1 introduction roberto poli anticipation, complexity and the future [email protected]

1 Introduction

Roberto Poli

http://www.projectanticipation.org

Anticipation, Complexity and the Future

[email protected]

Summary of the course


Day 2

Day 1

• Introduction: The Three Levels of FS• Simple and Complex Systems• Anticipatory Systems• Down to the Earth: Culture of

Environmental Risk• Ideas of Science

• Anticipation• Ontology and Futures Studies• The Structure of the Present• Anticipatory Governance• Conclusion

No implied

assessment

of value

Anticipation

Foresight

The Three Levels of Futures Studies


Forecast

Most practitioners distinguish between

forecast and foresight only (aka Futures Studies)

‘‘Purely analytical studies of possible futures are called Futures Studies and are not what I

mean when I use the term Strategic Foresight’’

P. Lustig, Strategic Foresight, 2015, p. 12(Strategic Foresight is very close to my

Anticipation)

Forecast Previsive activity: extrapolation from time

series (collected at regular interval over time) or cross-sectional data (collected at a single point in time)

For most applications, point forecasts alone are almost useless. Prediction intervals (80%, 95%) are typically added

Forecast


Previsive activity. Data based Works well with pretty short (econometry) and

very long (climate change) temporal windows Well-developed theoretical base Powerful math Primarily quantitative (the qualitative

components (delphi, scenarios, etc) are often appropriated by foresight)

Past-oriented

Between forecast and foresight


Something never to be forgotten: Trends deflect They may vanish New trends may arise

i.e., there are surprises and novelties

Data may be unreliable Qualitative and multi-disciplinary issues Uncertainty

Crumbs from last century 1900

London is the capital of the world Europe rules the eastern

hemisphere. All countries are directly or indirectly controlled by a European capital

Europe is at peace and enjoying unprecedented prosperity

Beware:What I am going to present follows a

Westerner’s perspective point

G. Friedman, The Next Hundred Years, New York, Anchor Books 2010

Crumbs from last century1920

Europe has been torn by a heartbreaking war

The Austro-Hungarian, Russian, German and Ottoman empires disappeared and a long war caused millions of deaths

Russia is communist, but it is unclear whether it is able to survive

Countries that were at the periphery of Europe, like the US and Japan, emerge as major powers

One thing is certain: the peace treaty imposed on Germany guarantees that Germany will not emerge again


Germany has re-emerged, conquered France and is dominating Europe

Communism survived and the USSR is allied with Nazi Germany

Perhaps the Reich will not be millennial, but the fate of Europe is clear: Germany will dominate Europe and inherit its empires


Germany was crushed by war Europe was divided in half between the US and the

Soviet Union The European empires collapsed; a hundred new

states emerged from the European colonies and joined the UN

The United States and the Soviet Union compete on a global scale

Both develop a huge nuclear arsenal and can mutually annihilate one another and the whole world

The United States dominate the oceans of the world China is led by Mao, which many see as a fanatic


The US have been defeated in a war that lasted seven years, not with the URSS, but with North Vietnam

Soviet Union expands its range of influence

To contain the Soviet Union, the United States forge an alliance with Maoist China


The Soviet Union collapsed completely China is still communist in name but in

fact has become capitalist NATO moves into Eastern Europe and

even in the former USSR The world is prosperous and peaceful

2000 Then came Sept. 11, 2001 ...

Observations Speaking of the future, common sense is wrong Situations that appear permanent and dominate a

historical period, can change with amazing rapidity Conventional analysis often lack imagination,

literally they do not know how to see the future Place yourself mentally in one of the moments that

we have described (1900, etc.) and imagine someone who says what will happen in the next moment (1920, etc.). His statements appear ridiculous or nonsensical

Dator’s Law (after Jim Dator): “every significant statement about the future, at first seems ridiculous”

Foresight


Scenarios Explorative (from the present to the future) Normative (from the future to the present)

Traditional Futures Studies (FS) Non-previsive Extensive practice – little theory Includes some levels of uncertainty and ambiguity Includes efforts for challenging mental models Includes weak signals and wildcards Some (but usually very limited) acceptation of

complexity Future-oriented

Intermezzo: the role of reframing


Learn to see what you usually do not see – collect widely different information (what is now irrelevant, may become relevant tomorrow)

