16,260 --> 00:12:19,960 Ten years later, an English company is doing it because they bought Apier's 176 00:12:19,960 --> 00:12:24,640 patent, which they only happen to see because it is quite literally on the table 177 00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:28,840 next to the one they went to Paris to buy, which is a patent for a new 178 00:12:28,840 --> 00:12:33,840 continuous-process paper-making technique that allows the first ever toilet roll to 179 00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:35,080 be made. 180 00:12:36,660 --> 00:12:38,700 You see what I mean about innovation being surprising? 181 00:12:39,280 --> 00:12:43,240 How could anybody have forecast the toilet roll from the most frightening of 182 00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:44,400 navigational problems? 183 00:12:46,040 --> 00:12:47,000 English joke. 184 00:12:50,410 --> 00:12:54,210 What is happening here is, I think, the fundamental process involved in 185 00:12:54,210 --> 00:12:58,350 innovation and the main reason why so far it has been so hard to second-guess 186 00:12:58,350 --> 00:12:58,850 change. 187 00:12:59,230 --> 00:13:03,150 It's the way change happens when things come together in ways they haven't before 188 00:13:03,150 --> 00:13:07,910 because when that juxtaposition occurs, the rules of math change and one-on-one 189 00:13:07,910 --> 00:13:08,970 becomes three. 190 00:13:09,470 --> 00:13:13,890 The result of the process is more than the sum of the parts and almost always 191 00:13:13,890 --> 00:13:14,930 unpredictably so. 192 00:13:15,250 --> 00:13:22,510 I mean, the German 19th century automotive engineer Wilhelm Maybach puts together the 193 00:13:22,510 --> 00:13:27,230 perfume spray and gasoline and comes up with what we call the carburettor. 194 00:13:28,090 --> 00:13:28,690 Another one. 195 00:13:28,750 --> 00:13:32,510 Around about the same time, a medical researcher accidentally spilled some of 196 00:13:32,510 --> 00:13:36,470 the newly invented artificial dye into a petri dish containing bacteria. 197 00:13:36,830 --> 00:13:41,530 Next morning he sees that it has preferentially stained and killed only one 198 00:13:41,530 --> 00:13:42,390 kind of bacteria. 199 00:13:42,890 --> 00:13:43,330 Bingo. 200 00:13:43,610 --> 00:13:44,170 Chemotherapy. 201 00:13:45,050 --> 00:13:48,490 Now, in the face of this kind of serendipity, the only important question 202 00:13:48,490 --> 00:13:49,850 that matters is why. 203 00:13:49,850 --> 00:13:54,650 What is it about change that makes it so hard to manage because it is constantly so 204 00:13:54,650 --> 00:13:55,170 surprising? 205 00:13:55,890 --> 00:13:59,830 Good surprising if it's you doing it to your enemy on the battlefield or in the 206 00:13:59,830 --> 00:14:03,090 marketplace, and bad surprising if it's hitting you. 207 00:14:04,210 --> 00:14:09,050 I believe change is a surprise because of that knowledge management idea about 500 208 00:14:09,050 --> 00:14:13,750 years ago that I mentioned, which brought us all here today and which also happened 209 00:14:13,750 --> 00:14:16,530 because of what you might describe as a surprise. 210 00:14:16,530 --> 00:14:18,370 One hell of a surprise. 211 00:14:18,990 --> 00:14:21,390 And one which also brought us all here today. 212 00:14:21,630 --> 00:14:26,270 But let me first very briefly go back to the beginning where knowledge management 213 00:14:26,270 --> 00:14:32,030 first emerged as a concept in the caves of Paleolithic prehistory, which is where we 214 00:14:32,030 --> 00:14:34,510 get our attitudes and our institutions. 215 00:14:35,810 --> 00:14:38,670 Which I believe all start with the first flint axe. 216 00:14:39,710 --> 00:14:44,070 If you think about it at the time, the first flint tool is the best thing to 217 00:14:44,070 --> 00:14:47,030 hit human beings since eating berries and dirt. 218 00:14:48,490 --> 00:14:51,790 Because it makes it possible to go out and hunt for the lunch on the hoof that is 219 00:14:51,790 --> 00:14:52,510 walking past. 220 00:14:53,410 --> 00:14:57,710 And whatever it was we human beings were going to be, the flint tool in one sense 221 00:14:57,710 --> 00:15:01,270 freezes us at that point in our development, freezes the way we will think 222 00:15:01,270 --> 00:15:05,570 and act and organise and innovate from then until about yesterday. 223 00:15:06,670 --> 00:15:09,730 First of all because if you're going to hunt, you're going to need noodlers who 224 00:15:09,730 --> 00:15:14,290 will go on making the flint axes and spearheads and butchering tools. 225 00:15:14,290 --> 00:15:18,790 And then you need a man with a plan or you won't coordinate the hunt and lunch will 226 00:15:18,790 --> 00:15:19,630 get away. 227 00:15:19,930 --> 00:15:23,050 And then you need lots of people to do what the man with the plan says. 228 00:15:23,930 --> 00:15:28,070 So you set up a top-down decision-making process in which, you may have heard this 229 00:15:28,070 --> 00:15:33,090 before, the few get power and reward and the many are excluded from involvement and 230 00:15:33,090 --> 00:15:34,430 do what they're told. 231 00:15:35,490 --> 00:15:39,150 So when I say we freeze at that point in our development, it's because while I was 232 00:15:39,150 --> 00:15:43,110 just describing what goes on in Paleolithic caves, I could as easily have 233 00:15:43,110 --> 00:15:45,450 been describing what goes on in general motors. 234 00:15:46,570 --> 00:15:51,290 The entire top-down command structure of modern society starts with the flint axe 235 00:15:51,290 --> 00:15:56,750 and shapes the culture and the way we will think from then on, which is what 236 00:15:56,750 --> 00:15:58,250 technology always does. 237 00:15:59,190 --> 00:16:05,730 The flint axe kicks off a kind of cultural cascade effect because its first use 238 00:16:05,730 --> 00:16:10,490 creates a discontinuity because it introduces the first non-cyclic, 239 00:16:10,490 --> 00:16:15,390 once and for all change, which people get used to and then want more of, 240 00:16:15,710 --> 00:16:20,170 which they always do, which generates public expectation of an even better tool 241 00:16:20,170 --> 00:16:23,990 tomorrow, which it always does, which generates the requirement that the 242 00:16:23,990 --> 00:16:27,790 noodlers will come up with the goods to satisfy those expectations, which it 243 00:16:27,790 --> 00:16:28,450 always does. 244 00:16:28,810 --> 00:16:32,010 And above all, keep the man with the plan in power. 245 00:16:32,910 --> 00:16:37,570 Now, because of some work at a laboratory not too far from where I live in France, 246 00:16:37,570 --> 00:16:44,090 we know that to create the hottest flint axe on the market about 200,000 years ago 247 00:16:44,090 --> 00:16:49,230 took about 100 extremely precise blows to a piece of flint in an extremely precise 248 00:16:49,230 --> 00:16:53,530 sequence, taking into consideration the exact fracturing characteristics of the 249 00:16:53,530 --> 00:16:54,730 stone at each blow. 250 00:16:55,510 --> 00:17:00,470 And to pass on such a skill as a noodler instructor, you had to be able to instruct 251 00:17:00,470 --> 00:17:05,450 with the same linear exact precision, which is why, according to one eminent 252 00:17:05,450 --> 00:17:08,410 Dutch paleontologist, language happens. 253 00:17:08,650 --> 00:17:11,510 Language is advanced axe-making. 254 00:17:12,350 --> 00:17:16,670 And like axe-making is linear, precise, and step-by-step. 255 00:17:16,990 --> 00:17:21,750 And like the axe, language cuts reality into conceptual pieces you can reassemble 256 00:17:21,750 --> 00:17:22,630 in different ways. 257 00:17:23,570 --> 00:17:26,210 Some thousands of years later, when the Greeks find themselves in a 258 00:17:26,210 --> 00:17:30,090 situation very like ours today, where innovative solutions will open up 259 00:17:30,090 --> 00:17:35,430 global markets, they use language to cut up thought and reassemble it so as to 260 00:17:35,430 --> 00:17:40,410 innovate using logic, which is the flint axe magnified a million times. 261 00:17:40,710 --> 00:17:44,150 Because as you know, with logic you can solve problems by putting together two 262 00:17:44,150 --> 00:17:47,310 things you know to produce a third thing you didn't know. 263 00:17:47,810 --> 00:17:50,330 For example, stars give off light. 264 00:17:50,670 --> 00:17:52,330 Light comes from fires. 265 00:17:52,910 --> 00:17:54,450 Stars are fires. 266 00:17:54,950 --> 00:17:58,010 Pretty good for people with no infrared spectrometry, right? 267 00:17:58,770 --> 00:18:04,270 What turns this process into the cutting edge of modern science and technology is 268 00:18:04,270 --> 00:18:09,370 that knowledge management idea I mentioned 500 years ago, triggered, as I said, 269 00:18:09,490 --> 00:18:10,910 by an off-the-wall accident. 270 00:18:11,370 --> 00:18:17,070 It is the rediscovery of America by Columbus on what he thought was a clear 271 00:18:17,070 --> 00:18:18,230 shot for Japan. 272 00:18:19,650 --> 00:18:21,990 America blows everybody away. 273 00:18:22,670 --> 00:18:27,870 It's not in the two basic databases of the time, the Bible and Aristotle. 274 00:18:28,550 --> 00:18:29,930 So what the hell is it doing there? 275 00:18:32,170 --> 00:18:35,850 And then all those new animals and organisms start flooding across the 276 00:18:35,850 --> 00:18:38,190 Atlantic and they're not on Aristotle's list either. 277 00:18:38,530 --> 00:18:40,110 So what the hell are they doing there? 278 00:18:40,890 --> 00:18:41,830 In the intellectual... 279 00:18:41,830 --> 00:18:45,030 Oh, I forgot to say, and of course, around the same time Copernicus is saying 280 00:18:45,030 --> 00:18:48,570 the Earth is not the centre of the solar system and Galileo is saying, you're 281 00:18:48,570 --> 00:18:49,730 right, I can see that. 282 00:18:50,430 --> 00:18:55,470 And the Dutch engineer called Simon Steven is going around muttering, which means 283 00:18:55,470 --> 00:18:57,530 don't believe in miracles. 284 00:18:57,990 --> 00:19:00,510 And the whole thing is summed up by the poet John Dunn, the English poet, 285 00:19:00,630 --> 00:19:04,490 who says, the new philosophy calls all in doubt. 286 00:19:05,670 --> 00:19:09,170 In the intellectual panic that follows, like can they trust anything they know 287 00:19:09,170 --> 00:19:14,010 anymore, the answer comes from a French noodler that I blame for absolutely 288 00:19:14,010 --> 00:19:14,530 everything. 289 00:19:15,670 --> 00:19:17,870 His name is René Descartes. 290 00:19:18,390 --> 00:19:20,950 And he comes up with a knowledge management idea that changes the world. 291 00:19:20,950 --> 00:19:24,510 And he works out how to generate and handle trustworthy new data without 292 00:19:24,510 --> 00:19:25,770 screwing up. 293 00:19:27,470 --> 00:19:28,350 I'll paraphrase. 294 00:19:28,830 --> 00:19:30,310 Apply methodical doubt, he says. 295 00:19:30,430 --> 00:19:32,310 If the guy says it's definite, think of it as probable. 296 00:19:32,370 --> 00:19:34,110 If he says it's probable, think of it as possible. 297 00:19:34,370 --> 00:19:36,490 And if the word is it's possible, forget it. 298 00:19:38,210 --> 00:19:40,630 And Descartes says, take a reductionist approach. 299 00:19:41,010 --> 00:19:43,630 Reduce a problem down to its simplest component part. 300 00:19:43,910 --> 00:19:44,850 You'll know how it works. 301 00:19:45,150 --> 00:19:46,410 You'll see how to fix it. 302 00:19:46,690 --> 00:19:51,630 Methodical doubt and reductionism turn the process of change into a noodler's 303 00:19:51,630 --> 00:19:52,190 paradise. 304 00:19:52,990 --> 00:19:57,650 And pretty soon the mission statement becomes, learn more and more about less 305 00:19:57,650 --> 00:19:58,590 and less. 306 00:19:59,490 --> 00:20:03,490 Like a pal of mine at Oxford who got his doctorate in the 17th century poet 307 00:20:03,490 --> 00:20:05,230 Milton's use of the comma. 308 00:20:10,310 --> 00:20:14,570 You laugh, he is now the head of a department at a major American university. 309 00:20:16,610 --> 00:20:20,590 Because he did what reductionism requires you to do to be a success. 310 00:20:20,590 --> 00:20:25,390 Make your specialist niche so small there's only room for you in there. 311 00:20:28,460 --> 00:20:29,560 And your comma. 312 00:20:31,280 --> 00:20:35,220 And then, and above all, explain yourself only in gobbledygook. 313 00:20:36,480 --> 00:20:39,640 In this way you are incomprehensible and therefore irreplaceable. 314 00:20:41,320 --> 00:20:44,160 This is one reason why innovation, it seems to me, is always such a surprise. 315 00:20:44,380 --> 00:20:48,260 Because as reductionism is applied, the body of knowledge is driven to become 316 00:20:48,260 --> 00:20:52,260 ever more specialist, ever more fragmented, ever more complex. 317 00:20:52,780 --> 00:20:56,280 So even as a specialist you don't know what the guys at the next workbench are 318 00:20:56,280 --> 00:21:00,800 doing, scratching their heads at something so esoteric you don't even know how to 319 00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:01,300 spell it. 320 00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:06,120 And then letting it loose to interact with other things that they didn't know were 321 00:21:06,120 --> 00:21:09,200 happening out there and cause change that nobody expects. 322 00:21:09,380 --> 00:21:12,200 Least of all, the unsuspecting slob in the street. 323 00:21:13,220 --> 00:21:17,000 Small wonder then that this process generates the holiday-making depressives I 324 00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:21,420 mentioned at the beginning and the nonlinear toilet-roll innovation sequences 325 00:21:21,420 --> 00:21:23,040 that make planning so difficult. 326 00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:28,300 So not surprisingly, most people find managing change difficult because 327 00:21:28,300 --> 00:21:33,700 Descartes' reductionism has not prepared us to handle the ripples that spread out 328 00:21:33,700 --> 00:21:34,280 from innovation. 329 00:21:35,120 --> 00:21:36,120 Take one example. 330 00:21:36,460 --> 00:21:41,320 The ripple effects are one very minor by-product of the early printing press. 331 00:21:42,420 --> 00:21:49,780 In the early 17th century, 1609 I think, new printed maps updated with information 332 00:21:49,780 --> 00:21:54,800 coming back from voyages make it safer to go looking for cargos out in the east of 333 00:21:54,800 --> 00:21:55,860 China and Japan. 334 00:21:56,800 --> 00:22:00,540 Guys coming back from there with tea and porcelain come back to Amsterdam and 335 00:22:00,540 --> 00:22:04,240 profit levels of something between six and seven hundred percent. 