Part 19
31 August 1997
Learning from the Lessons of the Future
As we gradually begin at last to find our way past the
C-prompt sign, into the human brain:
We’ve found one type of format or "software program"
to be especially useful for solving a wide range of problems, and for
creating new designs, innovations and inventions. The "main menu" of this
software involves visiting, in imagination, an advanced world a la
science fiction, to make observations "there" that are useful to you "back
here."
Absolutely necessary to this format is your describing
aloud, to a live listener or tape recorder (as potential listener),
every detail that you can observe or bring yourself to notice. This
describing-as-you-go, and this format, gives your subtler brain resources
a very effective way to make known to you the designs, devices, answers,
and even advanced scientific discoveries which "work."
Jean Houston’s "Exploratory Anthropology" procedure
(from Mind Games) is a direct ancestor to our present
futures-visiting methods, but lacked (as did all her wonderful mind games)
this concurrent describing-aloud feature which is so essential to
development of the vision in each instance.
Also essential is to put aside the stereotypes and
other expectations you might have, relevant to your area of investigation,
before hopping over into that imagined future world. Let yourself be
surprised by what comes up in the imagination or vision. Surprise is the
indication that you are reaching beyond your conveniently loud (but
narrowly focussed) verbal left brain and into your subtler
reaches.
For example: during a workshop we were conducting back
in 1977, during the energy crisis, one kid wanted to find a cheap source
of energy. Along the way he also wanted to see futuristic cities and
vistas. To his surprise and disappointment he found himself to be instead
in what seemed to be an ordinary cow pasture, nothing else in view or
vista except a fringe of trees to one side of that pasture. Worse, he kept
stumbling over trailing cables....
Persuaded-upon to go on with his describing-aloud,
despite his surprise and disappointment the kid finally focussed on those
pesky trip-over cables. These led to that fringe of trees. The trees were
so rigged that every time the wind moved them, they tugged along guywires
or cables at one-way ratchets, which in turn drove little generators like
old-fashioned car generators or telephone generators.
That looks to be a highly appropriate way to power
hard-to-reach unelectrified rural regions. Beyond that: using trees as
nature’s already-built windmills might indeed present an economical source
of power. The sense was that a modest woodlot could power a neighborhood;
a small forest put enough power into the net to supply a small city’s
worth of consumption - certainly in the windier stretches of the
country.
That system may or may not prove to be economical. The
point is, though, that you need to set aside your expectations as to how
things "ought to be," and let yourself be surprised by what actually comes
up in your imagination or vision. No way could have that kid have come up
with the "nature’s windmills" invention had he clung to his
expectations.
The third essential is to actually
notice what’s happening in your imagination or vision and
report that out in your describing.
Train THAT faculty to notice things, and you’ll be far
better able to notice things "here" in the "real world" as well. For
example, millions of Americans have visited Stockholm on tour or business.
Not one has ever brought back with him for use here, any version of
Stockholm’s traffic signal control system, which uses auditory cues
along with the visual lights to direct Stockholm’s pedestrian-encumbered
streets. The system is at least a half century old. Set up in most
American cities, that same system or approach could be saving hundreds of
American lives a year.
But no one has noticed, except persons practicing the
"futures-visiting" process which trains one to
notice......
Nor have any Americans noticed the Swedish use of
hot-water feedpipes into bathrooms. Those hot water pipes are exposed as
finished towel racks, adding a touch of real luxury at no cost. Some
builders here in America could make a bundle if anyone noticed
this.
We spend incredible sums in America on retirement
homes and communities; these now competing rather ruthlessly with
one-another. How many Americans have been in Italy? How many Americans are
or have been musicians? Near the start of this century, Giuseppe Verdi
began a successful retirement home for musicians, which is still going.
The sensibilities of a lifetime, built up during a career in classical
music, or a career in art, or a career in various types of
writing----these sensibilities are not easily surrendered. Other things
equal, I imagine that such arts-specialized retirement homes and
communities could be extremely successful here in the States - if anyone
noticed!
