The Phrenicea scenario of the future as presented on these web pages was conceived "way back" in 1999. Although it won't be until about 2050 before we can boast about the accuracy of the Phrenicea vision, perhaps we'll be as prescient as Wiley's crystal gazer:

NON SEQUITUR ©2007 Wiley Miller. Dist. By UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

In the meantime, the following will present some indications that perhaps we're at least on the right track.

See if you agree...

Phrenicea Premise:

If the 20th century could be labeled the "Century of the Computer," then it is our view that the 21st century will become "The Century of DNA."

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"The prediction of phrenicea.com is already in evidence: If the 20th century could be labeled the 'Century of the Computer,' then the 21st century will become 'The Century of DNA.'"

Hmm...

Phrenicea Premise:

Solar electric trains became the premier form of transportation, with tracks laid upon what were highways for automobiles. All petroleum-powered cars were banned worldwide in 2040 to help halt global warming.

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"... the biggest single chunk of infra-structure in the U.S. is the interstate highway system, more than 47,000 miles (76,000 km) of multilane roadways connecting every major American city. And people who spend time envisioning improved systems for energy and transit have ideas for the interstates that go far beyond fresh asphalt and new guard-rails. They've been talking up ways in which the big roads could become the backbone of a larger network of railways..."

Hmm..., wonder where they got that idea a full decade after Phrenicea!

Phrenicea Premise:

She watched as her mom turned into grandma’s old driveway in her electric runabout, a vehicle very similar to the golf cart from generation’s past. The large driveway was moot now, since petroleum-powered cars were banned worldwide in 2040 to help halt global warming.

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

Eclectic the first autonomous vehicle in the history of the automobile, opens up a new era in the field of mobility : reserved for daily driving in urban areas, its low energy consumption makes it the most economical environmental vehicle ever built.

Hmm..., Hummm!

Phrenicea Premise:

Cell farming is becoming popular nationwide. Basically, a homeowner’s land is loaned to growers for a considerable fee for them to plant fruit and vegetables for distribution to local exchanges. The do-it-yourselfer can go it alone, but must have the greenest of thumbs...

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

Hmm..., Mmmmm!

Phrenicea Premise:

As the third-world educated their masses, they became competitive intellectually; thus raising their standard of living from poverty, starvation and homelessness. Conversely, the already-developed nations, as a result of "globalization" and its consequence — overwhelming competition — found their living standards falling.

- and -

Ironically, the most prestigious jobs in the mid-21st century are non-virtual, requiring physical strength, manual dexterity and coordination — skills that are becoming more and more rare...

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"College graduates look more outsourceable by the day.

"Because our best-educated workers are earning less, and the incentives for higher education may thus be declining, the result could be a more uniform — and lower — standard of living."

Hmm...

Phrenicea Premise: (propounded way back in October 2000)

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"In the near future, the "web" concept may prove too primitive to properly describe the evolutionary nature of the beast. Something more abstract perhaps, like Jung's collective unconscious model — a digital beehive of collective information, honeycombs stacked high and deep with information. And so, searching the nectars of the hive should also change as spiders evolve into honeybees."

Hmm..., that sounds like...bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... Phrenicea!

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"[A theory] which has been gaining currency, is that sleep operates in some mysterious way to help you master various skills, such as how to play the piano and ride a bike."

Hmm..., maybe sleep is for more than just "rest"!

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"Sergey Brin, one of the founders [of Google], once told me that the perfect search engine would be like the mind of God, that it would know everything and be everywhere. That's what they're up to."

"Where will [search engine progress] lead? Who knows? But it's credible to imagine a leap as great as that from hunting through library stacks to a Google session, when we leap from today's search engines to having the entirety of the world's information as just one of our thoughts."

Hmm..., that sounds like... Phrenicea!

Phrenicea Premise:

[Artificial] genes produce hormonal parameters and switches — in simplistic terms — that could be set or reset by Phrenicea to control or monitor behavior "officially" defined as antisocial, criminal, etc.

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"By following the trail of evolution, devices are being found within DNA — genetic "switches" — that do not encode any proteins but that regulate when and where genes are used."

"The mammalian vole provides an excellent model for investigating the evolution of social behaviour. Prairie voles exhibit a monogamous social structure in nature, whereas closely related meadow voles are solitary and polygamous.

"In male prairie voles, both vasopressin and dopamine act in the ventral forebrain to regulate selective affiliation between adult mates, known as pair bond formation, as assessed by partner preference in the laboratory. The vasopressin V1a receptor (V1aR) is expressed at higher levels in the ventral forebrain of monogamous than in promiscuous vole species, whereas dopamine receptor distribution is relatively conserved between species.

"Here we substantially increase partner preference formation in the socially promiscuous meadow vole by using viral vector V1aR gene transfer into the ventral forebrain. We show that a change in the expression of a single gene in the larger context of pre-existing genetic and neural circuits can profoundly alter social behaviour, providing a potential molecular mechanism for the rapid evolution of complex social behaviour."

Hmm..., genes control behavior!

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"At the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York City today, Google's Director of Technology, Craig Silverstein shared his new prediction of the eventual existence of "search pets," man-made "genetically engineered beasts" implanted directly into the brain to search for facts and help us to reason and solve problems."

Hmm..., wonder where he got that idea.

