An Outside Context Problem or an OCP is any problem outside a given group's (organisation, society, culture or civilisation) experience, with an immediate, ubiquitous and lasting impact upon it. An OCP is "outside the context" as it is generally not considered until it occurs, and the capacity to actually conceive of or consider the OCP in the first place may not be possible or very limited (i.e., the majority of the group's population may not have the knowledge or ability to realize that the OCP can arise or assume it is extremely unlikely). An example of OCP is an event where a civilization does not consider the possibility that a much more technologically advanced society can exist, and then encounters one. The term was coined by Iain M. Banks in his novel Excession: In sociology, a group is usually defined as a collection of humans or animals, who share certain characteristics, interact with one another, accept expectations and obligations as members of the group, and share a common identity. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... For other uses, see Society (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Culture (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Civilization (disambiguation). ... By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a mastery of technology sufficient to leave the surface of the Earth for the first time and explore space. ... A neologism (Greek νεολογισμός [neologismos], from νέος [neos] new + λόγος [logos] word, speech, discourse + suffix -ισμός [-ismos] -ism) is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (coined) — often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. ... Iain Menzies Banks (born on February 16, 1954 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland) writes mainstream novels as Iain Banks and science fiction as Iain M. Banks. ... Excession, first published in 1996, is Scottish writer Iain M. Banks fourth science fiction novel to feature the Culture. ...

An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop. The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests.

For a small civilization dealing with their own problems, suddenly being threatened by a much larger, more technologically sophisticated civilization would be an OCP. There have been some examples of cultures encountering such problems in the course of human history, such as the scenario alluded to by Banks: the discovery of America, and the subsequent conquests of South and Central America by the Conquistadores. Another real-world historical example of OCP would be the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry's "Black Ships" to Japan in 1853, which eventually precipitated the Meiji Restoration and radically transformed Japanese society. It was an event that was almost unimaginable to the Japanese until it actually happened. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... A Conquistador (Spanish: []) (English: Conqueror) was a Spanish soldier, explorer and adventurer who took part in the gradual invasion and conquering of much of the Americas and Asia Pacific, bringing them under Spanish colonial rule between the 15th and 19th centuries. ... Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794-1858). ... Japanese 1854 print describing Commodore Matthew Perrys Black Ships. The Black Ships (in Japanese, 黒船, kurofune) was the name given to Western vessels arriving in Japan between the 15th and 19th centuries. ... The Meiji Restoration ), also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, or Renewal, was a chain of events that led to enormous changes in Japans political and social structure. ...

A possible example of an OCP that may affect our current civilization would be an unexpectedly appearing threat of another asteroid (or comet) impact on Earth. Another conceivable OCP example would be the arrival on Earth of space-travelling extraterrestrials. A technological singularity would be another clear example of an OCP, though it differs from extraterrestrial contact or near-earth object collisions in that modern humans would likely be able to determine its approach, although we could never anticipate its outcome. When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of paradigm shifts for key events in human history show an exponential trend. ...

Science fiction literature has many examples of OCP situations. Some examples of stories in which OCPs are an important feature are: Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Solaris
• The War of the Worlds
• Star Trek
• Battlefield Earth

A useful example of an OCP from literature is found in the short story Averroes's Search by Jorge Luis Borges. The story imagines the difficulty of the famed Arabic commentator and translator of Aristotle, Averroës, in explaining the concepts of tragedy and comedy. Averroës's difficulty lies in the fact that these concepts could not be expressed in Arabic: no appropriate words existed in Averroës's culture. Cover by Oscar Chichoni for the Spanish edition Solaris is a Polish science fiction novel by StanisÅ‚aw Lem (1921-2006), published in Warsaw in 1961 and probably his most famous work. ... The War of the Worlds (1898), by H. G. Wells, is an early science fiction novel (or novella) which describes an invasion of England by aliens from Mars. ... The current Star Trek franchise logo Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series and media franchise. ... Battlefield Earth is the title of both a science fiction novel written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, and a film adaptation of the novel produced by and starring John Travolta. ... Originally included in the second anthology of Jorge Luis Borges short stories, El Aleph, published in 1949, Averroëss Search imagines the difficulty of the famed Arabic commentator and translator of Aristotle, Averroës, in explaining the concepts of tragedy and comedy. ... Borges redirects here. ...

See also

• Unknown unknown
• Black swan theory
• Cargo cult
• Extinction event
• First contact
• Flatland
• Grey goo
• Hegemonising swarm
• Kardashev scale
• Critical theory
• Social criticism
• Paradigm shifts
• Deep ecology

In decision analysis, an unknown unknown, often shortened to unk-unk, is an uncertainty that is unanticipated and, hence, unaccounted for in a formal decision model. ... In Nassim Nicholas Talebs definition, a black swan is a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. ... For other uses, see Cargo cult (disambiguation). ... An extinction event (also known as: mass extinction; extinction-level event, ELE) occurs when there is a sharp decrease in the number of species in a relatively short period of time. ... First contact is a term used to describe a first meeting of two previously unknown cultures. ... For various uses of the term Flatlander, see Flatlander (disambiguation) Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a 1884 novella by Edwin Abbott Abbott, still popular among mathematics and computer science students, and considered useful reading for people studying topics such as the concept of other dimensions. ... Grey goo is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all living matter on Earth while building more of themselves (a scenario known as ecophagy). ... A von Neumann probe is a fictional or hypothetical self-replicating machine, specifically designed for space exploration or colonisation. ... Kardashev scale projections ranging from 1900 to 2100. ... In the humanities and social sciences, critical theory has two quite different meanings with different origins and histories, one originating in social theory and the other in literary criticism. ... A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole and typically on a radical basis; a social critic of a given society, but the overlap is large. ... Paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science. ... Deep ecology is a recent branch of ecological philosophy (ecosophy) that considers humankind as an integral part of its environment. ...

References

• Banks, Iain, Excession