Son: Dad, where were you last week?
Father: I was at a conference called RSA.
Son: What does RSA stand for?
Father: These three dudes that invented some cool encryption: Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman
Son: Oh. Was it about encryption?
Father: Not really. It was a show about information security in general.
Son: Sounds boring.
Father: Not at all. I was super busy with work but I got to see one of my heroes speak and he rocked!
Son: I thought most of your heroes were dead.
Father: Most of them are but a few remain. His name is Ray Kurzweil
Son: I bet mom would think he's a dork.
Father: I bet mom thinks I'm a dork. Regardless, Mr. Kurzweil is an inventor as well as a dork.
Son: What did he invent?
Father: Computers that can scan books and turn it in to text as if you had typed it in with your hands, he created software that can take this text and speak it, he created electronic instruments that mimic the real instrument, but most of all, he can determine the future.
Son: What!? Predict the future - I thought you told me no one can do that? You always say that prediction can never be absolutely valid and science can probe but can never prove.
Father: Notice I said determine the future and not predict the future. Big difference.
Son: Whatever, same thing.
Father: Being predictable is very different than being deterministic but we can get in to that when you are up to the task.
Son: So he can determine the future. Don't you mean he can determine future events better than others?
Father: Yup. But here's the deal: at RSA, Mr. Kurzweil shows us over and over how he has determined things to come by measuring at a high enough layer to where you have a better chance of being right. Remember, knowledge at any given moment will be a function of the thresholds of our available means of perception.
Son: You lost me. Can we talk about something else?
Father: No dude, check it out: what Mr. Kurzweil and a few others have tried to explain is that if you measure something and it seems to be very chaotic or a better description would be "analytically indeterminable", you are at the wrong level in the system. You need to bring together a bunch of things which is called synthesizing and these systems no matter how complex can become 'synthetically determined"
Son: Bzzzzzt! Still not understanding. How about an example?
Father: You had pasta with dinner and in preparing that, I needed to boil some water. You and I can determine with the notion of temperature that the water will boil as soon as it reaches 100 degrees Celsius...
Son: Wait, what is that in Kelvin..ummmmm....373 Kelvin!
Father: Wonderful but hear me out: we all can determine that water will boil when it reaches 100 degrees Celsius but no one would be able to determine which particle in that substance will move first to begin that boiling process.
Son: I get it. So if you are at the right level, you have a better shot at determining future events.
Father: Right you are. Mr. Kurzweil is able to bring together the parts of a larger system and find trends that make him extremely good at synthetically determining future events.
Son: Dad, why would someone like Mr. Kurzweil be at a security conference?
Father: I'm not sure why RSA invited him to speak but I can tell you why I appreciated him. If I am protecting my network from the bad guys and I:
1) have a more precise and timely understanding of my systems than the bad guys;
2) and from a synthetic understanding of all the factors I'm able to determine future events;
then I am able to apply just enough security to the game to have the advantage.
Son: Do they ever ask you to speak at these conferences?
Father: Sometimes, but I rather go there to learn and I have a hard time doing that when I am speaking.
Son: Well then, you should stop speaking now and learn some Battlefield 2142 from me.
Father: Cool, but I get to be the PAC this time.
Son: Deal!