Nostradamus might have predicted self-driving cars.
Nostradamus. His name is synonymous as a soothsayer seemingly able to predict the future.
His true name was Michel de Nostredame, and of the many accomplishments he had as both a physician and an astrologer, he’s best known for his famous book Les Propheties. Published in 1555, it’s a collection of several hundred quatrains.
Quatrains are essentially short poems, consisting of four lines, and have been used since ancient times to tell stories or otherwise convey a message of one kind or another (of course, there is the possibility that a quatrain could be utterly meaningless and merely be a rambling of random words).
In the case of Nostradamus, he apparently intended for us to become aware of his predictions about the future and opted to do so in quatrains. Thus, his book is a purposeful effort.
Within the collection of quatrains, he grouped them into a series of sets that we might call verses and for which he referred to them at the time as “Centuries” (presumably due to each set containing one hundred quatrains).
Most anyone that has seriously studied his quatrains would generally agree that they are often difficult to decipher in terms of what Nostradamus was trying to convey. The quatrains are coated in metaphors, mythological references, astrological concoctions, and pretty much a mystery cloaked in an enigma.
Nonetheless, many would also swear that Nostradamus nailed many global events that have happened since he first published the book in 1555.
Some claim that his prophecies foretold the rise of Hitler. Some believe that he predicted the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Add to the list the French Revolution, the atomic bombs that were dropped during WWII, the Great Fire of London, and so on.
Today, whenever someone makes an outstretched prediction of the future, we are apt to quickly invoke the legend of Nostradamus as an indicator of being a seer.
How did Nostradamus accomplish this remarkable and enduring feat?
Was he able to divine the future via some other-worldly capacity?
Or, maybe he was a time traveler, having visited the future and then went back to 1555, deciding to write down his “predictions” when he knew for sure they were going to happen.
Perhaps he had a complex calculus, being able to read earthly signs and inspect the stars, and with mathematical precision arrive at his soothsaying.
Well, keep in mind that there are some that don’t believe he made any valid predictions at all.
It could be that he just wrote about a bunch of stuff, and we have interpreted his musings as though they were predictions about the future.
Given the ambiguities within his writings, it could be claimed that you can assign any meaning that you want to his quatrains. His quatrains are essentially a type of Rorschach test, and you, the reader, bring to them whatever is embedded already in your mind.
Let’s consider one quick example so that you can decide how you feel about his quatrains.
Try this on for size:
The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt,
An evil deed foretold by the bearer of a petition.
According to the prediction, another falls at night time.
Conflict at Reims, London and a pestilence in Tuscany.
Which significant historical event do you think this quatrain predicts?
Give up?
Some assert that the quatrain clearly and unambiguously predicted the assassination of President John Kennedy and his brother Bobby Kennedy.
Read it again.
In the first line, the “great man” would be John Kennedy, and his assassination is the part that says he will “be struck down in the day.”
Recall that JFK was shot by a sniper during daytime (or so the government would have us believe; some might say). Being shot by a bullet from a rifle could be likened to the “thunderbolt” reference in that first line.
Bobby Kennedy was killed at midnight, which is apparently predicted in the third line when it states that “another falls at night time.”
Those that believe the quatrain made that specific prediction are often pressed for what the second line and the fourth line mean in the context of those assassinations.
Generally, the “petition” in the second line is construed as prior death threats that were made on their lives, while the fourth line seems to not have any specific meaning that can be reasonably associated with those murderous acts.
Does the aspect that we are only able to directly match two of the lines to the assassinations mean that we can reject the prediction as not being valid?
Not so, many would argue.
It could be that we aren’t astute enough to connect the other lines. Or, maybe those other lines are about something still ahead, in our future, and for which we will all later realize that those future events connected back to the assassinations.
One view is that it is all hogwash.
The overly generous interpretations are merely a contorted attempt to find meaning where no such meaning exists.
More politely, in deference to the wisdom and talents of Nostradamus, maybe it is a reference to some entirely different event, and we’ve botched things and mismatched it.
In any case, I’ve devised an affinity scoring metric that tries to assess how much a quatrain matches to a real-world event.
Here’s how the scoring works.
Each line of the quatrain is worth either a score of zero or one.
