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"If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Precog | ||
| A person with precognitive ability (can predict the future). |
If you want to put criminals away before they commit crimes, you need to know the future. For that, you need precogs. Dickian precogs see just a short way into the future - "a week or two ahead at the very most."
| Doors opened and closed, and they were in the analytical wing. Ahead of them rose impressive banks of equipment - the data-receptors, and the computing mechanisms that studied and restructured the incoming material. And beyond the machinery sat the three precogs, almost lost to view in the maze of wiring...
All day long the idiots babbled, imprisoned in their special high-backed chairs, held in one rigid position by metal bands, and bundles of wiring, clamps... The three gibbering, fumbling creatures, with their enlarged heads and wasted bodies, were contemplating the future. "Deformed... and retarded," Anderton instantly agreed. "...the talent absorbs everything; the esp-lobe shrivels the balance of the frontal area." |
| Technovelgy from The Minority Report,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Fantastic Universe in 1956 Additional resources -
|
H. Beam Piper used the word "precog" as a verb (maybe the first); Philip K. Dick used it as a noun to describe a precognitive person. See the other entry for precog (v).
Minority Report fans may be surprised that Dick used this word in his 1954 story A World of Talent:
Compare to the time machine from The Time Machine (1895) by HG Wells, the Dutch clock from The Clock That Went Backward (1881) by Edward Page Mitchell, the Anachronopete from El Anachronopete (1887) by Enrique Gaspar, the chronoscope from Legion of Time (1938) by Jack Williamson, and the time-telespectroscope from The Exile of Time (1931) by Ray Cummings.
“I can see some drawbacks to being a Precog. But knowing that you’re going to have a spat, can’t you alter things before it begins?”
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Minority Report
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to The Minority Report
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
Precog-related
news articles:
- Look Forward: IRS 'Pre-Audit' Would Predict Tax Cheating
- IJOP Integrated Joint Operations Platform China's Minority Report?
- PredPol Crime-Prediction A Hit In L.A.
- Police Use Predictive Maps ala 'Minority Report' Routinely
- UK Police AI To Stop Criminals Before They Strike
| Let's Make Slaver Sunflowers! Engineering Plants To Reflect Light |
| Machete-Wielding Philodendron Isn't Going To Take It Anymore |
| Tsunami Forecasts Improved By Ionosphere Signals |
| EctoLife Concept Video Artificial Womb For Baby Mass Production |
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'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?'
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'
