The Futures Foundation

In the past 100 years or so humans have begun to record their information in ways that require technologically mediated access. In some cases (e.g. celluloid film) this storage is in a format which can be directly comprehended, but most modern human information is stored in ways that can only be accessed by sophisticated technology using non-human senses. Thus, any analysis of information needs in the year 3000 must include analysis of the technology needed to make sense of such information. Even if required information is available in pristine form, if the technology needed to access it isn't available, then the information is useless.

Archeologists and anthropologists are convinced that there have been a number of cataclysms in human history which have resulted in a loss of what was relatively common knowledge. Many science fiction writers have similarly explored the consequences of knowledge lost through trauma, and the huge cost to society of re-acquiring this knowledge.

So, for me, the paramount thing we need to know in order to survive for the next 1,000 years is the scope of our present knowledge. That human beings once knew, for example, how to harness steam to produce power is critical to inspiring future generations, even if the actual technology to produce a steam engine (and its many derivatives) is lost. There is plenty of evidence throughout history of parallel discoveries or inventions, once a fundamental possibility had been revealed, but it is hard to conceive of something if one doesn't even know that it is possible. The first thing we need to know is that we once knew.

Secondly, we need to continuously know some fundamental properties of matter, of ourselves and of our universe. Losing knowledge of the periodic table and the gross structure of matter, for example, would be disastrous for our capacity to shape our environment to meet our needs. Similarly, losing fundamental knowledge of our biology would increase hugely the risks to life and longevity. And knowledge of our place in the universe is essential to ward off a return to the sorts of mythological interpretations which delayed societal development in the past.

Thirdly, I contend we need to continuously know how to harness energy for human use. As animals we lack the ability to directly convert sunlight, air and water into energy and regressing to harnessing only available plants and animals would be a survival disaster. Current human knowledge includes a variety of simple (and complex) ways of harnessing energy for our use - from lighting and sustaining fire to pumping ground water and harvesting seeds. Loss of this knowledge would greatly reduce our survival chances.

These then are the three broad categories of things we need to continuously know to the year 3000:

• that we now know how to do marvelous and apparently magical things

• the fundamental structure of ourselves and our world

• how to harness the energy we need.

On this we can re-create a viable civilization. Which brings me to the last question - how do we ensure that we continuously know these things?

Again I believe there are three imperatives. First, we need to be acutely aware of the importance of multiple redundancy - having the same information dispersed widely and in multiple forms. Under the influence of economics and business, the Western world has become very skeptical of anything that appears unnecessary or redundant. Modern business and government have streamlined into single lines of communication with a minimum of organizational layers.

Nature on the other hand recognizes the criticality of redundancy in ensuring survival, particularly after a crisis. Humans have two eyes, ears and kidneys where one is sufficient, and produce millions of sperm in a single ejaculation; and many biological pathways have at least two viable routes to achieving their outcomes.

This apparent redundancy is critical in a crisis - natural systems frequently demonstrate a resilience not often evident in systems created by humans. Putting one's eggs in one basket is simply not a smart survival strategy. Concentrating information and knowledge in a few minds is not a successful survival strategy - every acorn and every sperm contains enough information to seed their next generation. We can have no idea in advance of a crisis which particular individuals will survive. Distributing fundamental information to the widest possible number is the most intelligent survival strategy we can follow.

For human beings this means at very least ensuring that every adult is numerate and can read and write. It also means ensuring everyone knows where to access information critical to their survival. But the third imperative is more problematical. Survival after a crisis requires being quickly able to recreate what was present (and desirable) prior to the crisis. Nature has created self-replicating molecules which achieve this task by ensuring that each generation contains within it the capacity to create its successors. And, fortunately, human beings are a product of nature, and each subsequent generation is virtually guaranteed the genetic pre-requisites for language, consciousness and intelligence. Human systems have some distance to go to achieve this level of self-replicability - though bio- and nano-technological developments hint at their future potential.

We will not guarantee our collective ability to survive until the self-replicability of environmental information is as reliable as its genetic cousins. We already know all we need to know to ensure our survival as a species to the year 3000. Whether we can avoid self-destruction in the meantime is another question.

Our remaining challenges are the gaining of sufficient wisdom to recognize that each human is as important as any other with respect to survival of the species; and the development of information systems which are capable of self-replicating human created information.