PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

11. FORECASTING DESTINY
in 1991 provoked an ominous rise in the price of oil, but it did not last
more than a few weeks. An energy-price hike like the one of 1981, lasting
many months or years, is a periodic phenomenon and, according to
the fifty-six-year economic cycle, is not expected to happen again before
well into the twenty-first century.
The energy system worked well even when energy prices skyrocketed
in 1865, 1920, and 1981. On these occasions there was some
economic impact, but it interfered minimally with the functioning of
society. The trends in satisfying energy needs show no noticeable deviations
at the time of the price hikes (see Figure 8.3); the trajectories are
stable and therefore predictable.
We often hear that the future is not predictable. This statement if unqualified
contradicts the fact that no one packs an umbrella for a
summer vacation in Greece, and even more so the fact that it was possible
to predict the time of lunar landings within seconds. The correct
statement is “The future is not predictable with infinite precision,” and
the reason is that prediction involves calculation, which entails handling
information, which requires energy. To make a prediction with more
and more precision requires more and more energy, and becomes impossible
beyond a certain level. This is not a reference to Werner
Heizenberg’s celebrated uncertainty principle which postulates that it is
impossible to specify an object’s location and momentum—or energy
and time—with unlimited precision. Trying to predict global energy
needs by tracking down the energy consumption of each individual is
similar to trying to predict gas pressure in a vessel by tracking individual
molecules. Both processes involve calculations that run into energy
problems despite today’s powerful computers. Computers are after all
inefficient in their use of energy. 8
Wasteful Computers
The Central Processing Unit (CPU) of a computer—its brain—uses
electricity to handle information. The amount of electricity it uses may
be negligible compared to other machines or even to its peripherals:
printers, terminals, and so forth. The amount of work it does is also
very small. It manipulates bits of information. Information can be
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