Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2023 March 21

= March 21 =

Present as future-of-past vs. past-of-future
In 1901, would people have said that Wikipedia will be invented 100 years in the future? No.

But in 2101, would people say that Wikipedia was invented 100 years ago? Yes.

So, does it make more sense to think of the present as the past of the future than as the future of the past? Today's technology could then end up in a future history book (past-of-future), but would not have been predicted in the past (future-of-past). GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 04:15, 21 March 2023 (UTC)


 * The question appears to be asking for opinions, which is not what we do here. --174.89.12.187 (talk) 11:13, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It also makes the assumption that one excludes the other. If you walk down the road, are you ahead of what's behind you are are you behind of what's in front of you? Can you be both? Of course you can. It isn't an either-or situation. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 11:27, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Mark the spot where you stand with an × . Do a step to the left. Now the × is on your right. Or make instead a step to the right. Then the × will be on your left. Now, while standing on the ×, ponder this question: does it make more sense to think of the spot where you stand as being to the right of the left, or is it better to view it as to the left of the right? --Lambiam 18:43, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * "It's just a jump to the left . . ." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 5.64.160.67 (talk) 00:58, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Appropriate in context. —Tamfang (talk) 06:50, 25 March 2023 (UTC)


 * In 1901, would people have said that Wikipedia will be invented 100 years in the future? No.
 * As surprising as it sounds, these ideas were very much in circulation during the fin de siècle. Peter Seele at the University of Lugano: "This era before the Great War starting in 1914 was characterized by euphoric ‘futurism’ based on groundbreaking innovations like ‘long distance messaging’, ‘penny post’, ‘animated films’, Ford’s assembly line, ‘Olivetti typewriter’, ‘feature film’, ‘large ships’ and ‘air transportation’…". A close approximation to what the Internet and Wikipedia might be like in the future can be found in Forster’s The Machine Stops (1909), with the warning to "beware of first-hand ideas" and to "let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible, tenth-hand" sounding very much like WP:NOR. According to Seele, the book "anticipates technological innovations like the internet, social media, video telephones and the compartmentalization of society a century before they became reality."  Furthermore, it is said that many of the precursors to these ideas eventually becoming manifest were anticipated by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the 17th century. "Leibniz was groping towards hardware and software concepts worked out much later by Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, 1830-45… He called for the creation of an empirical database as a means of furthering all the sciences. His characteristica universalis, calculus ratiocinator, and a 'community of minds'—intended, among other things, to bring political and religious unity to Europe—can be seen as distant unwitting anticipations of artificial languages (e.g., Esperanto and its rivals), symbolic logic, even the World Wide Web." See also the Belle Époque, "an era of great scientific and technological advancement in Europe and the world in general" that took place from around 1871 to 1914. Viriditas (talk) 08:07, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * So what you appear to say is that the answer to the question "does it make more sense to think of the present as the past of the future?" is "no", since (in the presentation in the OP) in that view today's technology would not have been predicted in the past, whereas it was. But this does not imply the other view makes more sense, since it is rather predictable that future history books (if books still exist) will describe cryptocurrency and credit default swaps as inventions of the past. --Lambiam 09:03, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I don’t mean to sidestep your question, but I agree with 12.116.29.106 up above, in that both are possible, and I find it quite enjoyable to play around with such ideas in my mind. The more important question that everyone is asking right now is whether the future can influence the past.  That’s way beyond my pay grade, I’m afraid, but I’m certainly interested in the answer. Viriditas (talk) 09:37, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * We have an article about the B-theory of time, if you want. Card Zero  (talk) 07:31, 23 March 2023 (UTC)