Learn to see things in a different way – Understand your biases

Realize the structural constraints that influence any of us “Knowing” and “seeing” follow two different logics

Education, culture, relationships, power The “end of history” illusion Future-self as the self of another person

Beware


For the time being I will consider only ‘static’ exemplifications – ‘dynamic’ ones are more difficult and must be postponed to other occasions

Kanizsa’s Triangle

Masking

Effect White

Attention test


In reality there always are things that we do not see (and others that we see even if they are not there) – for many different (cognitive and social) reasons

Selective attention test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v

=vJG698U2Mvo

Why this is important? The opposition between “seeing” and “thinking”

“seeing” – Local information prevails over global information “thinking” – Global information prevails over local information

The more we are deeply focussed on something, the less we see of our environment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vJG698U2Mvo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vJG698U2Mvo

Reframing Recognize our own mental models (including

our biases and prejudices) and find ways to change them

Sometimes, the solution to our problems requires that we learn to see things differently

Our models (including biases and prejudices) are all derived from the past – even if they have proven so far successful, this does not imply that they will be successful in the future as well, in situations very different from those we are accustomed to

Anticipation The future is far from being only a problem of

exploration or imagination; it is also a problem of articulation Forecast = previsive models Foresight = explores possible futures Anticipation = expands the possibilities to act and learn

Not so much “imagine the future”, but “design, implement and test futures” The best way to predict the future is to invent it – Alan

Kay, 1971, Xerox PARC Be aware of the many social and psychological constraints

obstructing our future-generating capacity The future not only as something that is there, but

something that can be generated or consumed by our deeds

Many different kinds of anticipation


Implicit anticipation Automatic or semi-automatic; works below the

threshold of awareness, can be very short (down to milliseconds) or very long (vegetables’ ‘strategies’); embedded into social habits

Explicit anticipation Cognitive representations; it requires social conditions

of activation; can be both individual and collective

Two different threads Anticipation as the third level of Futures Studies Anticipation as a property of natural systems (in this

case I will use the expression “anticipatory systems”)

Anticipation


An anticipatory behavior is a behavior that ‘uses’ the future in its actual decisional process. To fix ideas, anticipation includes two mandatory components: a forward-looking attitude and the use of the former’s result for action

A weather forecast in itself is not anticipatory in the sense used here

Watching a weather forecast and as a consequence taking an umbrella before going to work is instead an anticipatory behavior

Anticipation’s two components are coherent with Rosen’s definition of anticipation: An anticipatory system is a system containing a predictive model of itself and/or its environment, which allows it to change state at an instant in accord with the model’s predictions pertaining to a later instant (Rosen, 2012, pp. 8, 313, originally published in 1985)

Uncertainty


People often feel unconfortable with uncertainty – ambiguity – complexity After all, humans like to control things

Uncertainty is that uncomfortable feeling you get when things are ambiguous and complex You don’t understand everything You are not in control

Ambiguity and complexity reinforce one another – but are very different Ambiguity is more subjective, complexity more objective

Managing uncertainty is about learning to manage the feelings you have about ambiguity and the knowledge you have about complexity Do not ignore uncertainty – play with it – discover what you can

influence and what you can’t – learn to reframe problems and viewpoints

Futures Literacy


As with reading and writing, futures literacy entails the capacity to understand as well as design explicit processes of anticipatory knowledge creation

Different kinds of future Possible—Plausible—Probable—Preferable (Amara 1981) Tomorrow – 6 months – 3 years – 10 years – …

Different ways of using the future Optimization: How to “colonize” the future (e.g., through

planning) Contingency: How to prepare for anticipated surprises Novelty: How to expand perceptions of the present

(beyond the constrains required by optimization and contingency)

Anticipation


Not previsive Complexity-based Modification of the mental frames adopted by

decision-makers – awareness of social and psychological constraints

Deals with uncertainty and ambiguity Futures literacy Focus on articulation and prioritisation Interplay between theory and practice Present-oriented

When stepping up to the next level?