336 00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:06,260 Everybody wants in on the game. 337 00:22:06,820 --> 00:22:08,020 The problem is cash. 338 00:22:08,660 --> 00:22:13,280 So a new thing is invented called a land register to register title to your land so 339 00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:14,440 you can borrow money against it. 340 00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:17,480 So another new thing has to be invented called a mortgage company. 341 00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:21,120 Most of the borrowing goes into another new thing set up to take the risk out of 342 00:22:21,120 --> 00:22:22,580 shipwrecks called insurance. 343 00:22:23,100 --> 00:22:24,600 Now things are safe, safer. 344 00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:28,880 Another new thing is invented to get more money in called a limited joint stock 345 00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:29,280 company. 346 00:22:29,460 --> 00:22:31,860 So there's another new thing called the stock market. 347 00:22:32,660 --> 00:22:36,260 Running with the help of another new thing necessary for the purpose invented called 348 00:22:36,260 --> 00:22:37,560 a national bank. 349 00:22:38,120 --> 00:22:41,480 Providing more money through yet another new thing invented for the purpose called 350 00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:42,740 a credit agency. 351 00:22:42,740 --> 00:22:46,820 The whole shebang running thanks to another new thing invented for the purpose 352 00:22:46,820 --> 00:22:48,800 called a business contract. 353 00:22:49,500 --> 00:22:52,440 Which finds its way into political arrangements in the contract between 354 00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:57,400 citizen and state embodied in another new thing called the constitution of the 355 00:22:57,400 --> 00:22:58,070 United States. 356 00:22:58,860 --> 00:23:01,180 The ultimate ripple effect of printed maps. 357 00:23:02,360 --> 00:23:03,180 Kind of. 358 00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:10,790 The reason ripple effects surprise people is because if some institutional procedure 359 00:23:10,790 --> 00:23:14,030 works very well, you want to set it in concrete. 360 00:23:14,910 --> 00:23:17,710 So nothing can prevent it from doing its valuable work. 361 00:23:17,930 --> 00:23:21,030 Which very soon becomes blocking all further change. 362 00:23:21,630 --> 00:23:23,690 Because change might bring destabilization. 363 00:23:24,150 --> 00:23:27,670 That's why people in any institution all the way from ancient Egypt to the latest 364 00:23:27,670 --> 00:23:31,890 internet startup can very soon find themselves with one aim in life. 365 00:23:32,450 --> 00:23:37,290 Perpetuating themselves and the procedure which their institution enshrines. 366 00:23:37,510 --> 00:23:42,010 Whether or not those procedures have been rendered outdated by events outside the 367 00:23:42,010 --> 00:23:42,470 institution. 368 00:23:43,570 --> 00:23:47,070 And institutional thinking can be a very powerful tool for ignoring the obvious. 369 00:23:47,910 --> 00:23:51,550 Let me give you a not very serious example of that kind of tendency from the history 370 00:23:51,550 --> 00:23:52,170 of technology. 371 00:23:53,790 --> 00:23:56,550 Back in Europe at the end of the so called dark ages. 372 00:23:57,190 --> 00:23:58,290 Late 10th century. 373 00:23:59,510 --> 00:24:01,350 The European economy kicks back into high gear. 374 00:24:01,390 --> 00:24:04,550 It is generally agreed thanks to the arrival from one of the Arab countries. 375 00:24:05,110 --> 00:24:07,730 Sicily or Spain of a new kind of loom. 376 00:24:07,730 --> 00:24:11,550 The thing about the new loom is it has foot pedals freeze the weaver's hands to 377 00:24:11,550 --> 00:24:13,770 throw the shuttle back and forward much more quickly. 378 00:24:14,130 --> 00:24:17,310 So to produce much more cloth much more quickly much more cheaply. 379 00:24:17,990 --> 00:24:21,670 The Dutch weaver is the best on the continent smash every one of these new 380 00:24:21,670 --> 00:24:22,590 looms they can find. 381 00:24:23,150 --> 00:24:26,350 On the ground that quote it will put people out of work unquote remarkably 382 00:24:26,350 --> 00:24:28,050 modern thinking for the 11th century. 383 00:24:30,110 --> 00:24:33,330 However a generation later when the dust is settled the loom is in use and now the 384 00:24:33,330 --> 00:24:34,950 trouble is with the traditional thread makers. 385 00:24:34,970 --> 00:24:38,430 They can't keep up with the old manual methods because this loom is really making 386 00:24:38,430 --> 00:24:38,770 cloth. 387 00:24:39,430 --> 00:24:43,290 Until the answer comes unexpectedly in the form of the spinning wheel probably from 388 00:24:43,290 --> 00:24:43,750 China. 389 00:24:44,310 --> 00:24:47,370 You put the wheel and the loom together and the production of cloth goes up like a 390 00:24:47,370 --> 00:24:47,770 rocket. 391 00:24:48,470 --> 00:24:49,430 More riots. 392 00:24:50,130 --> 00:24:54,430 Because the cloth now for a mass market is linen made from plants which are cheap 393 00:24:54,430 --> 00:24:57,250 rather than wool made from sheep which are now expensive. 394 00:24:57,630 --> 00:25:01,370 So the rioters this time are in the well established woolen industry. 395 00:25:02,010 --> 00:25:05,490 However soon everybody is wearing this linen and when they wear it out throwing 396 00:25:05,490 --> 00:25:06,010 it away. 397 00:25:06,610 --> 00:25:10,070 So all over 13th and 14th century Europe there's this gigantic and growing pile of 398 00:25:10,070 --> 00:25:10,730 linen rag. 399 00:25:11,650 --> 00:25:14,530 So the price of paper drops like a stone. 400 00:25:15,530 --> 00:25:18,310 Linen rag is the best raw material you can get and it's now free. 401 00:25:19,010 --> 00:25:19,890 More riots. 402 00:25:20,830 --> 00:25:25,150 Traditional wool industry again because parchment is sheep skin and now it's too 403 00:25:25,150 --> 00:25:26,130 expensive to use. 404 00:25:27,050 --> 00:25:28,990 However here we are with enough paper to stick on the walls. 405 00:25:29,470 --> 00:25:33,090 The scribes are overworked and in demand and pretty soon the writer's guilds are 406 00:25:33,090 --> 00:25:34,570 going out and shouting in the streets. 407 00:25:34,830 --> 00:25:38,630 They want more wages because suddenly the pressure is on. 408 00:25:38,850 --> 00:25:41,910 The black death knocks off one third of the population. 409 00:25:43,070 --> 00:25:45,510 The remaining two thirds are inheriting like crazy and there is not enough writing 410 00:25:45,510 --> 00:25:48,010 ability to go around for all the documentation required. 411 00:25:49,590 --> 00:25:52,730 Until Gutenberg solves the problem by automating it around 1450 with the 412 00:25:52,730 --> 00:25:53,410 printing press. 413 00:25:54,230 --> 00:25:58,130 Riots in that most conservative wool institutions the Vatican. 414 00:25:58,910 --> 00:26:02,970 The Pope needs a printing press like a hole in the head because it will encourage 415 00:26:02,970 --> 00:26:04,970 what we would today call free thinking. 416 00:26:05,910 --> 00:26:09,870 Until somebody in the Curia realises that you can use a printing press to print 417 00:26:10,430 --> 00:26:11,310 indulgences with. 418 00:26:12,410 --> 00:26:14,610 Now for those of you who are not Catholic let me explain. 419 00:26:14,930 --> 00:26:17,690 An indulgence was a kind of spiritual credit note. 420 00:26:20,450 --> 00:26:22,110 Pay now, sin later. 421 00:26:24,690 --> 00:26:27,970 Anyway with all the demand for instant printed salvation that follows Rome makes 422 00:26:27,970 --> 00:26:31,570 a million money to build the Vatican pay Michelangelo's bill and generally get 423 00:26:31,570 --> 00:26:36,550 involved in certain prestige projects that make certain simple German clerics madder 424 00:26:36,550 --> 00:26:38,430 than hell with this cash and carry view of salvation. 425 00:26:38,710 --> 00:26:42,990 One of whom nails up a few mild remarks on the subject and there thanks to advances 426 00:26:42,990 --> 00:26:46,550 in textile technology and fought every step of the way is the Protestant 427 00:26:46,550 --> 00:26:47,330 Reformation. 428 00:26:48,850 --> 00:26:52,050 It is a trifle over simplified but you get my drift. 429 00:26:59,790 --> 00:27:04,830 What I'm saying is standard operating procedure doesn't like having to handle 430 00:27:04,830 --> 00:27:06,310 ripple effects or the unexpected. 431 00:27:07,050 --> 00:27:09,650 Like the woman who gets into an elevator as the doors close a man gets in she 432 00:27:09,650 --> 00:27:13,110 doesn't know, the elevator begins to rise out of the corner of his mouth he says 433 00:27:13,110 --> 00:27:18,710 your room or mine baby and she says if you're going to argue about it forget it. 434 00:27:23,490 --> 00:27:27,970 The institutionally conservative attitude to change, to new ways of doing things is 435 00:27:27,970 --> 00:27:32,210 very powerful because once you start on the institutional path there isn't 436 00:27:32,210 --> 00:27:35,990 supposed to be any deviation from standard operating procedure and the further from 437 00:27:35,990 --> 00:27:39,490 the start you get the more difficult it is made to deviate. 438 00:27:39,630 --> 00:27:44,070 Thus socially we live with institutions and ways of thinking that link us firmly 439 00:27:44,070 --> 00:27:49,090 to that start point because they haven't changed since they were set up in the past 440 00:27:49,090 --> 00:27:52,710 with the technology of the past to solve the problems of the past. 441 00:27:53,070 --> 00:27:56,810 So they act like signposts telling us we're going the right way by obliging us 442 00:27:56,810 --> 00:27:58,730 to look backwards most of the time. 443 00:27:59,130 --> 00:28:04,130 However increasingly these days standard operating procedure SOP is not necessarily 444 00:28:04,130 --> 00:28:05,090 a good idea. 445 00:28:05,450 --> 00:28:08,910 Tradition and practice has knocked off more institutions and organisations than 446 00:28:08,910 --> 00:28:10,010 you could shake a stick at. 447 00:28:10,670 --> 00:28:12,530 Don't get me wrong I am not knocking tradition. 448 00:28:13,110 --> 00:28:15,670 We put a crown on it and live off the tourist revenue. 449 00:28:20,700 --> 00:28:22,300 So what have we got so far? 450 00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:26,440 The process of innovation makes knowledge management and prediction difficult 451 00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:30,320 because of the way reductionist thinking puts us all in separate boxes and because 452 00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:33,960 the process of change causes one and one to make three and because innovation is 453 00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,340 produced by noodlers who thanks to reductionism don't know what each other is 454 00:28:37,340 --> 00:28:38,120 up to. 455 00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:43,800 So innovation brings unexpected change very reluctantly accepted by social and 456 00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,840 business institutions which are often inflexible and incapable of encouraging 457 00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:48,560 change. 458 00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,540 And the problem about the social institutions it seems to me is that by 459 00:28:52,540 --> 00:28:54,400 definition they can't keep up. 460 00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:59,160 Innovation is driven by the relentless demands of the marketplace and that rate 461 00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:02,140 of innovation as I said before accelerates through history. 462 00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:07,380 In general somewhere the marketplace is innovating all the time because entities 463 00:29:07,380 --> 00:29:12,200 that cannot or will not innovate get replaced by entities that can or will. 464 00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:18,020 And there is no way so far that any status quo preserving backward looking social 465 00:29:18,020 --> 00:29:23,100 institution could ever get too close to that kind of dynamic future oriented rate 466 00:29:23,100 --> 00:29:23,760 of change. 467 00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:28,940 The result may be that we are heading into the virtual world of the 21st century with 468 00:29:28,940 --> 00:29:34,260 attitudes and social structures that haven't really changed since the caves and 469 00:29:34,260 --> 00:29:38,700 an ability to manage unexpected technological change severely hampered by 470 00:29:38,700 --> 00:29:41,600 the specialism generated by Descartes reductionism. 471 00:29:42,140 --> 00:29:45,460 If this is the case should we all jump out of the window? 472 00:29:46,740 --> 00:29:47,800 I think not. 473 00:29:48,580 --> 00:29:52,860 For a number of reasons the most important of which is the killer app every one of us 474 00:29:52,860 --> 00:29:59,540 has called The Brain which it is beginning to be realized may not do its best work in 475 00:29:59,540 --> 00:30:04,420 the way that has been SOP ever since the Flint axe froze its development back in 476 00:30:04,420 --> 00:30:05,560 prehistory. 477 00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:10,580 What I'm referring to is the sheer scale of the processes which seem to be involved 478 00:30:10,580 --> 00:30:12,080 in what we call thinking. 479 00:30:12,980 --> 00:30:18,420 Recent guess every healthy brain on the planet has about 100 billion neurons each 480 00:30:18,420 --> 00:30:22,260 one of which could have up to 50,000 dendrites each one of which could be in 481 00:30:22,260 --> 00:30:24,580 contact with up to 50,000 other dendrites. 482 00:30:24,940 --> 00:30:28,600 Somebody calculated that's about 10 trillion connections. 483 00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:33,540 If you're into combinatorial mathematics that tells you that the total potential 484 00:30:33,540 --> 00:30:38,240 number of ways a thought can go through the brain is larger than the number of 485 00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,820 atoms in the known universe and every one of you has one. 486 00:30:43,740 --> 00:30:47,660 If you're looking for massively parallel processing it's between your ears. 487 00:30:48,420 --> 00:30:53,120 So maybe there are one or two things it can do as well as go down the ever more 488 00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:54,760 narrow reductionist path. 489 00:30:55,280 --> 00:31:00,720 Maybe Einstein was right when he said we are all born with magnificent brains which 490 00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:03,140 formal education then slowly destroys. 