About Phrenicea

Phrenicea (pronounced freh-NIH-shee-uh) is a prophecy or vision of the 21^st century.  It does not yet exist!  

Phrenicea is a fictionalized account of what will occur in the first century of the new millennium.  Looking at today's long-term trends as well as the rapid advancements in technology - especially related to communications, the Internet/Web and computer and biotechnology - one can only imagine the path where these will lead.  That path is the basis for the Phrenicea vision.  

The name Phrenicea is a contraction of the words phrenic (of the mind) and panacea (cure all).  Phrenicea is (initially) a consortium imagined to be formed in the year 2014.  That's when a confluence of various technologies synergistically was able to transmit and store massive amounts of data related to human discourse.  Just as the early 21^st-century Internet made the physical collection of books, music, and other "hard copy" moot, Phrenicea rendered "life's hard copy," the physical and tactile components of daily living - irrelevant.   

The capabilities of Phrenicea rapidly became so powerful that there was no longer a need to produce most of the gadgets upon which modern society depended.  Suddenly the rage was to "engage," the popular term used to describe a mental hook-up with Phrenicea.  Phrenicea became the central source of knowledge for the human race, accessible not via computer or other device, but by mere thought that was indistinguishable from what was before simply "thinking.”  The popular business management lingo at the turn of the century, "thinking outside the box,” was prescient beyond anyone's wildest dreams! 

As with most trends, which often reach a pinnacle before entering a period of decline, the distributed nature of the Internet (where information reached its most dispersed form, spanning millions of server computers throughout the world) fostered redundancy, inaccuracy, and unseemly (in the literal sense) waste. With the Internet also came a knowledge-based economy - and the widespread copyrighting of intellectual property and the patenting of the means to access it.  The "stake-your-claim" mania reached such heights as to stifle progress, since there became a chain of open hands (knowledge hoarding and fighting over copyright and patent rights) in the pursuit of just about any endeavor.  

It was naively thought that institutionalizing Phrenicea would solve this dilemma.  Thus Phrenicea the "consortium" became Phrenicea the "institution" in the second half of the 21^st century. In an about face, the final phase of the "Information Revolution" entailed the replacement of the informational hodgepodge that grew willy-nilly, with a centralized data entity none other than Phrenicea.  Now data validity and wholesomeness could be ensured.  Phrenicea eventually became more important and powerful than government and corporations combined.  Those two powerful entities - like the goods or services they had once provided - were now irrelevant.   

There were many unforeseen consequences as a result of making Phrenicea the primary source of knowledge (the former patent and copyright holders were paid off with one-time non-negotiable settlements).  The impediments to progress were indeed eliminated, but unforeseen was the loss of incentive to pursue progressive work. 

To be continued!   Your comments and opinions are welcome. 

A QUESTION TO PONDER:
Will we and our contemporaries, in the age of Phrenicea, consider 2000 the "good old days"?