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{\title Uno Svedin}{\author Carole Crumley}{\operator Carole Crumley}{\creatim\yr2006\mo5\dy21\hr9\min51}{\revtim\yr2006\mo5\dy21\hr9\min51}{\version2}{\edmins1}{\nofpages4}{\nofwords2122}{\nofchars12101}{\*\company  }{\nofcharsws14195}{\vern16437}}
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 SEQ CHAPTER \\h \\r 1}}{\fldrslt }}{\fs24\insrsid11285273 Uno Svedin
\par 2005-06-18
\par Berlin
\par 
\par \tab In a Western perspective the view of time has a one-directional character.  We move from the past, stay at the present now and move towards the not yet arrived \'93future.\'94
  There is also a reflection in our languages in terms of attaching different \'93tenses\'94 to these time segments: \'93past,\'94  \'93present,\'94 and \'93future\'94
 tense.  In fact in many Western languages we have several subdivisions of the past tense as we in some languages also have variations in how the future tense can be expressed.  Thus we have the time line in front of us in its visual representation:

\par 
\par \tab ________________________ _______\\/___________________________________
\par }\pard \ql \fi-7920\li7920\ri0\nowidctlpar\tx720\tx1440\tx2160\tx2880\tx3600\tx4320\tx5040\tx5760\tx6480\tx7200\tx7920\faauto\rin0\lin7920\itap0 {\fs24\insrsid11285273 \tab PAST\tab \tab \tab \tab \tab NOW\tab \tab \tab \tab \tab FUTURE
\par }\pard \ql \li0\ri0\nowidctlpar\faauto\rin0\lin0\itap0 {\fs24\insrsid11285273 
\par \tab It is interesting to note that the scientific world has devoted itself strongly to the past in terms of man
ifested events; in social sciences e.g., history, the object is something that has happened and not something in the future that has not happened.  The very backward looking nature of the endeavor is one of its characteristics.  But having said that, ther
e are already variations in views about this.  One of the German schools of the theory of history states its mission as \'93Wie es egeuttich gewese\'94 (how it \lquote really was\rquote 
).  That is a sort of mission to hammer out an object already starting to decay on our contemporary possibility to know \'93how it once really was.\'94
  The historical time based mist has already surrounded the potential object and made it fuzzy.  But according to this view the object is there somewhere.  It is \'93only\'94 to reconstruct its presence as br
inging a pot of clay out of its middenness on the earth.  In a sense you could talk about a materialization of events in order to freeze them as captured and dead butterfly on its pin in a glass box at a museum of natural history.
\par \tab In natural science also the objects of the past are the legitimate ones.  The sequence of sediments could be dug out of the ground.  They are there and could be further interpreted in more detail.  A statistical sample of CO}{
\fs24\super\insrsid11285273 2}{\fs24\insrsid11285273  locked in a Greenland ice core is just there in existe
nce and could be translated in time from the past to the present in order to be measured NOW.  The empirical method aims at doing exactly that.  There may be a period of planning of an experiment that now belongs to the past, but the actualization of meas
urement happens \'93now\'94 when everything is prepared for it and the event can be trapped.  The interpretation may then, in a cooler and slower pace, be referred to happen in the future, but always in the end encompassing \'93now\'94
 measure moments, some of which had to be prepared by earlier \'93moment-mining\'94 as the case of the CO}{\fs24\super\insrsid11285273 2}{\fs24\insrsid11285273  locked in the ice core of Greenland 10,000 years ago.
\par \tab This approach also connects to ideas of ways how to verify scientifically what is happening, i.e., connecting a time-independent thoug
ht model (more or less mathematized), e.g., about how apples may fall from Newton trees by constantly rechecking such assumptions (\'93theory\'94
) against ever new empirical tests of various forms.  According to the current view of natural science procedure, a m
odel (i.e., idea of how the world is constructed independently of when it is checked) can only be refuted by new empirical evidence, not once and for all \lquote cleared\rquote  as \lquote right\rquote  or forever mirroring \'93truth.\'94
  Thus in the future may lie dormant new tests that may to varying degrees change earlier perceptions on causality connections (\'93theoretical position\'94) based on only past objects\rquote  experiences. 