491 00:31:10,310 --> 00:31:14,470 I think what he was really talking about was a strange way that innovative thought 492 00:31:14,470 --> 00:31:19,230 is very often not linear, very often doesn't happen according to the step by 493 00:31:19,230 --> 00:31:20,010 step procedure. 494 00:31:20,330 --> 00:31:23,630 I mean Einstein himself said he dreamt up relativity because he had a dream of 495 00:31:23,630 --> 00:31:24,690 riding on a beam of light. 496 00:31:25,130 --> 00:31:29,710 Very often the most innovative solutions seem to come when the brain is kind of 497 00:31:29,710 --> 00:31:34,410 freed from the nuts and bolts, defocused, not concentrating on a problem. 498 00:31:34,690 --> 00:31:39,330 So the last thing much creative thinking appears to be is step by step. 499 00:31:39,970 --> 00:31:47,030 Which explains of course why you are successfully achieving solving the 500 00:31:47,030 --> 00:31:49,750 enormously complex problem of understanding me. 501 00:31:50,910 --> 00:31:54,310 I am not referring to my accent because you are the ones with the accent. 502 00:31:57,170 --> 00:31:59,170 I'm talking about this speak listen event. 503 00:31:59,370 --> 00:32:05,090 If you think about it, if what you were doing was hearing each sound I said, 504 00:32:05,270 --> 00:32:08,670 going into some kind of lexicon in your head, running through from top to bottom 505 00:32:08,670 --> 00:32:12,770 each time to identify that sound, bringing it out and matching it with the 506 00:32:12,770 --> 00:32:15,910 memory of the sound you heard, saying yep that's it, sticking that on the 507 00:32:15,910 --> 00:32:19,530 end of the sound stream that went before and saying to yourself that makes sense 508 00:32:19,530 --> 00:32:24,850 and then coming out and listening for the next sound I was making, then if all you 509 00:32:24,850 --> 00:32:29,250 were accessing in there was a lexicon the size of the average high school graduate's 510 00:32:29,250 --> 00:32:37,950 vocabulary, wait for this, 12,500 words, the English language has 414,812 words, 511 00:32:38,490 --> 00:32:39,530 something's wrong somewhere. 512 00:32:40,470 --> 00:32:45,070 However if what you were accessing was the average high school graduate's vocabulary 513 00:32:45,070 --> 00:32:50,190 of 12,500 words at one millisecond per act of neural retrieval it would be taking you 514 00:32:50,190 --> 00:32:54,690 12.5 seconds to understand each word I'm saying and you're not doing that are you? 515 00:32:56,210 --> 00:32:56,710 Good. 516 00:32:59,110 --> 00:33:00,250 So what are you doing? 517 00:33:00,710 --> 00:33:05,910 You are running multiple simultaneous scenarios ahead of me using the grammar 518 00:33:05,910 --> 00:33:10,650 and the syntax and the content and so on of my speech so far to power up all the 519 00:33:10,650 --> 00:33:13,810 probable alternatives and in all ways I will end the word phrase, sentence, 520 00:33:14,170 --> 00:33:17,450 paragraph and as I come on through powering down the ones you got wrong and 521 00:33:17,450 --> 00:33:21,110 powering up the next set of probable alternates and powering them down and so 522 00:33:21,110 --> 00:33:23,790 on and doing that as long as I utter sounds. 523 00:33:24,250 --> 00:33:28,670 What that means of course is that you are all giving this speech before I am. 524 00:33:31,030 --> 00:33:34,010 And any other speech I might have given. 525 00:33:36,670 --> 00:33:38,170 One wonders why you came. 526 00:33:45,830 --> 00:33:49,510 But that ability to put things together and run scenarios and stay ahead of the 527 00:33:49,510 --> 00:33:54,310 game which is what survival is all about what the brain is best at, that seems to 528 00:33:54,310 --> 00:33:57,850 be, you'll be happy to know, why brains appear to like jokes. 529 00:33:58,610 --> 00:34:03,610 The punch line brings together two concepts in a way that's new to you and 530 00:34:03,610 --> 00:34:06,630 since that's what the connective structure of the brain appears to be for, 531 00:34:06,910 --> 00:34:09,910 you laugh in pleasure at having your connections enriched. 532 00:34:11,250 --> 00:34:13,090 Let me try it on you. 533 00:34:14,730 --> 00:34:20,530 Every brain in this theatre has the concept bird and the concept fruit in it 534 00:34:20,530 --> 00:34:23,210 and like everything in the brain it's connected in some way. 535 00:34:23,490 --> 00:34:28,630 Your connection may be bird tree fruit, bird colour fruit, bird season fruit, 536 00:34:28,950 --> 00:34:29,890 bird eat fruit. 537 00:34:30,090 --> 00:34:35,650 See if I can put a new connection in there and if I do you will laugh in pleasure at 538 00:34:35,650 --> 00:34:37,090 connectivity enhancement. 539 00:34:38,890 --> 00:34:40,130 Bird fruit. 540 00:34:40,690 --> 00:34:45,110 A drunk goes up to his host at a party and says with that terrible seriousness of 541 00:34:45,110 --> 00:34:51,430 totally plastered adults and very serious small children excuse me and the host 542 00:34:51,430 --> 00:34:54,630 turns around and there is the drunk, plastered, I mean glassy eyed out of it 543 00:34:54,630 --> 00:34:57,110 and the host think there's something wrong and says yes what's the problem, 544 00:34:57,210 --> 00:35:03,290 what's the problem and the drunk says can you answer a question and the host says 545 00:35:03,290 --> 00:35:13,450 sure fire away and speaking very carefully the drunk says do lemons whistle and the 546 00:35:13,450 --> 00:35:16,690 host says no lemons do not whistle why do you ask and the drunk staggers back and 547 00:35:16,690 --> 00:35:20,490 smacks his forehead in chagrin and says oh my god in that case I have squeezed your 548 00:35:20,490 --> 00:35:22,130 canary into my gin and tonic. 549 00:35:35,870 --> 00:35:37,370 Enjoy it there are no more jokes. 550 00:35:39,490 --> 00:35:43,590 You see how innovative thinking may act in some ways just like a good joke but I make 551 00:35:43,590 --> 00:35:48,170 a serious point the brain appears to be naturally configured for change to work in 552 00:35:48,170 --> 00:35:52,990 the one plus one equals three mode to have new ideas because its job is to put 553 00:35:52,990 --> 00:35:57,510 together information in new ways and innovate as that great American Claude 554 00:35:57,510 --> 00:36:02,770 Shannon the inventor of information theory once said information causes change if it 555 00:36:02,770 --> 00:36:08,130 doesn't it's not information example no information you are sitting in a seat 556 00:36:08,130 --> 00:36:18,010 information the person next to you has a communicable disease nobody moving okay so 557 00:36:18,010 --> 00:36:21,570 what I'm saying is that every brain then is a natural innovator capable a million 558 00:36:21,570 --> 00:36:25,710 times over of managing change so one of the ways to think innovatively to manage 559 00:36:25,710 --> 00:36:30,370 creatively to second guess the future if you had the technology back up might be to 560 00:36:30,370 --> 00:36:33,830 use your brain in the way it appears to have been designed to be used before the 561 00:36:33,830 --> 00:36:39,390 flint axe froze it if that's the case why have we not done so because of what I said 562 00:36:39,390 --> 00:36:43,450 about technology back up up to yesterday there was never enough technology 563 00:36:43,450 --> 00:36:48,270 available to involve more than a very few people in the innovative process and whose 564 00:36:48,270 --> 00:36:53,790 prime job was to keep the political social or commercial power structure in power and 565 00:36:53,790 --> 00:36:59,230 the community safe well supplied and stable the argument I am making is that 566 00:36:59,230 --> 00:37:04,750 because the technology of the time shapes the culture of the time up to now without 567 00:37:04,750 --> 00:37:09,310 the means to offer open access and the tools to go with it we've been obliged to 568 00:37:09,310 --> 00:37:14,950 live to a certain extent with what I would call a culture of scarcity in which 99% of 569 00:37:14,950 --> 00:37:19,890 the human race remained illiterate and excluded and in which it was taken for 570 00:37:19,890 --> 00:37:23,950 granted therefore that only a very few people would have their say or do their 571 00:37:23,950 --> 00:37:28,690 thing and therefore of course that such talents were exceedingly rare in the human 572 00:37:28,690 --> 00:37:33,950 race the result of that limitation of access on the tools of innovation and 573 00:37:33,950 --> 00:37:40,190 self-expression then generated what we call standards the self-expression by a 574 00:37:40,190 --> 00:37:43,970 very small number of people with access that set the benchmark that the rest of us 575 00:37:43,970 --> 00:37:49,170 would aim for if we ever got the chance and in a culture of scarcity we stuck to 576 00:37:49,170 --> 00:37:54,030 those benchmarks for centuries I mean our educational systems at least where I come 577 00:37:54,030 --> 00:37:58,030 from have not essentially changed since they were set up in the middle ages to 578 00:37:58,030 --> 00:38:03,310 train priests many of our legal systems certainly where I come from still use 579 00:38:03,310 --> 00:38:08,430 processes basically unaltered since the 13th century and as good reductionist 580 00:38:08,430 --> 00:38:14,190 followers of Descartes we still admire people who have a mind like a knife but 581 00:38:14,190 --> 00:38:18,550 consider the possibility that this apparent aristocracy of rare talent the 582 00:38:18,550 --> 00:38:24,070 people who set those standards those benchmarks and the product of their brains 583 00:38:24,070 --> 00:38:28,690 I mean the output of people like Michelangelo Einstein Confucius Newton 584 00:38:28,690 --> 00:38:34,970 Galileo Jefferson were no more than what you get when only 1% of you gets to do 585 00:38:34,970 --> 00:38:38,830 anything we don't know how many other kinds of genius there were out there at 586 00:38:38,830 --> 00:38:44,270 the time up to the 20th century because they were out of the loop illiterate 587 00:38:44,270 --> 00:38:49,750 unconnected and in the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king what I'm 588 00:38:49,750 --> 00:38:54,570 suggesting by that is that the innovative process itself may also have been so far 589 00:38:54,570 --> 00:38:58,870 denied the benefit of the kind of ideas that might have come from non reductionist 590 00:38:58,870 --> 00:39:02,910 approaches like at the very simplest level what you might get if you relax the 591 00:39:02,910 --> 00:39:08,490 division of labor rule and encourage cross discipline between disciplines between 592 00:39:08,490 --> 00:39:14,830 professions or accepted input from from non reductionist abilities like the very 593 00:39:14,830 --> 00:39:20,290 shadowy area the penumbra around everybody's core competence that we call 594 00:39:20,290 --> 00:39:26,810 experience valuable but informal talent the trouble with this unquantifiable but 595 00:39:26,810 --> 00:39:31,170 maverick resource was that in the old world there was no way even if you had the 596 00:39:31,170 --> 00:39:36,170 bandwidth to let it loose to nail it down to a formal procedure so that you could 597 00:39:36,170 --> 00:39:40,590 harness it encourage it to conform and be productive when somebody's penumbra 598 00:39:40,590 --> 00:39:44,730 somebody shadowy area of expertise crossed over somebody else's and that happens all 599 00:39:44,730 --> 00:39:49,150 the time you couldn't do that in a division of labor world shaped by Adam 600 00:39:49,150 --> 00:39:53,690 Smith but could it be that what's happening here at the start of the 21st 601 00:39:53,690 --> 00:39:58,530 century is that in kicking off the scientific revolution Descartes first 602 00:39:58,530 --> 00:40:02,230 great knowledge management tool triggered a chain of events that has finally given 603 00:40:02,230 --> 00:40:06,890 us the second great knowledge management tool the kind of information technology 604 00:40:06,890 --> 00:40:12,570 that may enable us to change the way we solve our problems radically alter the 605 00:40:12,570 --> 00:40:17,810 knowledge management infrastructure and above all enfranchise some of that talent 606 00:40:17,810 --> 00:40:23,010 out there for the first time if that's the case what kind of effect will that have on 607 00:40:23,010 --> 00:40:28,050 the general culture well for a start the potential demand for the technology is 608 00:40:28,050 --> 00:40:34,330 gigantic if the price is right and at a recent conference I attended run by the 609 00:40:34,330 --> 00:40:39,990 real gurus in the trade the general belief was that within 15 years or so the most 610 00:40:39,990 --> 00:40:45,610 expensive thing in a computer will be the plastic housing as for where the demand 611 00:40:45,610 --> 00:40:50,530 for the technology is well I know there are 6.1 billion people on the planet but 612 00:40:50,530 --> 00:40:56,170 when did you last hear from the other 5.4 like the kid retorts when his mother says 613 00:40:56,170 --> 00:41:04,450 eat your cereals thousands are starving out there name one thanks to technology 614 00:41:04,450 --> 00:41:08,470 shortfall we in the industrializing nations have lived on a kind of silent 615 00:41:08,470 --> 00:41:12,850 planet those people out there in the third world the inner city ghettos outside the 616 00:41:12,850 --> 00:41:17,090 universities never had the means to express themselves and their wish list 617 00:41:17,090 --> 00:41:21,730 because as I said they were out of the loop but soon they won't be and I think 618 00:41:21,730 --> 00:41:27,650 the word we're going to hear more than any other is more it's happened before if you 619 00:41:27,650 --> 00:41:31,070 look at history you see that even in the technologically advanced communities there 620 00:41:31,070 --> 00:41:35,750 are periods following times like today when you get major advances in the ability 621 00:41:35,750 --> 00:41:41,270 to generate store and disseminate information when massive information surge 622 00:41:41,270 --> 00:41:46,270 was triggered followed by high innovation rates and then major social change and 623 00:41:46,270 --> 00:41:51,390 also there seems to be a kind of shake out period that follows innovation surge a 624 00:41:51,390 --> 00:41:55,150 kind of period of transitional confusion while people get used to what the new 625 00:41:55,150 --> 00:41:59,470 technology will