If there is something within a line that can be “reasonably” construed as tying to a real-world event that is postulated as underlying the prediction, you score a point for that line. It is helpful if there is more than one matching clue in a line, which is reassuring, though the line still only gets a one-point score.
Thus, a quatrain can be scored as a zero if none of the lines seem to match to an identified real-world event. If only one line pertains, the quatrain gets a score of one, etc. If all four lines have each some relevant tie, the quatrain gets a score of four.
We’ll add a bonus point for a quatrain that applies to a single cohesive historical event.
In other words, it could be that the four lines refer to disparate historical events, which merits a score of four, while if the quatrain in its entirety has its eye on a single overall event then a bonus of one point is allotted. The scores then range for any quatrain from a score of zero to a maximum score of five.
If you have time to take a look at the hundreds of quatrains that Nostradamus wrote, consider using my scoring approach to gauge how close you think each quatrain matches to a real-world event or activity.
Here’s an intriguing question for you: Did Nostradamus perchance predict the advent of true self-driving cars?
Say, what?
Impossible, you might howl out.
Let’s unpack the matter and see.
The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars
It is important to clarify what I mean when referring to true self-driving cars.
True self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isn’t any human assistance during the driving task.
These driverless cars are considered a Level 4 and Level 5, while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-on’s that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).
There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don’t yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.
Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some point out).
Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars won’t be markedly different than conventional cars.
For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that I mention a disturbing aspect that’s been arising, namely that in spite of those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.
You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the car, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.
Self-Driving Cars And Predicted Reality
For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving cars, there won’t be a human driver involved in the driving task. The occupants inside a driverless car will all be passengers, and there’s no human driver needed or utilized inside the car.
Is there a chance that Nostradamus might have predicted true self-driving cars?
If you believe that he predicted other notable historical events, it certainly seems plausible that he might have seen a future that included driverless cars.
Some might argue that the advent of self-driving cars is not of the same import or magnitude as the other historical events that Nostradamus has presumably predicted. You might be tempted to toss driverless cars into the ho-hum bucket and suggest that it would not merit the attention of the grand soothsayer Nostradamus.
Though it is an arguable point, I don’t think we’ve all yet grasped how significant a change in our world there will be if indeed true self-driving cars are achieved.
Those that anticipate a dramatic change in mobility are prone to suggesting that driverless cars are going to have a significant and ongoing transformation of our lives. It is hard for us to envision what things will be like when you no longer need to be a driver or arrange to get a human driver.
Furthermore, as I’ve stated numerous times, if we can achieve true self-driving cars, it means that we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress in formulating AI systems, and the odds are that this AI progress can be applied to many other aspects of our lives in terms of other systems and devices that we daily use.
For those that scoff at the matter, I suppose the main consideration is to provide proof of the pudding.
If none of the hundreds of quatrains appears to apply to the advent of self-driving cars, it would seem to place a nail in the coffin of hope that there might be a Nostradamus prediction about driverless cars.
On the other hand, if we could find a quatrain that seems to apply, maybe it would get us into a mode of thinking that perhaps Nostradamus did see ahead to that day.
I’d like to take a stab at this.
Please consider this quatrain:
In 500 years during which more will take into account,
The one who was the ornament of his era:
Then with a shock great clarity he will give,
Which by this century will bring them great contentment.
Give me a moment to explain how this quatrain might well be a predictor of self-driving cars.
The Prediction Explained
Before I launch into the details, keep in mind that we don’t yet have true self-driving cars per se.
Pundits anticipate that the tryouts of Level 4 today will gradually expand and become more commonplace by 2025.
Commonplace though doesn’t mean prevalent.
We have more than 250 million conventional cars today in the United States alone, and those aren’t going to be overnight dumped and replaced by driverless cars. Over many years, the Level 4 driverless cars will presumably be gradually rolled out, and slowly, the conventional car will become obsolete and junked.
Meanwhile, the Level 5 self-driving car that is today merely a gleam in our eyes, it might be emerging perhaps in the range of 2035 or so.
And, suppose that it takes another decade or two before we would have some overall prevalence of driverless cars on our roadways.
Peg that around the year 2055.
You might argue that it will happen somewhat sooner than 2055, or it might take longer, but if you are willing to take a long-view perspective, it would seem “reasonable” based on what we know today to suggest that a target date of around 2055 for the prevalence of driverless cars seems like a fair assessment.
