I will be attending presentations at this Symposium with an intriguing title: The Computer Symposium: The Once and Future Medium for the social sciences and the humanities. 

The stated rationale for the conference being: 

"Due to innovations realized over the past 10 to 15 years, the computer has dramatically changed the things that scholars do, and widened the scope of the things that researchers potentially can do. Heightened processing power, new categories of software, and, indeed, novel conceptions of computing are offering scholars opportunities to analyze, express and instruct in ways unimaginable even in the early 1990s. Consider the following:

  • In short order, we think it entirely probable that scholars will make 2D and 3D objects - the stuff of animation, the stuff of virtual reality - common instruments for representation. They will be deployed as easily - and as readily - as text and number are today.
  • Consider also the possibility that scholars will widely resort to computing simulations to analyze the past, construct the present, and anticipate the future. Scholars will not only deduce explanations. In future, they will "grow" them in simulations. This approach is already being used to reconsider questions as diverse as the spread of pandemics, neighbourhood segregation, and the emergence of urban systems."

Source: http://www.brocku.ca/computingsymposium/welcome.html

Of particular interest is the presentation of Robert Lempert of the RAND Corporation: "Embracing Multiple Views of the Future: New Computational Tools for Longer-Term Policy Analysis." . More on this in a subsequent entry.