allow them to do and then settle down to as it were codify what it 626 00:41:59,470 --> 00:42:04,670 should do and accept the new shape that it gives society and this happens as I said 627 00:42:04,670 --> 00:42:10,610 in the past it's not easy I mean after the printing press came along and you no 628 00:42:10,610 --> 00:42:14,970 longer needed a good memory and years of living to know anything within a 629 00:42:14,970 --> 00:42:19,150 generation or two of Gutenberg young people who could read and learn took over 630 00:42:19,150 --> 00:42:24,470 and old people lost their authority and never got it back here in the United 631 00:42:24,470 --> 00:42:29,610 States today at a society wide level the present version of that period of 632 00:42:29,610 --> 00:42:35,330 transitional confusion is being called dumbing down I'd like to argue that we are 633 00:42:35,330 --> 00:42:41,590 not dumbing down most of our community is being for the first time informationally 634 00:42:41,590 --> 00:42:46,650 enfranchised and we are going through a long and massive learning curve as a 635 00:42:46,650 --> 00:42:51,950 result and anyway dumbing down happens frequently in history too back in the 16th 636 00:42:51,950 --> 00:42:55,490 century it was said about the printing press this gizmo, well they didn't say 637 00:42:55,490 --> 00:43:00,790 gizmo this gizmo will make reading the infatuation of people who have no business 638 00:43:00,790 --> 00:43:07,310 reading a rumpf in the 18th century Mozart got kicked down the stairs because they 639 00:43:07,310 --> 00:43:12,530 thought a lot of people thought what he was doing was junk the school I went to 50 640 00:43:12,530 --> 00:43:18,490 years ago that school Latin stopped being mandatory and it was said that our brains 641 00:43:18,490 --> 00:43:26,330 would turn to porridge I don't think it has this may be why our generation is 642 00:43:26,330 --> 00:43:29,990 finding it so difficult to predict change, first of all because there are more of us 643 00:43:29,990 --> 00:43:34,090 interested in and involved with the process than ever before but the process 644 00:43:34,090 --> 00:43:38,910 is now moving much faster than the old modern social systems can handle and 645 00:43:38,910 --> 00:43:42,910 second of all because the so called information revolution we are supposed to 646 00:43:42,910 --> 00:43:49,030 be going through hasn't even got into first gear yet if you look at it from 647 00:43:49,030 --> 00:43:54,430 inside the box from the old model point of view things look pretty scary I mean 648 00:43:54,430 --> 00:43:59,490 sometime in the next 15 years they are talking about semi-intelligent neural nets 649 00:43:59,490 --> 00:44:04,310 multimedia up the yin yang massively parallel computing, operating systems 650 00:44:04,310 --> 00:44:08,770 using DNA or light or quantum or all of the above super computing systems capable 651 00:44:08,770 --> 00:44:13,330 of recreating a virtual human being down to cellular level and above all write your 652 00:44:13,330 --> 00:44:18,950 own ticket software for virtually every activity that used to require a human PhD 653 00:44:18,950 --> 00:44:23,230 and all this that will allow the individual, if they wish, to do everything 654 00:44:23,230 --> 00:44:27,710 from bridge building to non-invasive surgery to balancing the books to painting 655 00:44:27,710 --> 00:44:33,790 better than Michelangelo or playing better than Agassi the coming technologies what 656 00:44:33,790 --> 00:44:38,890 I'm saying offer the possibility of enfranchising the individual's brain way 657 00:44:38,890 --> 00:44:41,410 beyond the access we even boast about today. 658 00:44:42,270 --> 00:44:46,430 The hot topic in the business community now is the way the culture is beginning to 659 00:44:46,430 --> 00:44:50,770 demand customisation of product like never before as people wake up to what the 660 00:44:50,770 --> 00:44:54,570 technology will do for them in ways they never thought about but the logical 661 00:44:54,570 --> 00:45:00,530 outcome of that is an intriguing thought the consumer as designer the consumer 662 00:45:00,530 --> 00:45:03,990 whose electronic agent becomes involved in the process of customising. 663 00:45:04,430 --> 00:45:10,230 Perhaps goods and services entities like supermarkets or universities will end up 664 00:45:10,230 --> 00:45:15,710 as virtual warehouses where the tools and materials are available for the consumer's 665 00:45:15,710 --> 00:45:20,670 electronic agent to come and put together a customised package of what it is the 666 00:45:20,670 --> 00:45:26,870 agent's owner wants if so then what the new softwares may ultimately mean is to 667 00:45:26,870 --> 00:45:32,450 some extent the end of the intermediary for centuries in a culture of scarcity 668 00:45:32,450 --> 00:45:36,190 there was so little access and tools around that if you wanted something done 669 00:45:36,190 --> 00:45:40,890 you had to go to the guy who had the tools and ask him to make for you a horse shoe 670 00:45:40,890 --> 00:45:48,990 or a sword or a house or an education today thanks to the reductionist hangover 671 00:45:48,990 --> 00:45:51,990 and the fact that we're only at the start of this information revolution we still 672 00:45:51,990 --> 00:45:57,430 operate like that through intermediaries take representative democracy if you think 673 00:45:57,430 --> 00:46:03,290 about it a perfect 18th century solution to an 18th century problem lousy dangerous 674 00:46:03,290 --> 00:46:08,230 roads and no telecommunications so what you do is you find a couple of fools with 675 00:46:08,230 --> 00:46:12,610 time to spare and a horse and you send them up to the capital to represent the 676 00:46:12,610 --> 00:46:16,770 local hayseeds now the roads are much too dangerous for them to come back the next 677 00:46:16,770 --> 00:46:21,110 day and say have you changed your political minds so return journeys not too 678 00:46:21,110 --> 00:46:25,350 frequent but regular return journeys are arranged after a number of decades these 679 00:46:25,350 --> 00:46:29,710 horse-owning fools become known as politicians and their return journeys 680 00:46:30,430 --> 00:46:35,570 elections 300 years later we have perfect roads and telecommunications coming out of 681 00:46:35,570 --> 00:46:41,550 your ears and the same lumbering 18th century system and as for political choice 682 00:46:41,550 --> 00:46:46,070 would we ever accept only two flavors from Baskin Robbins 683 00:46:54,590 --> 00:46:58,230 representative democracy and any other form of intermediary infrastructure and 684 00:46:58,230 --> 00:47:03,510 that pretty much relates to every social and business institution will not survive 685 00:47:03,510 --> 00:47:07,010 in a world where individualism will have real meaning for the first time in history 686 00:47:07,010 --> 00:47:12,910 centralized authorities over simple right or wrong ideologies charismatic leaders 687 00:47:12,910 --> 00:47:18,250 with silver tongues and well hidden track records won't survive when it's easy for 688 00:47:18,250 --> 00:47:24,770 your electronic agent to take a very close look persuasion is a lot harder when the 689 00:47:24,770 --> 00:47:30,430 audience is well informed as I know to my cost and it's going to become even harder 690 00:47:30,430 --> 00:47:35,210 you give people an inch they take a mile and the only systems we've had in 691 00:47:35,210 --> 00:47:39,250 operation up to now in our culture of scarcity have offered less than an inch 692 00:47:39,250 --> 00:47:44,010 people's electronic agents are going to want more than that they're going to want 693 00:47:44,010 --> 00:47:49,530 in on the game all the way in and that will cause the biggest social changes in 694 00:47:49,530 --> 00:47:54,790 history and if history is anything to go by it isn't going to be easy first because 695 00:47:54,790 --> 00:47:59,070 the institutions are not going to want to give up power willingly or in a hurry and 696 00:47:59,070 --> 00:48:02,730 second because of that transitional phase I mentioned before the fact that through 697 00:48:02,730 --> 00:48:07,650 history the technology always moved a bit faster than the social processes could 698 00:48:07,650 --> 00:48:11,970 keep up many institutions are handling this problem today in what you might 699 00:48:11,970 --> 00:48:14,650 describe a skyscraper mode you know the story of the man who falls off the top of 700 00:48:14,650 --> 00:48:17,730 the skyscraper as he falls past the 77th floor somebody calls out to ask him how 701 00:48:17,730 --> 00:48:23,850 he's doing he shrugs and replies now falling past the 54th floor so far so good 702 00:48:24,830 --> 00:48:29,770 surprising how many institutions are ignoring the upcoming sidewalk the other 703 00:48:29,770 --> 00:48:33,290 way to handle it of course is with an attempt to catch up with innovation by 704 00:48:33,290 --> 00:48:36,250 matching the brain and the technology a bit better because now the technology is 705 00:48:36,250 --> 00:48:40,750 beginning to mimic the capabilities of the brain it's becoming semi-intelligent 706 00:48:40,750 --> 00:48:46,250 holistic distributed low power high storage cheap the catch up approach I'm 707 00:48:46,250 --> 00:48:49,610 talking about involves the other key effect of the new technologies that I 708 00:48:49,610 --> 00:48:52,850 haven't mentioned yet it's the way the new technologies can bring any kind of 709 00:48:52,850 --> 00:48:59,290 education to people anywhere from a Dallas high rise to a mud hut outside Bangalore I 710 00:48:59,290 --> 00:49:02,610 won't go on about distant learning because I'm sure you know all about that but maybe 711 00:49:02,610 --> 00:49:08,070 we need to introduce some new educational modes the product in a sense of what the 712 00:49:08,070 --> 00:49:14,270 new technologies allow us to do to lay alongside our reduction systems to support 713 00:49:14,270 --> 00:49:17,790 them in a different way you see the reason I say that is because most of the 714 00:49:17,790 --> 00:49:21,530 environmental and cultural problems that we face in the world today are the product 715 00:49:21,530 --> 00:49:25,550 of what reductionism and technology shortfall have done over the centuries 716 00:49:25,550 --> 00:49:31,210 solved a million problems one at a time by taking them apart that's given us the 717 00:49:31,210 --> 00:49:36,310 highest standard of living in history and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest 718 00:49:36,310 --> 00:49:41,030 greenhouse effect acid rain the ozone hole depletion of oil and fish stocks a world 719 00:49:41,030 --> 00:49:45,890 shaped and motivated by the effects of past colonialism and all the short term 720 00:49:45,890 --> 00:49:50,810 view effect that result from not seeing the holistic forest for the reductionist 721 00:49:50,810 --> 00:49:56,010 trees inevitable historically we didn't have the technology to think any other way 722 00:49:56,010 --> 00:50:01,050 but soon in terms of what people do with their lives as I said the technology will 723 00:50:01,050 --> 00:50:05,090 be doing most of the old reductionist things that used to take human beings a 724 00:50:05,090 --> 00:50:10,390 pencil chewing lifetime and it seems to me the worst way to prepare for what comes 725 00:50:10,390 --> 00:50:16,190 after that is to go on limiting education to the kind that used to train medieval 726 00:50:16,190 --> 00:50:20,710 priests in which you were judged intelligent or stupid because you passed 727 00:50:20,710 --> 00:50:25,750 or failed a set of tests of literacy and numeracy designed to exclude all but the 728 00:50:25,750 --> 00:50:32,910 very few and that very few as in western very few any minute now technology is 729 00:50:32,910 --> 00:50:36,510 going to make the whole shebang I've been talking about a really global matter not 730 00:50:36,510 --> 00:50:41,010 the irrelevant small scale matter of how much of the global market your company 731 00:50:41,010 --> 00:50:44,410 will get or how you sell your stuff in a hundred different cultures but the 732 00:50:44,410 --> 00:50:49,570 humongous possibility that the global community won't necessarily lie down and 733 00:50:49,570 --> 00:50:55,730 do it the western way the vast illiterate majority out there are still a 734 00:50:55,730 --> 00:51:00,810 kaleidoscope of diversity with their roots firmly in their own cultures and 735 00:51:00,810 --> 00:51:06,230 information technology is going to enhance that diversity empower it, support it 736 00:51:06,230 --> 00:51:10,670 foster it, make it viable however small the group in ways we never could before 737 00:51:10,670 --> 00:51:14,890 when the best we could do was pretty crude stuff colonise a country, make them speak 738 00:51:14,890 --> 00:51:20,970 British and wear wigs in their law courts except you guys for some strange reason 739 00:51:22,650 --> 00:51:26,970 you wouldn't have won if it hadn't been for French money you know that don't you? 740 00:51:27,950 --> 00:51:31,030 anyway I think diversity is a really good thing because if you think about it that's 741 00:51:31,030 --> 00:51:34,910 how nature has solved the problem of change since the very beginning I don't 742 00:51:34,910 --> 00:51:39,370 know if you've ever noticed but in the way organic life seems to evolve to become 743 00:51:39,370 --> 00:51:43,330 more and more ordered in the way for example you are born as a blob and you end 744 00:51:43,330 --> 00:51:48,070 life as a very sophisticated adult and not very often the other way around in the way 745 00:51:48,070 --> 00:51:52,210 this happens life seems to treat the second law of thermodynamics you know the 746 00:51:52,210 --> 00:51:56,570 one that says everything left alone falls apart, decays things left alone, 747 00:51:56,670 --> 00:52:01,470 hot things left alone go cold, cups of coffee intimate friends should you 748 00:52:01,470 --> 00:52:06,110 be here life seems to treat this fundamental law of thermodynamics much the 749 00:52:06,110 --> 00:52:09,970 same way as my Italian friends treat government regulations 750 00:52:14,550 --> 00:52:18,910 I love Italy, it's not a country it is a disease for which happily there is no cure 751 00:52:20,250 --> 00:52:23,510 but anyway what I'm talking about this attitude towards thermodynamics is 752 00:52:23,510 --> 00:52:28,550 manifested in the way that the very successful life forms the ones that 753 00:52:28,550 --> 00:52:32,510 develop beyond what you might describe as the primeval Southern California life form 754 00:52:33,330 --> 00:52:41,370 get born, lie on the beach die seem to succeed in direct relation to their own 755 00:52:41,370 --> 00:52:45,410 