To say nothing of the European nickel-cadmium battery
which ran for a half-century without any American or American firm
noticing it or exploiting it.
If you practice noticing what you are noticing, in
these visits-in-imagination, you start noticing all sorts of things here
in "the real world" - and some of these might be very beneficial or
profitable..
--And much of what you view in your own inner vision
may prove profitable as well! Take a good look at some of these visions
following below which were not gotten, for the most part, by our
invention-seeking procedures which might be expected to be productive of
such things. These following visions were incidental by-products from
other kinds of excursion into "the future" or from simple Image-Streaming.
If you use our futures-visiting procedure next time you can expect to run
across - if you notice them as they are happening! - your own such
visions of possibly useful products and developments and designs. Of the
following visions: are there any you are (1) clever enough, and (2)
situated to be able to, turn some of the following to gold?
Incidental By-products of Einsteinian-type "Visits
to the Future:"
In our various "excursions into the future,"
especially with the procedures we've published in the new book
DISCOVERING THE OBVIOUS: Techniques of Original, Inspired Scientific Discovery, Technical
Invention, and Innovation: in search of inventions, answers and other
matters, we've necessarily run across a wide variety of both architectural
and landscaping features. Some of these were attractive and some not. Some
of these are easier than others to describe. Any architect, any
landscaper, any design engineer who decides to use these inner-vision
procedures to find rewarding new design principles and designs themselves,
will be endlessly rewarded. At a layman's level, let us cite a very few
examples of what came up, not as result even of search for these, but as
incidentals in support of the context of the various "futures" through
which we were digging for various answers.
Breezegarden
--a garden planted with weeping willow, birch, wild
cherry, aspen, other trees and shrubbery whose willowy branches and fronds
move very responsively to even the slightest breeze.
Greenblocks
--densely populated suburbia which looks like nothing
but rolling countryside. In most areas, the houses are lowset and screened
by smallish trees; section by section of the neighborhood is screened by
shrubbery. Some sections of taller houses are screened by larger trees.
Effect: viewed from any distance at any near-horizontal angle, you see
what seems to be rolling wooded hills and fields. Streets are hedged and
curve. It's as if you were out in the fresh countryside on some road,
neighbors to each side of you; theirs and your own house and the road the
only artifacts in this densely populated bucolic-seeming setting.
Supporting this effect are low ridges crossing over the region at
intervals (perhaps to enclose utilities), 3-6 feet high and crowned by
hedges or shrubbery to provide additional greenery screening in support of
the bucolic illusion.
NJ Blocks
--Where the town is run-down and the air polluted but
people still have to live. Enclose entire blocks with ionized-and-filtered
ventilation in this manner. The four to sixteen homes maintain a common
wall to the street, and surround the rim of the block, like a
Mediterranean great house surrounds an interior garden and patio. The
whole is roofed over, possibly with glass, plastic or some sort of
translucent panelling for part of the diurnal lighting, but airtight for
the integrity of the ventilation system. Part of the open interior is
commons to preserve a feeling of space; shrubbery partially delimits
individual private areas. The housing of the common ventilation system
and/or other utilities backs up to the chimney of the house which has the
fireplaces, and also has mounted on it a deluxe barbecue pit with
forced-draft automatic flue. The rest of the commons is an attractive
yard/garden combination. Parking is on street.
Secure Blocks
--Similar to above but in crime-ridden regions, with
these adaptations: the above is up one floor. Ground-floor is small shops
as in a shopping mall, a return in that sense to older midtowns where
responsible owners are present at all times--by day in the shops, by night
in the homes or apartments, and are in fact encouraged to be "snoopy
neighbors." Residential parking is in an interior, ground-floor or
underground garage with security videos and one entrance, manned by
security guard. Outside that one guarded entrance, there are no
street-side exterior alcoves or recesses convenient for loitering or
covert activities, and corners-mounted videos survey all four fronts. Yet
internal living is spacious, clean, secure, and essentially as private as
in the better residential suburbs.
