What is high dimensional probability? Under this broad name we collect
topics with a common philosophy, where the idea of high dimension plays
a key role, either in the problem or in the methods by which it is
approached. Let us give a specific example that can be immediately
understood, that of Gaussian processes. Roughly speaking, before 1970,
the Gaussian processes that were studied were indexed by a subset of
Euclidean space, mostly with dimension at most three. Assuming some
regularity on the covariance, one tried to take advantage of the
structure of the index set. Around 1970 it was understood, in particular
by Dudley, Feldman, Gross, and Segal that a more abstract and intrinsic
point of view was much more fruitful. The index set was no longer
considered as a subset of Euclidean space, but simply as a metric space
with the metric canonically induced by the process. This shift in
perspective subsequently lead to a considerable clarification of many
aspects of Gaussian process theory, and also to its applications in
other settings.