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old hand
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old hand
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"All Futures and Pasts begin here." --- John Cage
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The term expressing the linear extension of the present into the future is extrapolation, but no parallel term for a more creative polation comes to mind, partly because the accepted meaning of extrapolate - to infer from a trend within an already observed interval; to project, extend or expand known information into an area not known - usurps extra in the sense of outside and beyond. How about coining something using "create" or "imagine" as a base?
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
In the movie Fahrenheit 451, as Montag is walking through the dissenter's camp he hears (and we the audience hear) snippets of various Great Books recited by the camp's denizens. In one case, there is a young boy reciting "...I never loved my father..." and later something about "...as the first snow fall..." or something as his father has just died (the young boy presumably having learned to recite the book).
Does anyone know which book this person was? (i.e. which book the boy was reciting?)
thanks,
k
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Joined: Sep 2001
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old hand
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The term expressing the linear extension of the present into the future is extrapolation, - sparteyeI dunno sparteye, we extrapolate almost continually and so a more confining term might be needed. How about base projection? Naw, that kinda thinking might actually be functional. What shona wants is a sorta derisive term that will point out the folly of basing long term predictions on the nature of events and things of today, you know like - presentdiction. For example, I was guilty of presentdicting when for twenty years I saved up bond money to spring my children from jail and then they wasted it on a college education. But maybe an even better term might be paradigmation. I was guilty of paradigming way back in 1952. As a street urchin who was running the streets wearing an ice-cream container space cadet helmet when a Birmingham News reporter, in search of human interest story, asked me for my prediction of when men would first land on the moon. "By the year 1960", I said, "and definitely by 1968." The next day my friends and teachers and relatives saw my picture and my prediction in the Birmingham News. They all had a big laugh. And rightly so, everyone today knows that mankind didn't land on the moon until [edited] July, long into the year of 1969. -  -
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old hand
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old hand
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everyone today knows that mankind didn't land on the moon until long into the year of 1970.
July '69.
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old hand
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Thanks sjm, may I call you sjm? I'll alter my post to reflect that fact. milum. ~~~
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veteran
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OP
veteran
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>Is there a word for the tendency, when making predictions, to project the present into the future?
Myopia? You'd think so, wouldn't you, doc? The ridiculous thing is that "linear" projection can work sometimes, and surprisingly well. Or perhaps I should say "has been known to work", as past performance is no guarantee of future returns (to quote my mortgage lender) 
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veteran
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OP
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Joined: Oct 2000
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The term expressing the linear extension of the present into the future is extrapolationThis is certainly the technically correct term, Spartan - so thanks and congrats! There's also a very mathematical and linear feel to it... although don't mathematicians extrapolate curves more than lines? That may imply more creativity and efficiency than I'm after. I suppose milum is right in saying I want a sorta derisive term that will point out the folly of basing long term predictions on the nature of events and things of today - so a subset of extrapolations where, by intention or not, the future is shown as implausibly like the present. Could the implausibility be judged in retrospect? Uh, yes.  How about if we talk about intrapolation as projection that stays "in the box" ? Then we just have to work out what form the adjective would take. For the opposite scenario I agree that imagination and creativity are key - but "visionary" captures all that, so stays up the top of the list as far as I'm concerned. I was guilty of presentdicting when for twenty years I saved up bond money to spring my children from jail and then they wasted it on a college education.What milum, you mean there was once a point where your kids did what you expected, rather than the exact opposite? Wow. 
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old hand
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don't mathematicians extrapolate curves more than lines?
Generally we try to extrapolate in whatever shape we have data for. If it "looks" linear (there are actually measures available to determine what kind of shape is the best fit to data), the extrapolation will be linear, and so on. And I think "curve" is just a general word which means "not a point" so a straight line can also be a curve.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
a straight line can also be a curve.
[yobbity-yobbity] Wha--?? I'll take your word for it. Nice to see you here, Dear!
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