The end of theory?
Chris Anderson’s article in Wired is quite thought provoking. Is he right? Does the rise of cloud computing mean we no longer need theories to describe the world around us, can we simply point to a computed result and say that is the way things are? No why is necessary.
Why am I thinking this way? It doesn’t matter why, you just are and you can be modeled in some computer system. Is there a danger here that accepting a description of something in whatever terms you pose means relegating inquiry to a mathematical application? Can Google provide an answer to that? While I’m at it, can Science answer why we seem hell bent on wiping ourselves off the face of the planet? Perhaps Chris is right about correlation superseding causation but there is an infinity of possibilities and we can only ever know for certain what we have proved through trial and error up to now. The wonders of cloud computing might offer us a fast track to proving what is knowable now, but there will be new questions tomorrow. Tying human inquiry to a single process, one that seems to speak with such authority has a rather disturbing overtone.