\par \tab How different is not the objects of the future treated.  They have not happened yet so they are not legitimate ob
jects of such scientific enquiries.  In an institutional secse futures studies may then in this perspective not belong to the realm of science activities, nor have its seat in institutions connected to such endeavors (such as universities).  However, ther
e is something strange going on here.  In most sciences copied on the physics ethos the \'93prognosis\'94
 from the available theoretical understand about something that has not happened yet that which may be trapped in the future through a clever experimental des
ign is high on the list of what scientific endeavors is about.  This prognosis would in the best of worlds (and right now disregarding various uncertainties) \endash implicit or explicit\endash 
non reducible or reducible) indicate a future demanding test occation of the theoretical understanding of some lives (in comparison with some other compelling of \lquote older\rquote  understanding).  The test of Einstein\rquote 
s theory of general relativity (and the curved space) by checking on the planet Mercury\rquote s appearance close to the sun (to be
 checked when the sun is hidden behind the moon disc in an eclipse out of measurement practiced reasons) illuminates this case.  The projected understanding of how things are connected takes you into the future when Mercury either is visible or not visibl
e at the edge of the sun.  And depending on when and where it appears when that future moment of check just by waiting long enough for it to turn into a NOW-moment the perceived understanding of natural law can still one time be checked.
\par \tab But there are othe
r examples.  By using the knowledge from the past on climate issues, and by upgrading that knowledge to a coherent theory, and by still further projecting the model predictions into the future, a certain probabilistic window can be designed about future m
ore or less likely future events.  (This is of course the story of the climate change prognosis machinery and its connectivity to issues about degrees of consensus among leading experts covering a wide range of relevant fields\emdash 
and the possibility to give ad
vice on actions both convering mitigations versions if you think you can change conditions for something not to happen at least to the extent provided by the prognosis image; or adaptation activities if the event itself seems difficult to manipulate and i
t only remains to contemplate adaptive responses).
\par \tab In these few examples we see that the serculifre activity (in a natural science sense) move in all three segments of time, but with different functions allocated to the various segments.
\par \tab In quantum mechan
ics the possibility to transform a potential future event (electron I hits detector A and not detector B) is intrinsically limited to a probabalistic statement.  (The chance of it hitting A is 3 times greater than hitting B).  But when the future possible
 
event manifests itself in the present tense ie NOW the probability distribution collapses and we know fully that the electron hits detector B.  And soon enough it is a historical record that soon will be diluted by the normal uncertainties if not the reco
rd keeping is kept very alert.  Otherwise the risk of the \lquote ants eating the books with the records\rquote 
 is evident.  You could also see it in a thermodynamical statistics sense that the erosion of the knowledge is bound to evolve.  The soundwaves of the clap of 
two hands moves immediately in all directions out from the centre of the clap event.  And if you have not made prior 
\par \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab Efforts to manifest a record it is very difficult to \lquote go out there\rquote  in the universe and collects the remnants of the sound event.  So
metimes ltorf of might be possible to some event as when the very low temperature variations emerging from the first big bang has been possible to measure without any measuring devices was put up just when the Big Bang happened (which would of course have
 been extremely surprising!).
\par \tab These mitial reflections show that even with a Western perspective the charistics of three time frames are not that simple as a \lquote everyday\rquote  \lquote in the sheets\rquote  understanding might indicate.
\par \tab In other cutting, eg in cultures strongly influenced by Buddhism the main distinction is between the NOW (which is the causally ript moment to choose and act) and that which is \lquote not-now\rquote 
 i.e., the past (which causally already is gone and cannot be made an object of causal choice) and the future (whose causating possibilities not yet have materialized).  Also in still other cultures this differentiation between the two categories the 
\lquote NOW\rquote  and \lquote that which you do not know so much about and which is in the uncertainty haze\rquote  is the basis of language attribution to two (but not three) tenses.  You could call it the \lquote clear available tense\rquote  and the
\rquote tense of unclear grasp and hazyness.\rquote   This would open up for the picture
\par 
\par hazy A-----------now----------hazy B
\par 
\par \tab Interestingly enough this often opens up for quite another idea of time, i.e., a circular time in which the \lquote hazy A\rquote  (old in our terminology) and \lquote hazy B\rquote 
 (future in our terminology) are so similar in time that they connect at the level of increasing uncertainty.
