> ...It seems increasingly that scientists are trying to replace theoretical models of the say, the mind or the city with purely data driven approaches that don't necessarily produce any insight, or even accurate forecasts.
It may seem like a logical desire to integrate the existing massive data feeds about various aspects of the planet into a progression of coherent states of it. With the hope to gain insights for the dynamics and trends.
The first challenge is to figure out if such feeds are indeed integratable and at all could lead to any sort of coherency.
The next challenge is to understand what should be considered a "state". It is a complex system, yet one needs to choose the parameters.
It is nice to have such a global view of the observations. But I'm sure the goal stretches further and means to produce projections and forecasts. This may have some political impact, but practically may just be as good as a speculation, given the vast scale.
It may seem like a logical desire to integrate the existing massive data feeds about various aspects of the planet into a progression of coherent states of it. With the hope to gain insights for the dynamics and trends.
The first challenge is to figure out if such feeds are indeed integratable and at all could lead to any sort of coherency.
The next challenge is to understand what should be considered a "state". It is a complex system, yet one needs to choose the parameters.
It is nice to have such a global view of the observations. But I'm sure the goal stretches further and means to produce projections and forecasts. This may have some political impact, but practically may just be as good as a speculation, given the vast scale.