Want to Know the Biggest Secret of All - There Aren't Any

Humans are curious by nature, actually all up-right walking primates tend to be curious, and that shouldn't surprise anyone. Nor should it surprise anyone to learn that any good book publisher that publishes nonfiction books will tell you that the word "secret" in the title of the book will help it sell more copies. There is something that is alluring to the fact that there is a secret, something we don't know about, that makes us all too curious to go and find out. Religions use this tactic to recruit individuals to their flock, and marketers use it to sell products and services.

Still, it's used so often, and there are so few secrets in the information age that the chances of you learning a real secret are slim to none. That is to say, sure you might learn something that you don't know, but it's hardly a secret. And there are many more information outlets to discover the exact same information, usually for free. It's even more so than it ever has been in the past because all of mankind's information and knowledge is now online on the Internet. With billions of people connected to this massive communication system the concept of keeping secrets will someday be a thing of the past.

What I am trying to say is the biggest secret of all; is that there really are no secrets, that is to say no important secrets. Yes there is undiscovered information, and there are some things that humans don't yet know about physics, but I guarantee you someday in the future our artificially intelligent supercomputers, along with our scientists will discover all that information as well. I'm sure you've heard the phrase; Unlocking the Secrets of the Universe. There are no secrets in physics - there are only challenges in the observational abilities, and the limits to the devices that we presently have to do the viewing.

There are no secrets to our world, no one is purposely trying to hide anything of any huge magnitude, just silly little things, that don't amount to a hill of beans anyway. Luckily humans are a curious bunch, and they were to seek out information they do not know. However, with over 7 billion people on the planet now - the chances of anyone secret escaping all of mankind in the past, present, and off into the future is highly unlikely.

Therefore you should always realize that the biggest secret of all is; there aren't any real secrets anymore. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it. If you have any comments, concerns, and/or philosophical questions please shoot me an e-mail.

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes writing 24,222 articles by July 22, 2011 at 2:22 PM is going to be difficult because all the letters on his keyboard are now worn off now..

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Is There Really Free-Will and Can Human Psychologists One Day Predict Human Behavior?

Is it possible that someday a supercomputer can predict all of your choices that you will make from the time you are born until the time you die based on your genetic code and DNA? And if so how close can they actually get, and how much random chance will shake up that prediction. Is it impossible to know - or is it possible that someone's entire life could be foretold? And with that said if you can predict the life of one individual, could you indeed predict the life of 7 billion humans on the planet?

That is to say predict how they will interact, and all the events that could possibly occur? Theoretically, and here is where we get into a bit of philosophy, the answer is probably yes. Now that's certainly going to bother a good number of people who believe in free will, and it bothers me even bringing up the topic. You see I believe in freedom and liberty, and I intend to live my life as if I am free. But am I? Are you?

It might sound a bit cliche'ish to invoke the example of the Hollywood Movie "Minority Report" as it seems someone always is, but indeed, it was a very decent movie with an on-going moral dilemma of free-will versus a Calvanistic view of the world. Nevertheless, last week I was having an interesting dialogue with an overseas acquaintance about the ability of modern day psychologists predicting future behavior.

We do it all the time in our society, we call it profiling. We do it at our airports, and our State Department, Military, CIA, etc, does it in sizing up those individuals we must deal with. It seems quite possible that our ability to predict the weather is getting much better with supercomputers, so indeed at sometime in the future we should be able to predict human behavior, and human choices based on the individual in certain circumstances. And we should be up to do this somewhere within the 99.99 percentile.

Does that mean we should?

After all, there could be some serious benefits if we can predict such things, and we would be able to prevent terrorism, and violent acts. We could use this to protect the American people, and prevent or reduce crime. However if we do this, what will we give up? Will we give up our freedom and liberty in the process? Will we dismiss free will as an underlining principle which guides our system of laws and society?

Yes, this is all just philosophy, but in the end we will have choices to make as our artificially intelligent supercomputer systems become more robust and our understanding of algorithmic prediction and mathematical proximity reaches that ultimate plateau. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it. If you'd like discussing such matters then please shoot me an e-mail, my line is always open.

Lance Winslow is the Founder of the Online Think Tank, a diverse group of achievers, experts, innovators, entrepreneurs, thinkers, futurists, academics, dreamers, leaders, and general all around brilliant minds. Lance Winslow hopes you've enjoyed today's discussion and topic. http://www.worldthinktank.net/ - Have an important subject to discuss, contact Lance Winslow.

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