\par 
\par 
\par 
\par Level of uncertainty\tab \tab future
\par \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab (trouble with this diagram)
\par \tab \tab \tab \tab NOW
\par \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab \tab 
\par \tab In such a perspective the work with objects that needs to be reconstructed in the past (up to the level that you do not even know if it has happened; Troy, before the key excavations and also the question did
 Odysseus or Atlantis really exist?) And the event objects of the future (will the CO}{\fs24\super\insrsid11285273 2}{\fs24\insrsid11285273 
 concentration reach 600 ppm in the year 2050) may be compared in lo.. Of differences and similarities.  These could then be other than that in the past events maybe perceived to have had an \lquote objective reality,\rquote 
 whereas the probability space of the future (with already no event yet emerging from that space) in the future would relevant to contemplate.  An example would be what is meant by reconstruction (or construction) of \lquote hazy events\rquote 
 by they probabalistic interpretations of social life in a stone age village based on \lquote objects\rquote  as a few stones and some chemical records of human activities.  What is meant by the reconstruction of the \lquote image\rquote 
 in this case in relation to the construction of the probability space for a temperature increase globally by 4 degrees C in the year 2070.
\par \tab \lquote Indications\rquote  means a sort of \lquote pointers\rquote  that are not sufficient to lock the entire picture 100%.  The degree of uncertainty in both the reconstru
ction of the old village life in the stone age setting or the degree of uncertainly in probabilistic progress of world temperature could be compared.  Are they similar or dis-similar in nature?  At a first level of understanding an image is constructed on
 
best available information which is incomplete.  This means that there are other final possibilities for outcomes of reconstructed reality.  In the stone age case it may not be able to get more information ever although advances in measuring technology ma
y improve future capacities eg food traces in stone axes etc.  In the climate case it might be difficult to reduce uncertainties under a certain level of \lquote interisidy irreducible uncertainty.\rquote 
  However, there might be a gap today between present model capaci
ties to outline the probability field of future conjectures and the level of irreducible uncertainly.  And in that window of potential improvement may come enhanced possibilities to paint a better (more prognostically trustworthy in a statistical outcome 
sense) image.
\par \tab Even images of events that have happened fairly recently (the event when the planet Mars was screened by satellite detectors) also have fuzziness involved (difficulties with resolutions; small shifts in measured values may cause big changes i
n actual interpretation) (errors, measurement uncertainties that need to be addressed in terms of computer programs that \lquote smooth\rquote 
 the images thus wis... higher levels of statistical means rather than a too blurred and un.. Details providing disest image \emdash  very difficult to interpret in \lquote understandable perception variables\rquote  as map like indications of \lquote 
mountains\rquote  and \lquote depressions\rquote  and even nil..prelations of more complex nature i.e. possible water availability extracting from the morphological similarities to \lquote rivers\rquote 
 on the Earth topography which is highly know in realtion to these Mars objects).
\par \tab So relationships to uncertainties and the reconstruction principles needed may be compared in an interesting way.  The further use of \lquote probabilistically constructed
 or reconstructed imageries (with still remaining degrees of interpretative subjectivities connected to them) in an action aiming policy advice frame would probably have very much in common.  (I.e. reconstruction form remote sensing data moderate that the
re are shifts in the deduced social behavior connected the that probabalistic landscape.  They have already occurred and are now \lquote measured by praxis.\rquote 
  Compare this with remote sensing data connected to models of weather predictions for the next 3 months in the season of crop growing.  The data indicate high probability for crop failure, and thus famine!).
\par \tab These types of comparisons between different objects (old and future) may be interesting in themselves illuminating characteristics about mall... of uncertainly and reconstruct.. principles.
\par \tab However at a cultural level issues about con... principles may bring us to even further types of issues.  Tn studies on Muslim perceptions about Nature (se Hyet/Svedin 1985) the scholar from the Muslim side referred t
o the importance to bind such perceptions studies to the Quran itself as it was the basis of \lquote truth.\rquote 
  This did also hold at a very del..d and specific level as the feg..y of words for Natural items by which Allah through Muhammad (without the changing the content of the message through interpretation) and using Archaic language of the 7}{
\fs24\super\insrsid11285273 th}{\fs24\insrsid11285273  century (ac) deliberately conveyed an undist..ed understanding of the \lquote proper\rquote  relationship between humans and the Environment (Nature).  And this could in a relatively u
ndistorted way be arrived at by investigation word frequency in the Quran relating to environmental/material resourses issues including the contexts in which they were referred to in the text (Hassan Hauapi Egyptian philosophy professor and scholar).

\par \tab Thus
 the item of interpretation penetrates deeper level of understandings.  The differental... or non diffental..between different classes of time windows (past, present, future) or the cultural perceptions os such windows (NOW-indicators, versus hazy and imp
recise knowledges) thus may throw new light on underlying assumptions not only about time.}{\insrsid11285273 
\par }}