lcockburn's blog

The future. An enduring cultural fascination yet an inherently elusive entity. As Jeaneatte Winterson writes, "The future lies ahead like a glittering city, but like the cities of the desert disappears when approached."

When I think of the word “synthetic”, I generally think of it in opposition to “natural” – terrible synthetic fibre clothing or other artificial things. But the root of the word actually gets much of its meaning in opposition to “analytic”, particularly in philosophy. Analysis is where we break something down in order to interrogate and understand it; synthesis is where we build a whole up from parts. Analytics explores; synthetics exploits.