ability to appear to at least temporarily dodge the implications of thermodynamics 756 00:52:45,410 --> 00:52:50,570 and handle environmental change by changing themselves becoming more complex 757 00:52:50,570 --> 00:52:57,650 as a species by developing varieties of themselves each one each one adapted to 758 00:52:57,650 --> 00:53:02,130 many different location specific kinds of forms of energy so that no matter how bad 759 00:53:02,130 --> 00:53:06,830 the bad weather gets and no matter how long it lasts one of the varieties will 760 00:53:06,830 --> 00:53:11,310 survive and through that the species in other words the more complex the species 761 00:53:11,310 --> 00:53:15,150 is the better its response to change repertoire is likely to be and the better 762 00:53:15,150 --> 00:53:22,710 its chances diversity being basically good for survival it seems to me that the 763 00:53:22,710 --> 00:53:27,130 diversity I'm talking about in the social sense in the near future won't work the 764 00:53:27,130 --> 00:53:33,190 old way there's just no time we can in the time available give everybody a PhD and 765 00:53:33,190 --> 00:53:37,910 anyway it's too late for that I think what we need as I said are some new additional 766 00:53:37,910 --> 00:53:43,590 educational modes that are more inclusive and less exclusive because we have to get 767 00:53:43,590 --> 00:53:48,370 the knowledge out there fast and it's got to be knowledge with a new shape first of 768 00:53:48,370 --> 00:53:50,990 all because the technology is going to make it possible to express your talents 769 00:53:50,990 --> 00:53:55,950 perhaps especially in the virtual reality world in ways that aren't just words and 770 00:53:55,950 --> 00:54:00,810 numbers and anyway in the chaotic and innovative environment of tomorrow if we 771 00:54:00,810 --> 00:54:05,590 try to organise ourselves by the old representative division of labour top down 772 00:54:05,590 --> 00:54:11,150 way there'll be anarchy because that old culture of scarcity way only maintain 773 00:54:11,150 --> 00:54:16,690 stability through the application of what we call mushroom management keep them in 774 00:54:16,690 --> 00:54:18,510 the dark and feed them a lot of manure 775 00:54:21,610 --> 00:54:26,330 it's too late for that people everywhere already know just enough to know that 776 00:54:26,330 --> 00:54:32,510 there's one hell of a lot that they should know now some of us are working on ways of 777 00:54:32,510 --> 00:54:35,790 making that knowledge more available in what you might describe if you wanted to 778 00:54:35,790 --> 00:54:39,650 use fancy words as post reductionist forms that kind of match the kind of thinking 779 00:54:39,650 --> 00:54:43,370 and what you can do with the new technology ways that don't necessarily cut 780 00:54:43,370 --> 00:54:48,710 and slice the material into isolated specialist segments I'd like to show you a 781 00:54:48,710 --> 00:54:53,450 couple of seconds you better answer that I'd like to show you a couple of seconds 782 00:54:53,450 --> 00:54:57,770 of what I'm doing I'm working on a thing which you could crudely call a sort of 783 00:54:57,770 --> 00:55:01,790 small knowledge web in which all the elements of various kinds of data from 784 00:55:01,790 --> 00:55:06,350 widely differing fields humanities arts and sciences as it were are all connected 785 00:55:06,350 --> 00:55:11,050 all in some way to all a little bit like the brain works so whatever subject area 786 00:55:11,050 --> 00:55:16,730 or target data you choose to go to to get to it you travel along a path to the data 787 00:55:16,730 --> 00:55:21,430 that reveals several things about your target it's wider context the way it is 788 00:55:21,430 --> 00:55:25,750 not necessarily the product of a linear sequence of events the ripple effects it 789 00:55:25,750 --> 00:55:30,730 could cause the advantage of such an approach I suppose I would argue is that 790 00:55:30,730 --> 00:55:36,070 entering the web is easy it's not frightening it doesn't require special 791 00:55:36,070 --> 00:55:40,910 qualifications but any gateway will do so you come at the material in a way that 792 00:55:40,910 --> 00:55:45,770 suits your particular background if you want to get at it through ice cream start 793 00:55:45,770 --> 00:55:49,230 with ice cream if you want to go at it through high energy physics go at it 794 00:55:49,230 --> 00:55:53,030 through high energy physics I'll just show you this for a couple of seconds I have to 795 00:55:53,030 --> 00:55:56,430 tell you that what I'm going to show you is not the software I will be using 796 00:55:56,430 --> 00:56:03,130 finally because I'm not anywhere near finished this web consists of 2,200 people 797 00:56:03,130 --> 00:56:08,970 linked 17,000 ways and I've done about 1,600 but I have a skeleton structure of 798 00:56:08,970 --> 00:56:14,110 the web I can show you and maybe just give a vague feel for how you'll be able to 799 00:56:14,110 --> 00:56:19,670 journey through it the final software will give it an appearance and a mode of 800 00:56:19,670 --> 00:56:25,030 function after we have gone out in gigantic number of focus groups to talk to 801 00:56:25,030 --> 00:56:29,350 teachers about if they had a tool like this how they would expect it to work for 802 00:56:29,350 --> 00:56:35,650 them and for the kids in the school so this is not that this is just a skeleton 803 00:56:35,650 --> 00:56:40,470 on which to hang some of the early work this is what you might describe as the 804 00:56:40,470 --> 00:56:44,790 kind of standard knowledge we've been using up until now and the thing about it 805 00:56:44,790 --> 00:56:51,310 is that if you know this guy Ferdinand de Lesseps then you know about either 806 00:56:51,310 --> 00:56:57,330 engineering or canal building or 19th century French engineering and canal 807 00:56:57,330 --> 00:57:01,570 building because this guy Ferdinand de Lesseps built the Suez Canal okay now if 808 00:57:01,570 --> 00:57:04,630 you're the kind of person who knows about Ferdinand de Lesseps the chances are 809 00:57:04,630 --> 00:57:08,310 you're not the kind of person who knows about this one that is a woman called 810 00:57:08,310 --> 00:57:12,910 Jenny Lind she was known as the Swedish nightingale in the middle of the 19th 811 00:57:12,910 --> 00:57:16,550 century and she people claim that she possibly had the greatest voice of all 812 00:57:16,550 --> 00:57:22,050 time if you know all about her the chances are you don't know anything about this guy 813 00:57:22,050 --> 00:57:27,130 Saint Simon 19th century French thinker invented a new kind of Christianity for 814 00:57:27,130 --> 00:57:32,330 businessmen strange man shot himself in the head six times and missed 815 00:57:35,450 --> 00:57:41,010 if you know about him the chances are you don't know much about this one Alston one 816 00:57:41,010 --> 00:57:46,530 of the great early American romantic painters what I'm saying is that what we 817 00:57:46,530 --> 00:57:51,790 tend to do in the old way is to silo put knowledge into silos so that you know 818 00:57:51,790 --> 00:57:55,710 about one lot but you tend not to know about another now the name of my game of 819 00:57:55,710 --> 00:58:00,930 course as you'd expect is to show ways in which these people are actually linked so 820 00:58:00,930 --> 00:58:04,370 let's take a look at this particular bunch I won't go right through it because you'll 821 00:58:04,370 --> 00:58:10,470 get bored you're probably bored already that's tough luck okay take Mr Brewster 822 00:58:10,470 --> 00:58:14,090 Brewster is a 19th century early 19th century crystallographer he invented the 823 00:58:14,090 --> 00:58:18,190 kaleidoscope as a matter of interest but his work was very valuable when it came to 824 00:58:18,190 --> 00:58:22,870 Marie Curie trying to measure the charge above the pitch blend that she was working 825 00:58:22,870 --> 00:58:27,550 on before she discovered radioactivity her father-in-law was a follower of that 826 00:58:27,550 --> 00:58:31,150 nutcase I told you about who shot himself in the head Monsieur Saint-Simon and one 827 00:58:31,150 --> 00:58:36,250 of his followers also was this guy who built the Suez Canal for which Verdi was 828 00:58:36,250 --> 00:58:41,670 invited to write the opening music a little number called Aida he wrote this 829 00:58:41,670 --> 00:58:45,030 some time after he wrote an absolutely dreadful little number called Imaz Nadieri 830 00:58:45,030 --> 00:58:50,790 so that this lady could sing the lead role Jenny Lind made a bomb we say it in 831 00:58:50,790 --> 00:58:54,030 English you say that a million she made millions of dollars because P.T. 832 00:58:54,230 --> 00:58:55,870 Barnum remember him P.T. 833 00:58:55,870 --> 00:58:59,630 Barnum three ring circus person invited her to come to America on a tour that he 834 00:58:59,630 --> 00:59:03,190 would organize well she made so much money she got married and retired and I'll 835 00:59:03,190 --> 00:59:07,290 finish in a second Barnum who kicked off the great you know the greatest show on 836 00:59:07,290 --> 00:59:14,530 earth three ring circus blah blah blah turned down one day a fail safe high wire 837 00:59:14,530 --> 00:59:21,710 act which was a gyroscopically controlled wheelbarrow designed by Elmas Berry who of 838 00:59:21,710 --> 00:59:26,190 course invented the gyroscope now if you take a second look at these people yes 839 00:59:26,190 --> 00:59:29,830 they're linked and they're linked of course in more ways than one oh god I hate 840 00:59:29,830 --> 00:59:36,710 doing this hang on a minute here we go yes now you see for example I'll be quick 841 00:59:36,710 --> 00:59:41,490 Brewster came up also with Pisa Electricity Marie Curie's lover Langevin 842 00:59:41,490 --> 00:59:46,330 invented the sonar down here Jenny Lind do you see this guy Hans Christian Anderson 843 00:59:46,330 --> 00:59:50,430 when he wasn't writing children's stories he was writing pornographic letters to 844 00:59:50,430 --> 00:59:51,050 Miss Lind 845 00:59:55,210 --> 01:00:03,350 okay she ignored them now what you get when you take that process to its absurd 846 01:00:03,350 --> 01:00:09,990 conclusion which is what I've done is this this this is not the real software but 847 01:00:09,990 --> 01:00:14,030 it'll give you a smell now I'm sorry the guy's way back there you can't read the 848 01:00:14,030 --> 01:00:17,510 little words and there's nothing I can do about that I'm really sorry but here for 849 01:00:17,510 --> 01:00:23,350 example we're looking at Lister see this this guy Lister L-I-S-T-E-R and here are 850 01:00:23,350 --> 01:00:27,290 Lister's immediate important contacts the people he worked with the people he 851 01:00:27,290 --> 01:00:34,690 influenced and so on one of whom was let's say I don't know Pasteur here is Pasteur 852 01:00:34,690 --> 01:00:39,970 and he has Pasteur's local contacts and people one of whom was a man called Koch 853 01:00:39,970 --> 01:00:45,310 the man who discovered the tubercle bacillus Koch was knew a lot of people one 854 01:00:45,310 --> 01:00:49,810 of whom was a man called Liebich and Liebich was a real mover and shaker you 855 01:00:49,810 --> 01:00:54,750 can tell look at the number of people he knew and worked with and every time we're 856 01:00:54,750 --> 01:00:57,850 looking at that of course all these little yellow people are the people that they 857 01:00:57,850 --> 01:01:05,750 knew and this is one page out of 2,200 so you see what I'm hoping is that it will 858 01:01:05,750 --> 01:01:11,590 probably exhaust a teacher's desire to it'll probably give a teacher enough so 859 01:01:11,590 --> 01:01:15,850 that she won't he won't exhaust that web in a whole year I mean to say of course 860 01:01:15,850 --> 01:01:20,670 that each one of those nodes obviously comes with a potted biography and you know 861 01:01:20,670 --> 01:01:27,490 pictures and graphics and if relevant paintings, music recordings and so on and 862 01:01:27,490 --> 01:01:32,610 so forth the thing about this business of making the material more accessible is 863 01:01:32,610 --> 01:01:36,030 really you're talking about transferring power and knowledge out to the individual 864 01:01:36,030 --> 01:01:41,530 much more than ever before as a virtual unlimited bandwidth really kind of 865 01:01:41,530 --> 01:01:46,230 fragments information media into a thousand sources that really leads to a 866 01:01:46,230 --> 01:01:51,110 few final questions when almost every aspect of life goes virtual what will 867 01:01:51,110 --> 01:01:55,470 happen to the nation state when frontiers of local laws and customs no longer have 868 01:01:55,470 --> 01:02:00,370 any meaning if I can buy my goods anywhere on the planet who taxes the purchase who 869 01:02:00,370 --> 01:02:04,770 makes the goods who has the jobs in which case what happens to my national 870 01:02:04,770 --> 01:02:08,850 commercial structures my national employment strategies my national ability 871 01:02:08,850 --> 01:02:15,070 to provide social services my nation when I can educate myself in any classroom on 872 01:02:15,070 --> 01:02:19,370 earth through distant learning exposed to influences and information from a thousand 873 01:02:19,370 --> 01:02:24,410 different sources what happens to my local cultural values when online electronic 874 01:02:24,410 --> 01:02:30,210 agents working 24 hours a day to represent me go out onto the web and bring back what 875 01:02:30,210 --> 01:02:34,070 my profile tells the agent I want will I ever get anything other than 876 01:02:34,070 --> 01:02:39,430 self-gratification will I ever emerge from starring in my own utterly personal 877 01:02:39,430 --> 01:02:44,950 virtual reality paradise and if all I hear is the news I want to hear what does that 878 01:02:44,950 --> 01:02:49,210 do to my political and social opinions and in any case how do you run a country when 879 01:02:49,210 --> 01:02:53,490 every individual's electronic agent is inputting every individual's political 880 01:02:53,490 --> 01:02:57,890 opinion on every issue in every section of the country every second of the day a 881 01:02:57,890 --> 01:03:03,150 night 186,000 times a second what happens to the old pre-internet structures like 882 01:03:03,150 --> 01:03:07,130 the European Union or United States when the internet removes the limitations of 883 01:03:07,130 --> 01:03:10,330 time and space from international commercial and political relations and on 884 01:03:10,330 --> 01:03:16,770 the international level whose law operates in cyberspace moving from a culture of 885 01:03:16,770 --> 01:03:20,550 scarcity to a culture of abundance isn't going to be easy to leave