PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

3. INANIMATE PRODUCTION LIKE ANIMATE REPRODUCTION
portional to the amount of the resource left. The simplest natural-growth
pattern is a symmetric one.
The same pattern can clarify why and when chain-letter activities
break down. A chain letter demands that each recipient send out a number
of letters, usually more than two. If this number is ten, the
population of letters grows exponentially, but faster than the number of
projectiles in the above story, because in each step it is multiplied by ten
instead of two. We will successively see 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000, and
so forth, letters being mailed. The chain will start breaking down as soon
as the number of letters becomes significant when compared to the
number of potential participants.
The bacteria in the bowl of soup can be viewed both as a population
and as an organism. The size of living organisms. from trees to humans,
is related to the size of the cell populations that make them up. Cells
multiply simply by dividing into two. Thus, the size of organisms grows
exponentially in the beginning, but their growth is subject to a limitation,
the genetically predetermined final height. Can it be predicted?
DO NOT TRY TO FORECAST WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW
Genetic predetermination makes prediction possible. An African American
couple can forecast the skin color of their baby with high confidence
even if, in such situations, we prefer words less loaded than “forecast,”
“confidence,” and “genetic predetermination.”
• • •
“What do you do at work, Dad?” my daughter asked me
one day.
Having been working on forecasting, I wondered if at the
age of ten she knew what the word meant. “I tell the future,” I
answered.
“You can do that?” she wondered in disbelief.
“For things that are growing, I can tell how big they will
eventually be,” I replied.
“Well, I’m growing,” she said. “Can you tell how tall I
will be?”
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