How to be a Futurist

Famous physicist Sir Isaac Newton saw our universe as a pool table. Given that everything follows the laws of nature, Newton argued, if one knows the direction and the force behind each billiard ball, or each particle in the universe, one will be able to predict the future and what comes next. Needless to say, this is a pretty deterministic view that leaves no space for personal freedom, not to mention that it turns us all into mere billiard balls. So, in a way, it is not surprising that the most common question people ask as soon as they find out I am a futurist is to predict the future and what comes next? Well, today we live in the age of Google. So answers are free. Good questions, however, can be priceless because the better the question that we ask the better the answer that we are going to get. So the value is moving away from the answers and towards the questions. Therefore, the question about predicting the future and what’s next, popular as it is, needs to be put into proper context so that we can see if it is the right question to ask in the first place. In quantum physics, there is this phenomenon called the “observer effect” also known as “the measurement problem.” It refers to the impact that the act of observing produces on a phenomenon thereby highlighting the inextricable dynamic relationship between the “subject” and the “object.” In essence, the observer effect leads to a rejection of Newtonian determinism because it shows that we live in a universe whose present is not simply “the effect of the past” or “the cause of its future.” So Quantum mechanics tells us that nothing can be measured or observed without disturbing it. Furthermore, quantum physics annihilates the possibility of a strict dualism between the subject and the object, presenting them in a dynamic relationship where each is relational and reciprocally constituting the other. I believe the same points hold true about the present and the future: The present and the future do not follow a simple deterministic path. They are