behind the 886 01:03:20,550 --> 01:03:24,970 comfort of believing that only specialists are valuable or of living by standards 887 01:03:24,970 --> 01:03:30,330 established for you by somebody else my guess is the first effect of that open 888 01:03:30,330 --> 01:03:34,130 access that period of transition I mentioned will show itself in some ways 889 01:03:34,130 --> 01:03:37,710 that are turbulent and perhaps negative at the artistic level during this transition 890 01:03:37,710 --> 01:03:44,510 will it be a world of home videos and illiterate scribblings and in science how 891 01:03:44,510 --> 01:03:48,530 will the average person even with access to global databases make a meaningful 892 01:03:48,530 --> 01:03:52,390 contribution to whether or not to spend billions of dollars in one aspect or other 893 01:03:52,390 --> 01:03:57,150 of invertebrate paleozoology in other words will open access and the closing of 894 01:03:57,150 --> 01:04:00,930 the gulf between the ordinary person and the world of information also bring with 895 01:04:00,930 --> 01:04:06,290 it at least temporarily a welter of mediocrity instability, mindlessness and 896 01:04:06,290 --> 01:04:15,230 self-gratification the like of which has never been seen before yes this side of 897 01:04:15,230 --> 01:04:20,470 the educational revolution which it will also bring meanwhile maybe we could try a 898 01:04:20,470 --> 01:04:26,170 few moves relax the division of labour rule become more flexible realise that 899 01:04:26,170 --> 01:04:30,330 already an institution that is utterly satisfied with what it's doing is probably 900 01:04:30,330 --> 01:04:36,990 dead and doesn't know it see that if as an institution or an individual you stand 901 01:04:36,990 --> 01:04:40,710 still for too long now just as in the jungle sooner or later something will eat 902 01:04:40,710 --> 01:04:45,730 you recognise that in the virtual mobile individualistic demanding marketplace of 903 01:04:45,730 --> 01:04:49,370 tomorrow there will be so many alternatives washing around in that sea of 904 01:04:49,370 --> 01:04:53,470 information that the newly enfranchised individual will be just like Admiral 905 01:04:53,470 --> 01:04:59,390 Shovel in desperate need of a lighthouse in desperate need of an education tailored 906 01:04:59,390 --> 01:05:04,750 to give the specific tools for their specific problems now our brains, 907 01:05:04,750 --> 01:05:08,690 quintessential examples of innovative convergence at work have always been able 908 01:05:08,690 --> 01:05:13,830 to handle these issues and now thanks to our technology perhaps so will our social 909 01:05:13,830 --> 01:05:18,930 and cultural institutions if we don't use the technology to open a crack in that box 910 01:05:18,930 --> 01:05:23,230 that Descartes put us into we will not be ready for the upheaval as we shift from a 911 01:05:23,230 --> 01:05:28,310 culture of information scarcity to the free for all that will be the first free 912 01:05:28,310 --> 01:05:34,550 for all in history the situation we face reminds me very much of things something 913 01:05:34,550 --> 01:05:37,290 that happened to me when I was covering the Apollo missions the space missions for 914 01:05:37,290 --> 01:05:42,830 the BBC 100 years ago in the stone age I used to find myself with my colleagues in 915 01:05:42,830 --> 01:05:48,130 Moscow from time to time and in a dark bar somewhere a long way from the commissars 916 01:05:48,130 --> 01:05:52,410 one of the locals would sidle up to us and engage us in conversation and sooner or 917 01:05:52,410 --> 01:05:57,170 later they asked the same question they said how do you guys in the western 918 01:05:57,170 --> 01:06:02,790 capitalist world survive all that dangerous confusion and anarchy and we 919 01:06:02,790 --> 01:06:07,930 said what dangerous confusion and anarchy and they used a word that encapsulates 920 01:06:07,930 --> 01:06:15,690 everything that challenges us in future they said choice I am an optimist in this 921 01:06:15,690 --> 01:06:20,790 matter because pessimists jump out of the window and are no longer concerned and I 922 01:06:20,790 --> 01:06:24,930 am an optimist because years ago during that part of my career I came across 923 01:06:24,930 --> 01:06:28,930 something about you guys that made me feel extremely optimistic about the future 924 01:06:28,930 --> 01:06:35,430 because if you sneeze we catch a cold I was covering Apollo and the mandate from 925 01:06:35,430 --> 01:06:38,890 the BBC is tell the great British public why the Americans keep doing the same 926 01:06:38,890 --> 01:06:43,290 thing go to the moon, bounce around, come back go to the moon, bounce around, 927 01:06:43,310 --> 01:06:48,910 come back what they really meant was what's different between one mission and 928 01:06:48,910 --> 01:06:52,330 another and please they said go and spend as many months as you like in Houston and 929 01:06:52,330 --> 01:06:56,790 other Cape, find out well it was wonderful it was the most exciting five years of my 930 01:06:56,790 --> 01:07:00,230 television career and I got to meet a lot of wonderful people they were really 931 01:07:00,230 --> 01:07:04,910 special people those guys anyway I got hate mail for one aspect of my work I 932 01:07:04,910 --> 01:07:08,950 think I did fairly well because I am here but there was one thing I got hate mail 933 01:07:08,950 --> 01:07:11,810 from and all the mail said you know you paid lots of money to stand on that 934 01:07:11,810 --> 01:07:14,650 television up there on the television screen and explain this stuff to us what 935 01:07:14,650 --> 01:07:16,190 are they looking at? 936 01:07:16,990 --> 01:07:21,610 I didn't explain because I couldn't explain on the lunar surface sometimes 937 01:07:21,610 --> 01:07:25,330 they referred to what is called a cuff checklist and a cuff checklist was a kind 938 01:07:25,330 --> 01:07:28,570 of aid memoir now this is not because astronauts are stupid because you know 939 01:07:28,570 --> 01:07:33,090 they are not it's because on the surface of the moon you have that much oxygen and 940 01:07:33,090 --> 01:07:37,770 you have to do that much work you don't have that much oxygen so you get the work 941 01:07:37,770 --> 01:07:42,770 right or you blow it so on special occasions when really complex matters were 942 01:07:42,770 --> 01:07:46,330 concerned there would be a cuff checklist that they could refer to now I never 943 01:07:46,330 --> 01:07:50,450 explained this because I couldn't I'll just invent what it was suppose you are on 944 01:07:50,450 --> 01:07:53,650 the surface of the moon first time in human history 240,000 miles from the 945 01:07:53,650 --> 01:07:58,830 nearest work bench you take a piece of white hot technology some poor slob of a 946 01:07:58,830 --> 01:08:02,510 science engineer has spent his or her adult life you lay it reverently in the 947 01:08:02,510 --> 01:08:08,650 lunar dust and you press its little button and it doesn't work as Carl would have 948 01:08:08,650 --> 01:08:15,130 said billions of people are watching you you have got to fix it now so you refer to 949 01:08:15,130 --> 01:08:18,250 your cuff checklist and these cuff checklists never got explained by any of 950 01:08:18,250 --> 01:08:22,390 us I'll have to pretend it would say something like if the LR cubed fails 951 01:08:22,390 --> 01:08:28,910 option 1 press the out mode squelch PCM to 2 and disengage XYZ if option 1 fails 952 01:08:28,910 --> 01:08:35,550 option 2 if option 2 fails option 3 squared and there would be something like 953 01:08:35,550 --> 01:08:39,950 half a dozen instructions designed to stave off the possibility of a very 954 01:08:39,950 --> 01:08:44,070 embarrassing technological gaff on the surface of another planet for the first 955 01:08:44,070 --> 01:08:50,310 time in human history right at the end of each of these came a phrase that made me 956 01:08:50,310 --> 01:08:54,630 an instant optimist about you and your relationship with your technology very 957 01:08:54,630 --> 01:08:59,050 healthy relationship because the phrase at the end of each one of these little sheets 958 01:08:59,050 --> 01:09:03,630 of instructions could never have been written by a British space agency or a 959 01:09:03,630 --> 01:09:07,530 French space agency or a Chinese space agency or anybody else because at the end 960 01:09:07,530 --> 01:09:12,250 of each one of these things it said if all technological repair options to this point 961 01:09:12,250 --> 01:09:15,050 have failed kick with lunar boot 962 01:09:27,070 --> 01:09:33,650 well we started a bit late and I over ran I can't see you can we have the lights up 963 01:09:33,650 --> 01:09:39,430 I'm informed that we have a few minutes for questions those of you who teach will 964 01:09:39,430 --> 01:09:44,850 recognise this technique you put up a hand or you go to the microphone and I choose 965 01:09:44,850 --> 01:09:51,290 the people who look least dangerous re-voice the question in my favour and 966 01:09:51,290 --> 01:09:57,290 duck it your teachers recognise that don't you so I can't see anything is there any 967 01:09:57,290 --> 01:10:02,790 more light available out there she whizzes Bonneville is up the road isn't it oh 968 01:10:02,790 --> 01:10:07,310 there you are now you can either put up a hand and shout or you can find a 969 01:10:07,310 --> 01:10:11,050 microphone I can't tell you where they are there's one up here there's one up where 970 01:10:11,050 --> 01:10:22,310 the voice of god oh hello okay you got there first make it easy is terrorism one 971 01:10:22,310 --> 01:10:27,170 of these social upheavals that you think are going to happen now is terrorism one 972 01:10:27,170 --> 01:10:30,610 of the social upheavals you mean part of the transitional confusion I don't think 973 01:10:30,610 --> 01:10:35,410 it's been generated by advances in technology kiddo I think it's been 974 01:10:35,410 --> 01:10:40,510 generated by something it went way before any advances in technology so no I do not 975 01:10:40,510 --> 01:10:43,310 think it's part of the transitional confusion generated by the use of 976 01:10:43,310 --> 01:10:48,850 technology no more than that I can't say without ruffling feathers next question 977 01:10:48,850 --> 01:10:55,410 sir yes can you comment on any of the current collaborative projects going on on 978 01:10:55,410 --> 01:11:01,390 the internet such as wikipedia which is a encyclopedia project is done by the great 979 01:11:01,390 --> 01:11:07,350 masses attempting to build a encyclopedia from scratch or other similar types of 980 01:11:07,350 --> 01:11:12,270 projects I think I saw that they put an ad didn't they you want to build an 981 01:11:12,270 --> 01:11:17,630 encyclopedia come to with us and we'll do it together yes yes it could be the 982 01:11:17,630 --> 01:11:24,050 greatest potential for obfuscation ever since Noah Webster reinvented the english 983 01:11:24,050 --> 01:11:32,450 language ha ha H O N O U R we say you have put your finger of course as you know very 984 01:11:32,450 --> 01:11:36,610 well and everyone else on the key problem of the internet how do you know you can 985 01:11:36,610 --> 01:11:41,830 trust it I'm sure you do too I'm whizzing along and I think I need a quick fact 986 01:11:41,830 --> 01:11:45,830 instead of going to the British library I save some time by going in the net the 987 01:11:45,830 --> 01:11:51,310 stuff that I know is inaccurate is legion legion I don't know how you deal with that 988 01:11:51,310 --> 01:11:54,770 well I do know but nobody's invented it yet there's a lovely woman up at MIT 989 01:11:54,770 --> 01:12:01,310 called Patti Maas who is not only a genius but also beautiful and she's working on 990 01:12:01,310 --> 01:12:07,070 these electronic agents and the kind of thing she's talking about is being able to 991 01:12:07,070 --> 01:12:12,970 have an agent that can tell margarine from butter do you say that here? 992 01:12:12,990 --> 01:12:18,890 no perhaps you don't in other words the electronic agent can work fast enough to 993 01:12:18,890 --> 01:12:23,950 track down the sources of what's there and say no this is crap and not bring it to 994 01:12:23,950 --> 01:12:28,950 you but short of that I think we're in for a period of transitional confusion in 995 01:12:28,950 --> 01:12:34,350 spades yes but it happens all the time look at the junk that was printed not long 996 01:12:34,350 --> 01:12:41,310 after Gutenberg we had to winnow our way through that stuff I will manage filtering 997 01:12:41,310 --> 01:12:49,510 is part of the great oh gosh yes madam yes that's you yes oh my god I can't it's a 998 01:12:49,510 --> 01:13:01,530 man sorry thanks a lot buddy I can't see okay okay in some of your other works you 999 01:13:01,530 --> 01:13:06,790 made statements about some of your other works you made statements about main 1000 01:13:06,790 --> 01:13:10,010 philosophers coming around and really influencing people like corrupted 1001 01:13:10,010 --> 01:13:15,450 Darwinism and stuff but I want to know what you think about the main distribution 1002 01:13:15,450 --> 01:13:19,990 of information shifting from governments distributing information to corporations 1003 01:13:19,990 --> 01:13:24,990 distributing information to how you think that's going to affect us I don't agree 1004 01:13:24,990 --> 01:13:27,550 with you that the main source of information comes from either governments 1005 01:13:27,550 --> 01:13:32,610 or corporations the main source of information comes from libraries I mean 1006 01:13:32,610 --> 01:13:38,490 that's a plain fact you mean propaganda or selective elements of information but by 1007 01:13:38,490 --> 01:13:43,150 no means the main source of information I mean the information in your Library of 1008 01:13:43,150 --> 01:13:49,670 Congress is a little bit larger than what Mr Bush says sorry 1009 01:13:54,040 --> 01:13:59,300 or any other member of any government anywhere on the planet it's just that he's 1010 01:13:59,300 --> 01:14:00,100 more amusing 1011 01:14:03,620 --> 01:14:11,740 so I can't really I don't know well I mean I'm not sure I don't care actually I don't 1012 01:14:11,740 --> 01:14:19,000 think I think one of the aspects of the internet and the general growing rising 1013 01:14:19,000 --> 01:14:22,480 standards of education in general is that people are fooled a lot less than they 1014 01:14:22,480 --> 01:14:28,540 used to be even in my lifetime people are a lot a lot less easily fooled people are 1015 01:14:28,540 --> 01:14:32,780 waking up to realizing that you know what we've called transparent democracy for 1016 01:14:32,780 --> 01:14:37,760 five six hundred years has been anything but