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"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Precog | ||
| A person with precognitive ability (can predict the future). |
If you want to put criminals away before they commit crimes, you need to know the future. For that, you need precogs. Dickian precogs see just a short way into the future - "a week or two ahead at the very most."
| Doors opened and closed, and they were in the analytical wing. Ahead of them rose impressive banks of equipment - the data-receptors, and the computing mechanisms that studied and restructured the incoming material. And beyond the machinery sat the three precogs, almost lost to view in the maze of wiring...
All day long the idiots babbled, imprisoned in their special high-backed chairs, held in one rigid position by metal bands, and bundles of wiring, clamps... The three gibbering, fumbling creatures, with their enlarged heads and wasted bodies, were contemplating the future. "Deformed... and retarded," Anderton instantly agreed. "...the talent absorbs everything; the esp-lobe shrivels the balance of the frontal area." |
| From The Minority Report,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Fantastic Universe in 1956 Additional resources -
|
H. Beam Piper used the word "precog" as a verb (maybe the first); Philip K. Dick used it as a noun to describe a precognitive person. See the other entry for precog (v).
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Tech news articles related to The Minority Report
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
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- Look Forward: IRS 'Pre-Audit' Would Predict Tax Cheating
- IJOP Integrated Joint Operations Platform China's Minority Report?
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