Though the interview with Susan Murphy and Brendan Meade introduced me to a number of new ideas in the prediction of "earth" and "health," I was most surprised to learn about the existence of mobile health itself. I initially thought that this would mean something in the vein of mobile health clinics, but to find that Professor Murphy's work entails a collaboration between wearable sensors and mobile phones was very interesting to me. I also appreciated the discussion on the distinction between predictions on the level of the individual and on the level of society. Professor Murphy makes the point that convincing individuals, (and especially willing, goal-oriented participants utilizing mobile health) can be easier than convincing a society to consider the future or consider some prediction. This makes me wonder about the role of goals in prediction, and if having a goal makes it more likely for people to consider the future in a productive way. (On another, more rambling note- in my prediction journal, my "predictions" about how quickly I could get an assignment were based in data/past experiences, but there was also an element of goal-setting or even hope in there- as in, "I'm predicting it'll take me X hours to do all these readings, but I really hope it will take me that long or less so I can have more free time." Though this doesn't relate to the more quantitative and real-world predictions we're discussing in class, hearing from Professor Murphy reminded me that that assignment prompted me to wonder about potential blurring between predictions, goals, hope).
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I have never thought about the role of goals in Prediction before, but that is a really good idea. Thanks for that!