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"Scientists have utilized synthetic DNA to manufacture nano-scale tubes that assemble themselves into wires for use in tiny electronic devices..."

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"The Internet is swiftly becoming the primary repository of the bulk of human information... The web is rapidly supplanting other media as the primary means by which people get information about the world..."

and

"Amazon [has] made a new and immensely valuable kind of information [entire book text] available on the web... Says Joel Mokyr, professor of economics and history at Northwestern University, 'Think about the implications of that: the knowledge of all times may one day be accessible from every spot on this planet. That's one of the most democratic things I can think of.'"

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"In the [research] labs, says Sunil Misra, chief security advisor for Unisys, technologists are developing safeguards for [computer] networks that will 'use the human immune system as a model for how to detect anomalous behavior and respond.'"

Phrenicea Premise:

Science finally gains an intrinsic knowledge of what is required by the human body for optimum health, beyond what was attained through empirical studies. By deciphering all of the human biological chemical processes it became possible to tailor a single product to fuel them — Polynutriment.

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"A single pill given to everyone aged over 55 could cut heart disease in developed countries by 80%, a group of medical researchers say.

"The treatment, dubbed the Polypill, would combine existing drugs to create a single medicine that would reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. These conditions currently account for one-third of all deaths in the Western world."

If you enjoy good food and don't like the idea of taking pills to reduce the risks of heart attack or stroke, it could be time to try the Polymeal. The Polymeal consists of wine, fish, dark chocolate, fruit and vegetables, garlic and almonds. The ingredients should be taken daily, apart from fish which could be eaten about four times a week, as part of a balanced diet.

Phrenicea Premise:

The tiny Intrachip — organically constructed — is a vital component that implants itself under the host's skin. It triggers a biological interface by splicing artificial genes into the host's DNA that produce proteins and nerve tissue to connect with it. Phrenicea has the potential to simultaneously monitor every individual on the planet!

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"[This past year] Applied Digital Solutions in Palm Beach, Fla., introduced its VeriChip, an implantable device the size of a grain of rice that fits under the skin. When a handheld scanner prods it with radio waves, the chip answers with a short burst of identifying data. The immediate applications are for security and identification."

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

She reports that the November-December 2002 issue of The Futurist contains an article (page 41) written by doctoral fellow João Pedrode Magalhães (University of Namur-Facultès Universitairs Notre-Dame de la Paix in Belgum) addressing what might occur when a single person has the potential to destroy humanity. He concludes:

"The most likely future of humanity will involve an initial decrease in personal freedom for an increase in security. The percentage of humans with power will decrease with time, which might lead to humankind being ruled by a single mind. Even if taking over humankind is difficult and occurs far in the future, it is an irreversible step. Therefore, if we look far into the future, we see that one mind might eventually rule mankind, or what is left of humankind at that time."

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

A sensational caption in the New York Post's September 29, 2002 issue declared:

"Scientists believe the lottery numbers [911] of September 11, 2002, may have resulted from the thoughts of millions of brains."

"We do not know if there is such a thing as a global consciousness, but if there is, it was moved by the events of September 11, 2001. It appears that the coherence and intensity of our common reaction created a sustained pulse of order in the random flow of numbers from our instruments. These patterns where there should be none look like reflections of our concentrated focus, as the riveting events drew us from our individual concerns and melded us into an extraordinary coherence. Maybe we became, briefly, a global consciousness."

Of course this is controversial. Modern Science traditionally is skeptical of any idea that cannot be observed, measured or tested - and rightly so. However, we should keep in mind that we are only as perceptive as our senses, or the sensors we construct. We know that we have no sensation to a vast portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for example. And our arrogant confidence has been proven to be ignorance many times in the past.

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"It is likely that NASA will have to reduce the number of shuttle flights and scale back the assembly of the space station..."

"The profligacy of the space shuttle is well known: each flight costs about $500 million."

"After five years of effort, NASA cancelled the [X-33; shuttle replacement] program. The total cost: $912 million for NASA, $357 million for Lockheed Martin."

"Burned by its experience with the X-33, NASA has relegated the idea of a single-stage craft to the far future..."

"In Congressional hearings in April 2002, NASA officials acknowledged the [shuttle successor] timetable is probably too ambitious and may not start flying until after 2020."

"...[E]stimates of the cost of assembling the 500-ton International Space Station [ISS] have soared from $17 billion to more than $30 billion."

"Doug Bassett of the Canadian Space Agency... quoted a Canadian politician as saying that the space station could become 'the biggest white elephant in the history of humanity'."

"[NASA] desperately needs to balance its books before further damage is done to the program of space."

The United States is the driving force for continued endeavors in space — from a funding perspective at least. It is by default the make-or-break nation in terms of substantive future exploration. Given the growing number and magnitude of problems that need attention here on Earth, we surmise that Man's destiny does not include the realms of space.

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

Inadequate state regulations, which are not uniform, will be replaced with federal standards. Still, this mere acknowledgement of the problem falls short of solving the gross polluting problem. The farmers' pig-like squeals protesting the associated costs drown out the cries for a real clean-up.

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

"Fossil fuels are a one-time gift that lifted us up from subsistence agriculture... no renewable energy projects can be brought on at a sufficient rate to avoid a bidding war for the remaining oil."

Phrenicea Premise:

Phrenicea Bull's-eye?

Chronicling the Future^®

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