ABSTRACT
It is probably true to say that most of us most of the time view the future as a long way and a long way off. Such thinking reflects the vestiges of a deterministic perspective that current conditions (fully understood) are in the process of inescapably causing a subsequent and ultimately predetermined reality, and therefore to the extent that we can fully understand the present, we can predict that stable reality before its inexorable manifestation. Indeed, we develop courses in our universities and find institutes to address “future studies and developments.” Our media are apparently endlessly replete with any number of experts prognosticating about financial markets, political actions, technological advances, social change, globalization, the environment, the weather and so on. In particular, we pay attention to those who reputedly predicted the current situation before it emerged, which in turn appears to give their current forecasts so much greater credibility. Alternatively, we pay close attention to those who analyze past events so cogently that we now seem to understand how obvious it was that what has happened just had to happen.
