Definition

 They say that with two points you can define a line.  A mere three nonlinear points will constrain a plane.  Plunging forward I can hypothesize that four (non-planar) points will confine your reality to just one of the many alternative three dimensional spaces.  I am unable to plunge beyond this point, or unwilling.  That other required dimension of our existence is so tenuous, so poignant.  Even having arrived at this point in time I am unable to constrain the future, or to free the past.

What if I wanted to fully define a human being?  Would it even be possible without a very large amount of data?  In the science fiction novel Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh a case is made that such a task is possible, at least in a specific very practical sense.  She starts off by duplicating the environment, the upbringing, and the genetics.  There are large quantities of video from the life of the person in question.  The author's master touch is to have a highly tuned instrument for reading the results: that selfsame genetic and life story copy of the original person.  Even so, the challenge remains a puzzle, remains a challenge.

I can see that "the future" in a larger sense is not constrained.  The possibilities are endless.  At the same time, I feel time closing in on me.  I can use probability to place an outer limit on the total years of my future.  At the same time I can see my past as an endless series of missed opportunities, either because I chose the wrong alternative or else because I lacked the perception to see the possibilities.  No matter, the past is immutable and therefore poor material for any great sense of regret.

Even if my genetics were fully recorded, I am still the best record of the story of my life.  No one knows all of it, not even me.  I just know more of it than anyone else.  It would be next to impossible to recreate the circumstances of my childhood.  My parents are gone along with their impulses and dreams.  The places that I lived and the kids that I knew have gone their way.  I am guessing that there will come a time when most of the people that I once knew are dead, if that time has not already passed.  My life expectancy if I were born today would be 77 years.   Having reached 72 years of age the tables now predict that half of the people of my age and sex will be dead at age 85.

Not good odds.  I am like the scientist who does not really have knowledge and so uses probability to describe things.