Some of this writer's visions were influenced by
having read, long ago, R. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House
autobiography, which helps account for these two following--
Forest Spread
--Suspend hearty cable between 2, 3, 4 or more stout
trees, ends of such cable anchored in suspended heavy concrete blocks or
other weights. Suspend a network of lighter cables over the heavier cable.
Mount, above and below the cablework, layers of transparent or translucent
fabric. The airspace between the layers is ventilated and provides thermal
insulation. Thus enclose, for slight cost, a huge residential space most
sectors of which, visually and by psychological feel, it becomes difficult
to tell what's outside and what's inside. A ground-floor
kitchen-and-utilities core supports balconied second-floor bedrooms and/or
a multi-purpose open platform still with plenty of spacious headroom
beneath the overhead canopy. The part of this "living acre" which fronts
the main approach to this spread can be facaded to look more conventional
(until neighbors and mortgage holders get used to such designs), the wall
of which contains most of the storage spaces. This "glorified tent" can
easily encompass 3-5 times as much livingspace as a conventionally built
house of the same cost, and be far more pleasant to live in. Without
trees, the same structure can be accomplished with strong poles supporting
the initial strongest cables--but without forest around, the eventual
results wouldn't be nearly so much fun or pleasant. The interior
furnishing of this "living acre" should, for the most part, help support
the illusion of being unseparated from the woodland outside.
Buildowns--
Another way of escaping from the 20th Century's
disease of having endlessly to look at one-another's walls. This one might
have been instigated in some futures by shifting property tax bases, from
corruptible estimates of market value, to the amount of above-ground cubic
space enclosed. Many versions and sizes of buildown have been seen, the
counterpart of tall apartment complexes and office buildings only dug in
around a common opening like an amphitheater, only with attractive
balconies and promenades instead of row seats. From outside, one sees
unspoiled countryside or pleasant, low-lying cottage-type effects. In some
of these visions, there is one common "pit" perhaps an acre or half-acre,
with trees, shrubbery, garden, recreational or leisure areas. In other
such visions the "pits" and buildings are linked by a major thoroughfare
which is strongly screened by greenery and baffle from the garden areas.
Entire cities can be "trenched" out in this way, leaving nearly the entire
countryside unspoiled or modestly suburban. Both drainage and ventilation
pumps are powered in excess of need, and have independent power units for
back-up, secure against almost any emergency.
Riverbankery
Where a river has cut fairly deeply. Residential
and/or mixed light commercial/recreational complexes, dug into offsetting
areas of the riverbank. Natural riverbank, hanging garden, restored
riverbank, natural or artificial waterfalls, and forest are what's
opposite each complex and, together with the river itself, is all that is
in view from each river-fronting such complex. Topside service areas are
carefully arranged to maintain recreational and leisure commons
overlooking the scenic sectors of the river and opposite riverbank.
Grotto House
Single-household version of "Buildowns." Dig a
20-or-so foot deep hole, bottomed by a sunken garden and pond or pool,
walled with trailing greenery, waterfall, other effects. Wrap the
much-balconied house around half to 2/3 of the hole to make an
exceptionally pleasant grotto space for living.
Lightslabs
--for non-load-bearing interior walls and as
insulating decoration on load-bearing walls. Very, very light-weight; in
some visions seen literally as inflated like balloons, though it was not
clear in instances checked thus far how pressures were maintained for the
long run. In other instances pressures could be deliberately let out as
part of a remodelling or moving process, then restored in the new setting.
Other slabs would be like bubbled plastic or styrofoam, but lined
permanently smooth, and colorful. Some, translucent, would be internally
lit. Some of these would backlight a panel diorama or hologram which gave
good illusion of a window looking out on some excellent scenery.