Strap on your seat belt as we are now ready to tackle the Nostradamus quatrain.
The first line says that something will happen “In 500 years.”
His book came out in 1555, so let’s add 500 years to the date, and you have the year 2055.
Yes, go ahead and double-check the math.
Whoa, the year 2055, which you might recall is the same as the estimated year of driverless car prevalence.
Coincidence or remarkable prediction by Nostradamus?
So far, we only have one line that might seem connected to the future and self-driving cars.
Let’s continue our quest.
The second line refers to the “one who was the ornament of his era.”
Today’s cars are essential to our everyday lives. But, once we have driverless cars, the old-time human-driven car will no longer be an astonishing or notable aspect.
After the next generation of our children’s children get used to self-driving cars, they will likely look back upon human-driven cars as though they were the equivalent of a horse and buggy.
You might be willing therefore to consider today’s human-driven cars as simply a type of ornament in comparison to the AI advanced true self-driving cars. Conventional cars from a perspective of future generations might be the ornament of an earlier era.
I’m going to score that this quatrain has at least two points, a point for the first line and a point for the second line.
The third line states that “Then with a shock great clarity he will give.”
When people see a driverless car for the first time, such as the Level 4 tryouts, and if the back-up human driver is sitting in the backseat or not in the vehicle at all, those people that witness the self-driving car are usually amazed that a car seems to be driving itself.
It is a shock to see.
Also, as mentioned earlier, society isn’t able yet to comprehend how different things will be once we have a prevalence of driverless cars. Having a few tryouts in a handful of locales does not convey the full sense of disruption and transformation that we will all ultimately experience.
In short, once there is a prevalence of driverless cars, which is anticipated by sometime around 2055, we might find ourselves surprised at how much it is changing our lives. We will begin to have greater clarity about the importance of achieving self-driving cars.
I’m going to, therefore, add a point for the third line, since it seems to pertain to the future and self-driving cars amidst the shock and clarity it will bring.
The fourth line discusses the aspect that “by this century” there will be “great contentment” that presumably arises due to whatever the first three lines are trying to tell us.
Clearly, the century being referred to must be the 21st century, since that’s the time in which the year 2055 will occur.
By having a prevalence of driverless cars, we will have greater access and freedom of travel. Many anticipate that self-driving cars are going to democratize mobility. Those that today are limited in mobility or are mobility disadvantaged will finally have mobility readily available to them.
All of this will happen in the 21st century, getting substantially underway in the estimated year 2055 and continuing certainly until the end of the century or 2100 (maybe by then we’ll be beaming around Star Trek-like rather than using cars).
You could suggest that we will find contentment in the latter part of this century by having driverless cars that can allow us to roam and be mobile, offering democratization of mobility and the vaunted mobility-for-all. Plus, most pundits assert that driverless cars will reduce the number of car crashes and car-related injuries (we’ll still have some), thus the saving of those lives and a near elimination of said injuries would certainly give us all a heady peace-of-mind.
Score another point as a result of the fourth line being on-target.
That’s four points for this quatrain.
In addition, the four lines all seem to pertain to the topic of driverless cars and offer a cohesive prediction about driverless cars and their advent.
Bonus point earned!
There it is, in all its glory.
Nostradamus had predicted the advent and prevalence of true self-driving cars, and the quatrain earns the vaunted score of five points.
Conclusion
Is this tying of a Nostradamus prediction to the advent of self-driving cars a bit over-the-top for you?
I know that some might be outraged or even enraged that the Nostradamus quatrain in question has been matched to the emergence of driverless cars.
Let’s just agree that it is an interesting and thought provoking notion worth pondering.
Here’s why.
Besides getting you to think about Nostradamus and the nature and aptness of his predictions, this discussion also serves to have us all seriously consider what the world will be like once we do have driverless cars.
Are we ready for that world?
What changes might occur and what should we do to prepare for them?
Nostradamus didn’t seem to offer recommendations about how society should prepare for or deal with his myriad of predictions.
That seems to be up to us.
Setting aside whether the quatrain is relevant, consider that as a society, today’s society and in the near future, are we ready for the day when driverless cars are all around us?
That seems to be up to us.