and the sooner we recognize that the 1017 01:14:37,760 --> 01:14:43,180 better you know we now accept that in a world of rail politic your government has 1018 01:14:43,180 --> 01:14:49,300 been assassinating people for a hundred years so has ours it happens and one day 1019 01:14:49,300 --> 01:14:53,740 it won't but it's far better that we know about it and then try to bring about a 1020 01:14:53,740 --> 01:14:59,460 world where it doesn't happen then believe that so what I'm saying to you is I think 1021 01:14:59,460 --> 01:15:03,840 the end of the 19th century it mattered a great deal what the government told you 1022 01:15:03,840 --> 01:15:08,240 but I think less and less so now but then that's because I'm Pollyanna-ish I suppose 1023 01:15:08,240 --> 01:15:17,540 yes sir I'm only joking I can let you get away with it I'm kidding I'm kidding I 1024 01:15:17,540 --> 01:15:22,200 guess my question was do you give a lot of stock into the ideas like I guess what 1025 01:15:22,200 --> 01:15:27,400 Topper called future shock do you think that people will ultimately be able to 1026 01:15:27,400 --> 01:15:31,420 adjust to it because of what's occurred historically or do you think that there's 1027 01:15:31,420 --> 01:15:36,320 some kind of limit that people will eventually approach because of so much 1028 01:15:36,320 --> 01:15:40,260 information I guess will there ever be an information overload in the effects of all 1029 01:15:40,260 --> 01:15:45,860 this psychologically on the individual and society no ok 1030 01:15:49,180 --> 01:15:55,260 I don't think that we have come remotely close to tapping what's between your ears 1031 01:15:55,260 --> 01:16:01,740 not remotely close and the matter of information overload is simple ignore it I 1032 01:16:01,740 --> 01:16:06,900 mean ignore it I mean find ways to we've filtered throughout our existence whether 1033 01:16:06,900 --> 01:16:10,820 it's whether it's what the shaman tells you and you know you ignore all other 1034 01:16:10,820 --> 01:16:17,360 bones except these or feathers or whether it's whether it's a librarian saying don't 1035 01:16:17,360 --> 01:16:20,640 waste your time on that muck over there if you want the horse's mouth it's over here 1036 01:16:20,640 --> 01:16:25,060 I mean there are ways that we but I don't think I wouldn't believe there's any 1037 01:16:25,060 --> 01:16:30,100 danger of the human being being overloaded because you can ignore things I do all the 1038 01:16:30,100 --> 01:16:42,480 time sir oh wait excuse me sorry sorry the gods I'll come back to you yes sir pardon 1039 01:16:42,480 --> 01:16:46,400 me if I've misunderstood but it seemed like you were saying that with the spread 1040 01:16:46,400 --> 01:16:51,700 of knowledge through the internet that it will increase diversity and it appears to 1041 01:16:51,700 --> 01:16:57,060 me that that if we all have access to the same knowledge will eventually all become 1042 01:16:57,060 --> 01:17:01,540 more and more alike such that eventually in the future hundred couple of hundred 1043 01:17:01,540 --> 01:17:07,440 years if we survive the current crisis that the only the real difference we're 1044 01:17:07,440 --> 01:17:11,960 going to need to find is you know another species from outer space or something yes 1045 01:17:11,960 --> 01:17:14,880 I understand that point of view and forgive me saying so it's old fashioned 1046 01:17:15,940 --> 01:17:19,360 what I'm talking about when I talk about diversity is the ability of each 1047 01:17:19,360 --> 01:17:23,520 individual to express themselves that's never happened there are 6.1 billion 1048 01:17:23,520 --> 01:17:26,680 people out there if they all express themselves it's going to be pretty 1049 01:17:26,680 --> 01:17:30,400 difficult to make them conform number one number two 1050 01:17:33,420 --> 01:17:39,180 I forgot what I was going to say damn it was a brilliant thought 1051 01:17:44,670 --> 01:17:48,970 I lived in Bologna I told you that I thought Italy was like dying and going to 1052 01:17:48,970 --> 01:17:53,330 heaven I lived for a number of years in Bologna back in the early 60s teaching and 1053 01:17:53,330 --> 01:17:59,410 Bologna you may not know this some of you may do know it Bologna's language is a 1054 01:17:59,410 --> 01:18:02,210 form of dialect of Italian that is almost incomprehensible to anybody who doesn't 1055 01:18:02,210 --> 01:18:06,090 live in Bologna I'll give you a tiny example of it one phrase in Italian when 1056 01:18:06,090 --> 01:18:10,650 you say see you tomorrow you say ci vediamo domani now I'll say that again and 1057 01:18:10,650 --> 01:18:17,610 then I'll repeat it in Bolognese ci vediamo domani assabdankmang when 1058 01:18:17,610 --> 01:18:20,910 television came along in the early 60s the people in Bologna were really upset they 1059 01:18:20,910 --> 01:18:26,870 said our culture will be destroyed we'll be talking like bloody Romans well today 1060 01:18:26,870 --> 01:18:31,630 there is a there are two Bolognese dialect television stations and the culture is 1061 01:18:31,630 --> 01:18:37,010 stronger than it ever was before so I think what we're going to do is as I said 1062 01:18:37,010 --> 01:18:40,930 in the middle of my words that the technology is going to empower that 1063 01:18:40,930 --> 01:18:45,590 diversity because it's going to make it easier for it to express itself and the 1064 01:18:45,590 --> 01:18:50,210 only way that cultures die out which they did when the Bible was not printed in 1065 01:18:50,210 --> 01:18:54,070 their language in the 16th century is because there's an incredibly limited 1066 01:18:55,270 --> 01:19:04,350 amount of the ability to express yourself thank you hi I'm from we are actually 1067 01:19:04,350 --> 01:19:08,630 teaching a course called cyber millenium cyber what? 1068 01:19:08,870 --> 01:19:14,870 millenium yeah so what you have said it's very very pertinent but I'm actually was 1069 01:19:14,870 --> 01:19:18,830 actually thinking about the same question and let me repeat it a little bit on the 1070 01:19:18,830 --> 01:19:24,090 question of whether the information technology will enhance cultural and 1071 01:19:24,090 --> 01:19:28,970 linguistic diversity and where I know I'm very happy that you think that it will but 1072 01:19:28,970 --> 01:19:34,270 some of us are still having the nagging suspicion because it's probably not so 1073 01:19:34,270 --> 01:19:38,430 much the idea of information technology but there is another trickster involved 1074 01:19:38,430 --> 01:19:44,050 that's the capital the commodification of cultures and languages and knowledge 1075 01:19:44,050 --> 01:19:49,110 systems that are again when you look into it you'd rather go to the pharmaceutical 1076 01:19:49,110 --> 01:19:54,390 company or it will go to the cultural entertainment industry so virtually I'm 1077 01:19:54,390 --> 01:19:58,150 talking more about the indigenous people and peasants and all those people out 1078 01:19:58,150 --> 01:20:05,610 there that what would we how would they really keep their processes of cultural 1079 01:20:05,610 --> 01:20:11,230 production I think I'm really troubled by that fact because once it begins to become 1080 01:20:11,230 --> 01:20:16,670 modified then they might be seeing their own dance actually through a video rather 1081 01:20:16,670 --> 01:20:21,270 than through their own ritual performance of daily life you're not talking about the 1082 01:20:21,270 --> 01:20:26,230 internet I think you're talking about what happens with normal human interaction one 1083 01:20:26,230 --> 01:20:30,630 group next to another have influences on each other one individual has an influence 1084 01:20:30,630 --> 01:20:35,650 on the other I still don't think that homogenizes us all far from it it may be 1085 01:20:35,650 --> 01:20:39,850 that the production of the interaction is yet another addition to the cultural 1086 01:20:39,850 --> 01:20:44,610 diversity mix I would hope so and I'm afraid on that note I'm beginning signal 1087 01:20:44,610 --> 01:20:48,030 to stop so thank you very much indeed for coming and good night 1088 01:21:01,790 --> 01:21:09,330 well if you have no questions I'll sit down oh damn yes sir easy question good 1089 01:21:09,330 --> 01:21:10,570 I'll duck it 1090 01:21:19,450 --> 01:21:23,510 what newspapers or magazines do I read to get current input on current events well 1091 01:21:23,510 --> 01:21:29,110 of course the Times of London are rump actually it's a question of what you can 1092 01:21:29,110 --> 01:21:34,290 get really I suppose yes in England I read the Times because it's the best newspaper 1093 01:21:34,290 --> 01:21:40,470 in England but perhaps the world I would read the New York Times if I could get it 1094 01:21:40,470 --> 01:21:46,710 but it isn't that easy in the sticks where I live outside London magazines The 1095 01:21:46,710 --> 01:21:49,110 Economist because I'm basically a fascist 1096 01:21:52,270 --> 01:21:55,990 I used to read Scientific American but since I stopped writing for it I don't 1097 01:21:55,990 --> 01:22:02,110 read it anymore actually the magazine was bought by people somebody came up to me 1098 01:22:02,110 --> 01:22:07,030 tonight and said what happened to you and Phil Morrison eminent physicist and 1099 01:22:07,030 --> 01:22:12,710 general good guy and because we wrote you know he wrote the column before and after 1100 01:22:12,710 --> 01:22:17,810 mine sometimes before sometimes after and they were bought by new people and 1101 01:22:17,810 --> 01:22:22,870 everyone was fired including us and now the magazine looks different I'm biased I 1102 01:22:22,870 --> 01:22:27,930 think it's not very good thank you thank you horrible so those are the magazines I 1103 01:22:27,930 --> 01:22:34,330 used to read what else history today is pretty good if you like the recent stuff 1104 01:22:34,330 --> 01:22:38,850 it spends a lot of time on the Nazi period but doesn't everyone these days it seems 1105 01:22:38,850 --> 01:22:43,370 to be the cheapest thing to teach children because it has movies attached so those 1106 01:22:43,370 --> 01:22:47,230 are the magazines and things I read I tend not to read magazines I tend to go and sit 1107 01:22:47,230 --> 01:22:53,370 in the British Library and read books because it's nice and fun and they pay me 1108 01:22:53,370 --> 01:22:59,330 to do it you know somebody it's better than real work no more questions thank you 1109 01:22:59,330 --> 01:23:03,930 oh damn yes sir is it correct to say that one of your thesis is 1110 01:23:15,190 --> 01:23:23,610 is my thesis that everyone will finally have access to everything ah if that is 1111 01:23:23,610 --> 01:23:29,990 the case here comes his question most people I know don't 1112 01:23:34,670 --> 01:23:39,130 most people he says you don't mind if I repeat this because people can't hear he's 1113 01:23:39,130 --> 01:23:41,890 saying that most people come home from work too tired to go to the internet 1114 01:23:50,870 --> 01:23:55,790 it's much easier to turn on the tube you mean the august body for which I do my 1115 01:23:55,790 --> 01:24:03,890 work I hope that is no longer true because I think television is dead and doesn't 1116 01:24:03,890 --> 01:24:12,590 know it I think saving your presence sir my god I apologize in general centralized 1117 01:24:12,590 --> 01:24:16,050 sources of information I think are dead and don't know it it's just a matter of 1118 01:24:16,050 --> 01:24:20,210 time until they've gone we're there on the vine I think the great thing about the 1119 01:24:20,210 --> 01:24:22,910 internet is that it will cause that to happen and actually if you look at history 1120 01:24:22,910 --> 01:24:26,310 that's exactly what happens throughout history there's a constant diffusion 1121 01:24:26,310 --> 01:24:30,950 outwards of information and sources of information constant diffusion outwards of 1122 01:24:30,950 --> 01:24:40,890 means of what Tom Kuhn described as the hacker winning through so that's my answer 1123 01:24:40,890 --> 01:24:49,570 to your question yes I can't answer questions from you you're my hero I'm too 1124 01:24:49,570 --> 01:24:50,910 scared to speak 1125 01:24:55,460 --> 01:25:06,100 oh yes for frippery it's okay and that's all it's okay for I think with limited 1126 01:25:06,100 --> 01:25:12,380 exception from time to time of PBS I think most of it's gone down the tubes I think 1127 01:25:12,380 --> 01:25:17,080 if it has any sense I think it will migrate across to the screen of my laptop 1128 01:25:18,320 --> 01:25:21,780 there are a couple of people I know in the business who have moved out of television 1129 01:25:21,780 --> 01:25:27,600 and who got to know those funny software people and who are writing programs that 1130 01:25:27,600 --> 01:25:31,880 will put a background against you that will be indistinguishable from the real 1131 01:25:31,880 --> 01:25:37,820 thing only an engineer will know that you did this not walking on a beach in Tahiti 1132 01:25:37,820 --> 01:25:43,580 but walking up and down your living room in Portland, Oregon and only an engineer 1133 01:25:43,580 --> 01:25:46,260 will know because these things, and that's going to be wonderful because 1134 01:25:46,260 --> 01:25:50,580 it's going to make it cheaper to make exciting looking television programs and 1135 01:25:50,580 --> 01:25:55,320 you know, go around the world like I used to for real, but never leave your living 1136 01:25:55,320 --> 01:25:59,500 room in Portland and what we'll see will be the products of your fertile 1137 01:25:59,500 --> 01:26:05,100 imagination unconstrained by this filthy business called Budgets there aren't any 1138 01:26:05,100 --> 01:26:06,760 more anywhere are there any more? 1139 01:26:07,200 --> 01:26:12,640 where I come from there aren't any more yes ma'am 1140 01:26:20,720 --> 01:26:24,020 you'd like me to talk a bit more about what I think education should be today 1141 01:26:24,740 --> 01:26:27,120 have you ever asked anybody that question before? 