Treetops
Whether a commercial restaurant or businessplace, a
classroom, or even a livingroom, everything is in little platforms at
different levels, with greenery, so arranged as for everything to appear
to be little alcoves and platforms up in some great tree. When
experienced, this seems to yield a great deal of at least atavistic
satisfaction, a very attractive effect.
Space Habitats
From even before the time we developed these
techniques and programs, we knew that the popular notion of large scale
space habitats as rotating cylinders needed to be amended to idea of
concentric cylinders realizing still greater economies-to-scale,
per person and absolutely, and providing greater security to its
inhabitants. Not all shells have to be at one gee. Realization in 1992
that only about 2/3 of the ship would be these concentric shells and 1/4
to 1/3 would be huge cylindrical open space, providing visual and
psychological relief for its inhabitants while still substantially
realizing aforementioned economies-to-scale.
One vision showed yours truly a popular way of getting
around inside such large-scale rotating cylindrical spaces will be by
glorified pogo stick; wasn't sure about jet assist although the math seems
to call for it. Have not yet read any S-F story envisioning people
boinging around all over the place across the rotating space by these
glorified pogo-sticks, so it seems to be an original
vision...
Jovian Mine
First seen--a "Y." Top part of "Y" on closer
inspection a broad saucer, dirigible and supporting a small colony. Tail
of "Y" a long, LONG stovepipe drawing up matter from far deeper in the
gas-planet's atmosphere, for processing. Automatic anchor boats outride on
tether, at nearly the level of the inhabited dirigible-supported saucer,
for added stability when and if turbulence further down reaches up to this
level. Skimmer-jets ram-jet in hydrogen to climb from mine to near-space
pick-up; conventional atmospheric breaking for the return voyage, with
inflatable dirigible capability for flying around if miss the landing web.
Ending Hunger
by sea farms: pump air down to sea bottom to bubble
up--usually by solar power, though differential currents, differential
temperatures, or even waves can be a source of the needed power for the
pumps. Bubbling air up from bottom (1) oxygenates the water and (2) brings
up minerals to enrich the sea water, creating a rich habitat for fish. One
such farm could provide 2-3% of the world's protein needs: one
standard-sized GM auto plant could if desired turn out 100 or more
complete such farms per year. Addressing distribution issues is another
problem, including the livelihood of those providing current sources of
protein in the world market. Note that 2/3 of Earth's oceans at the
present time are essentially desert, very low in biomass production and
support; most of this desert is over depths which are suited for such
farming.
Hybrid Vehicles
--Most notably, semi-dirigible helicopters, seen in
several futures as the "family car." Low-flying, slow, light, can't fall,
worst it can do is only to drift if its power fails; following radar/radio
beacons like roads; low-powered and fuel efficient. No more traffic
problems: just mount another beacon-channel to fly through between widely
spaced poles; safety overrides force drift-down with distress beacon if
leave pre-programmed channel or power fails. Wind and storm warning
provisions built into override system. If drifts down onto water, will
float indefinitely. Emergency anchors and anchor for normal tethering when
onsite.
Going beyond these envisionings to detailed, workable
inventions and true scientific discoveries: see DISCOVERING THE OBVIOUS: Techniques of Original,
Inspired Scientific Discovery, Technical Invention, and Innovation,
details posted at the Project Renaissance website, or you can inquire by email to Win Wenger. A much
shorter work is a kit for hosting a party whose central feature,
for all that these are effective, serious techniques for viewing and
learning from the future, by procedures like "Over-the-Wall" published
recently in this column, are offered as an entertainment. Let your guests
come in for fun, and unexpectedly discover that they can forecast (or
invent, or problem-solve, or many other things) with uncanny accuracy.
Right now this "Futures Prediction Party Kit" is in hardcopy for $4.95 +
$2 mailing costs but we plan soon to have the whole kit as a FREE
downloadable at the Project Renaissance website. We will meanwhile,
and soon, publish one of the procedures from this Kit in this column so
YOU, like your guests, discover some of what you can do with
uncanny accuracy.
|
