1. Introduzione
al Futuro
Eugenio Quaini

2. CUBE srl – FER Fully Elastic Ring
Paolo Ferrazzi Inventor
Scompenso cardiaco
•A n e llo e q u a t o r ia le
•A n e llo m it r a lic o
•In d u s t r ia liz z a z io n e
•C e r t if ic a z io n e
•S p e r im e n t a z io n e
a n im a le
•S t u d io u m a n o d i
fa s e 1

3. CUBE srl – FER Mitral Elastic Ring
Paolo Ferrazzi Inventor

4. CUBE srl – FER Mitral Elastic Ring
Paolo Ferrazzi Inventor
Cardioscopy
Faxitron: high
resolution x-ray

5. πάντα ῥ εῖ
Eraclito

6. Poets and the Future

7. "Tutti dovremmo preoccuparci del futuro,
perché là dobbiamo passare il resto
della nostra vita."
Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958)
Inventor and businessman
Co-Founder of Memorial Sloan-
Kettering Cancer Center

8. We understand better than ever that planning is like standing on a beach.
A wave approaches.
Dig in your heels? Swim into it? Run?

9. Thinking
• Dangers and difficulties of looking to
the future
• Why bother then?
• How best to think about the future?
• What is foresight?
• What does the future mean for now?

10. 3. The Disciplined Mind
4. The Synthesizing Mind
5. The Creating Mind
6. The Respectful Mind
7. The Ethical Mind

11. The a priori – a posteriori distinction
• a priori knowledge
– Before taking into account observations or
evidence
– Necessary/analytic truths, assumptions,
given facts, etc.
• a posteriori knowledge
– After taking into account observations and
evidence
– Laws and explanations of natural or social
phenomena

12. Rationalism
• Knowledge arises from reasoning
• The way to knowledge is from the
general to the particular
• Requires general a priori, necessary
truths
• Characterised by deduction
Descartes “Cogito ergo sum”

13. Empiricism
• Knowledge arises from observation
• The way to knowledge is from the
particular to the general
• Requires a posteriori, contingent truths
• Characterised by induction
Galileo “All truths are easy to
understand once they are discovered;
the point is to discover them”

14. Popper’s Falsificationism
• Induction never proves anything
• Hypotheses can only be disproved by
observing a counter-example
• If there is constant innovation of hypotheses
and attempts to disprove them then
knowledge will progress
Karl Popper “Hypotheses that are not
amenable to being falsified (unfalsifiable
hypotheses) are dubious”

15. Dangers of predicting the future
• "Radio has no future"
• "Heavier than air flying machines
are impossible"
• "X rays will prove to be a hoax”
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin,
President of the Royal Society, 1890-95

16. Dangers of predicting the future
“I never make
predictions,
especially about
the future.”
Sam Goldwyn,
MGM founder

17. Looking to the future:
common mistakes
• Making predictions rather
than attaching probabilities
to possibilities
• Simply extrapolating current
trends
• Thinking of only one future

18. Futurists
• By 2029, a computer will be able to carry on a
conversation indistinguishable from a human’s.
• In the 2040’s people spend the majority of their time in
full immersion virtual reality.
• The point when your life expectancy rises at a rate faster
than which you age.
Ray Kurzweil
“Immortality first!
Everything else can wait.”
Corwyn Prater

19. Futurists
• Eliminating a specific list comprising 50% of
medically preventable conditions, would extend
human life expectancy to over 150 years.
• By preventing 90% of medical problems, life
expectancy could extend to over 500 years.
• At 99% solved, we’d be able to live for over 1000
years.
Biotechnology and nanotechnology
revolutions will eliminate virtually all
medical causes of death
Robert A. Freitas Jr.
Senior Research Fellow
nonprofit foundation (IMM)
Palo Alto California

20. METHODS
Cryogenics
Nanotechnology
Mind Uploading
Body part
replacement
Cyborg Citizens

21. The life extension ethics question:
Should technologies that
radically extend the human lifespan
be allowed to be employed?

22. Approach the future
The point is not to predict the future
but to prepare for it and to shape it

23. SHAPING A BETTER FUTURE
Easy to say, hard to accomplish
What is BETTER?
BIGGER? FASTER? MORE?

24. Knowing is not enough; we must apply
Willing is not enough; we must do
Goethe

25. Contradictions of the 21th Century
•
•
Extreme specialization
Science keeps us alive
B •
•
Complex knowledge
Low science budget
•
•
Information overload
Lip service to science
U •
•
Weak understanding
Dramatic decrease of
T enrolment in science

26. The health care problem
• Between the health care we have and the
care we could have lies not just a gap, but a
chasm
• A system full of underuse, inappropriate use,
and overuse of care
• Unable to deliver today’s science and
technology

27. The key is to think and ACT strategically.
Planning is not about
writing a plan.
Planning is about results.

28. To be strategic is to invest your resources, make a bet
(time, energy, money, creativity) where your choice
can produce the best results.
A wide field. A few chips.

29. Goals Goals are at the heart of anyof any strategic plan.
are the most important part strategic plan.

30. Non guardar fissa l'onda
che si frange al tuo piede; fino a quando
sarà immerso nell'acqua
onde nuove verranno.
B. Brecht