1142 01:26:28,200 --> 01:26:30,460 and if you have, have they ever answered it? 1143 01:26:31,880 --> 01:26:33,100 this is not fair 1144 01:26:36,320 --> 01:26:39,880 the only reason I went on and on about reductionism as I did a bit tonight was 1145 01:26:39,880 --> 01:26:45,000 because while it's fine and dandy, and while I would never let a dentist into 1146 01:26:45,000 --> 01:26:50,260 my mouth without a degree in dentistry or I would never cross a bridge if it weren't 1147 01:26:50,260 --> 01:26:55,020 built by an engineer who knew how to build bridges reductionism has its place and up 1148 01:26:55,020 --> 01:26:59,560 until now in history it has had a very important place in providing us with the 1149 01:26:59,560 --> 01:27:02,680 goods and services that give us the highest standard of living in the world 1150 01:27:02,680 --> 01:27:09,020 and in history but I think as I said tonight I think education has to start 1151 01:27:09,020 --> 01:27:12,740 concerning itself with all these other people out there we've lived a really 1152 01:27:12,740 --> 01:27:20,880 comfortable luxurious little life in the west us first then you second and I think 1153 01:27:21,700 --> 01:27:26,360 recent events have shown that that causes more problems than it solves I think we 1154 01:27:26,360 --> 01:27:30,360 have to urgently begin to try and get the material out to the rest of the world and 1155 01:27:30,360 --> 01:27:36,580 I don't mean propaganda, I mean raw data and let them make of it what they will and 1156 01:27:36,580 --> 01:27:40,620 I think the way in which we do that the vehicle, the educative vehicle for doing 1157 01:27:40,620 --> 01:27:46,940 that cannot be the reductionist method it's too slow it's too complex and it 1158 01:27:46,940 --> 01:27:52,000 functions for the kind of society in which we live and not they we have to find ways 1159 01:27:52,000 --> 01:27:57,620 I think as I said in my talk tonight of transmitting the data to them in different 1160 01:27:57,620 --> 01:28:02,420 forms that make it easier that make it not easier in the sense that they are stupid 1161 01:28:02,420 --> 01:28:10,920 but that I mean if all of you go to Italy I presume that most people in this country 1162 01:28:10,920 --> 01:28:16,740 do not in this room do not speak fluent Italian if you go to Italy you will be 1163 01:28:16,740 --> 01:28:20,780 regarded as stupid because you don't speak the language very well I mean I don't know 1164 01:28:20,780 --> 01:28:24,440 if you've come across people foreigners who come here and say I would like very 1165 01:28:24,440 --> 01:28:31,360 much and you think this guy is really dumb you know he has seven PhDs in quantum 1166 01:28:31,360 --> 01:28:35,480 physics but simply because he doesn't speak your language means that he can't 1167 01:28:35,480 --> 01:28:40,800 explain himself well and you judge him so I think the people out there are not 1168 01:28:40,800 --> 01:28:45,040 stupid we have to find ways of getting the knowledge out to the rest of the world so 1169 01:28:45,040 --> 01:28:51,140 that oh boy I stick my foot in it here so that they no longer live in the stone age 1170 01:28:52,120 --> 01:28:53,960 but in something slightly different 1171 01:29:12,710 --> 01:29:21,870 yes yes oh yes yes you're absolutely right sir I was really only talking about the 1172 01:29:21,870 --> 01:29:26,510 fact that television doesn't have any money anymore well hang on you've got to 1173 01:29:26,510 --> 01:29:29,490 deal with that first I mean either television doesn't have any money anymore 1174 01:29:29,490 --> 01:29:32,450 and we can no longer make these intellectually challenging programs 1175 01:29:32,450 --> 01:29:35,950 because we can't travel around the world or we find alternate ways of making the 1176 01:29:35,950 --> 01:29:38,370 programs so that they look just as good as they ever did and people have 1177 01:29:38,370 --> 01:29:43,870 intellectually challenging programming to watch that's a specifically western issue 1178 01:29:43,870 --> 01:29:50,410 that I'm addressing the issue of what we Brits and you Americans watch on your tube 1179 01:29:51,710 --> 01:29:55,750 as to whether or not people in the rest of the world living in their unpleasant 1180 01:29:55,750 --> 01:29:58,690 circumstances in squatter camps or whatever it is, dying of starvation and 1181 01:29:58,690 --> 01:30:01,730 having no electricity and no water and no hygiene and nothing else whether they know 1182 01:30:01,730 --> 01:30:05,450 they're living in the stone age it's neither here nor there, they are I mean in 1183 01:30:05,450 --> 01:30:13,470 our terms this is not politically correct but if you can give people drugs that will 1184 01:30:13,470 --> 01:30:18,330 save them from dying why not do so if it comes, happens to come from a I suppose 1185 01:30:18,330 --> 01:30:24,410 it's correct I suppose it's historically correct to say that it just so happens 1186 01:30:24,410 --> 01:30:29,910 that gosh I don't even know if I want to say this because it's going to sound wrong 1187 01:30:29,910 --> 01:30:32,830 it wouldn't sound wrong in England because we're not religious 1188 01:30:36,290 --> 01:30:41,290 the consciousness of stewardship inherent in Christianity that says the planet 1189 01:30:41,290 --> 01:30:46,930 belongs to you and you must do what you can to make it better is what has driven 1190 01:30:46,930 --> 01:30:52,150 western what we call progress it seems to me, that in the middle ages people were 1191 01:30:52,150 --> 01:30:56,310 told the planet belongs to you, it is your stewardship, you're in charge 1192 01:30:56,310 --> 01:30:58,990 of it and you must make it better when you die it should be a better place than when 1193 01:30:58,990 --> 01:31:04,350 you left so therefore go out and change it so in a sense western the Judeo-Christian 1194 01:31:04,350 --> 01:31:11,330 ethic allows you to change the environment for the better other entities in other 1195 01:31:11,330 --> 01:31:14,910 countries don't have this particular dynamic view of the interaction between 1196 01:31:14,910 --> 01:31:20,610 the human being and the environment that's not our fault it's an accident of history 1197 01:31:21,270 --> 01:31:23,330 but it does end up with me having 1198 01:31:28,470 --> 01:31:33,130 ampicillin when I have respiratory disease which I can take and it stops me from 1199 01:31:33,130 --> 01:31:40,370 dying that's marginally better than the other throwing the bones into the air to 1200 01:31:40,370 --> 01:31:47,170 see whether or not I'll live so I make no apology for saying that accidentally we 1201 01:31:47,170 --> 01:31:52,270 have a society that is capable of doing wonderful things to keep people alive and 1202 01:31:52,270 --> 01:32:01,430 make them better informed and in that sense I use the word stone age I see 1203 01:32:01,430 --> 01:32:08,410 little value every understanding of the universe has its own relative values I 1204 01:32:08,410 --> 01:32:12,770 can't say that anybody's view of God is any better than mine since I have no view 1205 01:32:13,630 --> 01:32:18,770 so it sort of doesn't matter it's an irrelevant discussion to me but that I can 1206 01:32:18,770 --> 01:32:23,490 keep a child alive or let it die is a major difference between my society and 1207 01:32:23,490 --> 01:32:29,010 theirs I make no apology for thinking that mine is better if I can keep that child 1208 01:32:29,010 --> 01:32:32,870 alive that's all I have to say about that Sir 1209 01:32:59,090 --> 01:33:03,630 there are at least two things to be said about this one, most linguists would agree 1210 01:33:03,630 --> 01:33:09,230 that English is an extremely efficient tool it is the kind of I think synthetic 1211 01:33:09,230 --> 01:33:13,370 structure that is better than non-synthetic structures which are most 1212 01:33:13,370 --> 01:33:17,670 other languages on the planet however the other thing to be said about it is ask any 1213 01:33:17,670 --> 01:33:23,590 Frenchman if he agrees with you and he'll say you're talking garbage as somebody 1214 01:33:23,590 --> 01:33:27,070 once said in a joke, if English was good enough for Jesus Christ it's good enough 1215 01:33:27,070 --> 01:33:35,030 for us and as far as the French are concerned God invented French so I think 1216 01:33:35,030 --> 01:33:37,950 your question in a sense in the nicest possible sense of the word is irrelevant 1217 01:33:38,690 --> 01:33:43,850 there are certain structures I suppose within what one describes as I suppose the 1218 01:33:43,850 --> 01:33:47,610 way the English language functions the way the English language works, I'm not sure 1219 01:33:47,610 --> 01:33:51,430 that it's any better than anything else, languages describe reality as we see it we 1220 01:33:51,430 --> 01:33:57,390 see it I suppose most of the 414,812 words in the English language were there before 1221 01:33:57,390 --> 01:34:03,190 the scientific revolution no, 99.9 recurring of them were there before the 1222 01:34:03,190 --> 01:34:07,390 scientific revolution so that doesn't really prove much that ours was better 1223 01:34:07,390 --> 01:34:10,350 than theirs or anybody else's sir 1224 01:34:16,080 --> 01:34:23,080 oh dear I'll stop after this because I think I should would I comment on the 1225 01:34:23,080 --> 01:34:28,600 state of affairs after September the 11th gee whiz this is very very difficult as a 1226 01:34:28,600 --> 01:34:35,720 foreigner Europeans don't see it the same way you do and I'll ruffle feathers and 1227 01:34:35,720 --> 01:34:40,180 you've been so kind to look after me and you've been such good hosts that I feel 1228 01:34:40,180 --> 01:34:48,900 like a churl saying these things yes the rest of the world is has for many many 1229 01:34:48,900 --> 01:34:56,140 decades been appalled at your profligacy not not just the prof your profligacy 1230 01:34:56,140 --> 01:35:01,460 doesn't cause people to be poor and die of starvation and disease and malnutrition in 1231 01:35:01,460 --> 01:35:07,380 various parts of the world of course it doesn't that doesn't stop them thinking it 1232 01:35:07,380 --> 01:35:11,200 does you know as long as I can remember I never forget the first time I met 1233 01:35:11,200 --> 01:35:14,980 Americans when I was a young man at Oxford and my first impression was that they 1234 01:35:14,980 --> 01:35:20,000 threw things away and you're going to laugh at this but back in the early 60s we 1235 01:35:20,000 --> 01:35:25,120 didn't have you know when you pick up a glass with a napkin, a paper napkin we 1236 01:35:25,120 --> 01:35:28,680 didn't have paper napkins, nobody had them except you and I remember thinking good 1237 01:35:28,680 --> 01:35:32,680 grief you know we were given a drink at somebody's house an American household in 1238 01:35:32,680 --> 01:35:36,760 England and we were given these glasses with these paper things so we said what's 1239 01:35:36,760 --> 01:35:40,820 this for everybody was holding them because you didn't want the condensation 1240 01:35:40,820 --> 01:35:45,620 to make your hand cold or wet and we thought good god how effete how wonderful 1241 01:35:45,620 --> 01:35:52,760 you know and then people get another drink and throw it away now I now know that this 1242 01:35:52,760 --> 01:35:56,100 is a silly thing to think but back then I didn't, I thought this was extraordinary 1243 01:35:56,620 --> 01:36:01,700 multiply that a million times and you get close to the kind of you in some squatter 1244 01:36:01,700 --> 01:36:07,020 camp in the middle east about you and your culture and the luxury life you live and 1245 01:36:07,020 --> 01:36:13,400 the apparent lack of concern about the rest of the world and sometimes it's not 1246 01:36:13,400 --> 01:36:18,360 just apparent I was in Lincolnville Nebraska ten years ago and I met a very 1247 01:36:18,360 --> 01:36:22,120 nice woman the British film crew visiting, the mayor gave a party it was really kind 1248 01:36:22,120 --> 01:36:24,780 of all the people in the town to give us a party and a woman came up and said where 1249 01:36:24,780 --> 01:36:29,880 do you come from and I said London and she said which state is that and I said it's 1250 01:36:29,880 --> 01:36:36,600 not a state, it's in England and she said uh huh, which state is that and I think 1251 01:36:37,280 --> 01:36:42,880 that kind of is an absurd example of what the rest of the world sees you're very 1252 01:36:42,880 --> 01:36:49,780 rich and you're very you don't have to give a rat ass about the rest of us why 1253 01:36:49,780 --> 01:36:54,360 should you and in a way, if you closed your borders and said get on with it you 1254 01:36:54,360 --> 01:37:00,120 people, we don't care we'd kind of understand it because we're like that but 1255 01:37:00,120 --> 01:37:05,640 you are this incredible dichotomy, you are very rich very powerful and you 1256 01:37:05,640 --> 01:37:10,940 make all these caring noises and we don't know what to make of that because we 1257 01:37:10,940 --> 01:37:15,320 wouldn't I mean the British didn't do that they enslaved everyone and made them wear 1258 01:37:15,320 --> 01:37:20,720 wigs in their courts as I said so you're a very confusing bunch of people, 1259 01:37:20,840 --> 01:37:24,100 especially when you then say well we'll solve this problem with tomahawks that 1260 01:37:24,100 --> 01:37:33,440 really really confuses us so I think that so many people died on September the 11th, 1261 01:37:33,480 --> 01:37:37,780 I really hardly want to talk about it but if I have to, I have to say that in 1262 01:37:37,780 --> 01:37:42,560 Britain we have IRA bombs every two or three weeks and you know 5,000 people have 1263 01:37:42,560 --> 01:37:46,440 been killed in the last 30 years in my country, and you learn to live with it and 1264 01:37:46,440 --> 01:37:50,900 that's the way life is and maybe what happened was a wake up call in the sense 1265 01:37:50,900 --> 01:37:53,720 that for the first time you were experiencing what the rest of the world 1266 01:37:53,720 --> 01:37:58,920 has been too poor and too vulnerable to avoid and the rest of us have lived with 1267 01:37:58,920 --> 01:38:03,600 it it's a terrible thing to say and I apologize for it but I believe it to be 1268 01:38:03,600 --> 01:38:10,880 true if it means that we all start to think more about why these things occur 1269 01:38:10,880 --> 01:38:17,160 and go to the root causes which are almost always corruption and poverty those things 1270 01:38:17,160 --> 01:38:21,240 can be cured very easily you can poison the wells you can poison the wells out 1271 01:38:21,240 --> 01:38:27,540 there easily by giving them what they haven't got which is food and electricity 1272 01:38:28,120 --> 01:38:33,380 and above all information I was saying on that radio program a smoker in a few years 1273 01:38:33,380 --> 01:38:37,160 time cell phones will be so cheap you could parachute them into the rest of the 1274 01:38:37,160 --> 01:38:43,140 world and that will do it the minute those people I was in the eastern block before 1275 01:38:43,140 --> 01:38:47,500 the wall went down in eastern Germany the first time people started to be able to 1276 01:38:47,500 --> 01:38:51,140 see western German television, same language and the effect was 1277 01:38:51,140 --> 01:38:54,420 electrified and they never looked back that's all 140937

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