From forecast to foresight Unavailable or unreliable data Poor understanding of the event’s

underlying laws and its conditioning factors

When the forecasts can affect the event we are trying to forecast

Qualitative and multi-disciplinary aspects

When the environment changes in novel and surprising ways

Exploration of multiple futures From foresight to anticipation

Uncertainty (ambiguity – complexity) prevails

Challenging and reframing mental models

Anticipation

Foresight

Forecast

The two main situations


Simple (and complicated) cases Past – Future – Present Begin with quantitative analysis

(forecasts) Then step up to qualitative data

(foresight) Then make sense of the present

(anticipation) Complex cases

Present – Future – Past First develop a ‘holistic’ understanding

of the present (anticipation) Then specify its qualitative aspects

(foresight) And only at the end move to quantitative

analyses (forecast) (+ iterations between them)

Anticipation

Foresight

Forecast

Anticipation

Foresight

Forecast

The Three Levels of Futures Studies


Type Nature Window

Mental model Theory Compl-

exityOrient-ation

Forecast Previsive

(Primarily) Short

LongNo Good No Past-

oriented

ForesightNon

previsive

(Primarily)Inter-mediate

Partly Poor Poor Future-oriented

Anticip-ation

Non previsiv

e

(Primarily)

Inter-mediate

Yes

Presently under develop-

ment

Good Present-oriented

The simplest version

Old FS New FS


Foresight-based (no room for either forecast or anticipation)

It includes both the analytic exploration of possible futures and the actions to be developed upon them

Room for forecast, foresight and anticipation

Foresight = analytic exploration of possible futures

Anticipation = Generation and consumption of futures; action oriented (this is why it needs to be fully aware of cognitive and social biases)

Anticipation


The interest for ‘anticipation’ and ‘anticipatory systems’ is getting burning-hot

Human and social scientists are beginning to ask themselves whether they should reshape their sciences from primarily past-oriented sciences to primarily future-oriented ones

Some relevant recent developments: Seligman, Railton, Baumeister, and Sripada (2013)

– Appadurai (2013) – Beckert (2013) – Tavory and Eliasoph (2013) – …

For an overview see (Poli, 2014a, 2014b))

Anticipation


Apart from contributions from the human and social sciences, it is worth noting that physicists have recently raised the question of why the representation of time as a parameter codified by real numbers is such a poor representation of time – and they are considering whether it could be advisable to add a structural component corresponding to what psychologists call the ‘now’ Mermin, 2014.

Anticipation


That anticipation is getting hotter and hotter can be seen from many different cues

First International Conference on Anticipation (Trento, 5-7 November 2015) – Organized by the UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Systems, WAAS-World Academy of Art and Science, ISSS-International Society for the Systems Sciences, the Advanced Design Network, and the Department of Sociology and Social Sciences of the University of Trento

The Handbook of Anticipation, a systematic exploration of anticipation in the different sciences and disciplines edited by R. Poli and published by Springer

1st International Conference on Anticipation


Handbook of Anticipation


PART 1. INTRODUCING ANTICIPATION (Key definitions of anticipation, assumptions, typology of forms of

anticipation)

PART 2. UNDERSTANDING ANTICIPATION HUMANITIES (Linguistics, Literature, Arts, Philosophy, Religion) SOCIAL SCIENCES (Anthropology, Psychology, Economics, Sociology, etc) NATURAL SCIENCES (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) FORMAL SCIENCES (Mathematics, Computer science, Statistics)

PART 3. CONTEXTS OF ANTICIPATORY PRACTICE (Agriculture, Architecture and design,, Business, Education,

Engineering, Environmental studies, Futures studies, Journalism, Law, Military science, Public administration, Social work, etc.)

PART 4. ENHANCING ANTICIPATION (This is the toolkit section – how to do, assess, improve and judge

the use of anticipatory practice in different contexts, make mature and informed decisions about when different anticipatory tools are appropriately used)

So what?


The future is coming back to the research agenda Reorientation of the research agenda from

understanding “what is” to understanding “what is to become”

From primary past-orientation to primary future-orientation

No awareness of FS The few that show some awareness of FS,

often misunderstand FS and what it is doing

Anticipation


The explicit consideration of anticipation opens new scientific perspectives. To mention but two apparently opposed and disconnected outcomes, anticipation both rehabilitates the Aristotelian theory of causes (including a version of the final cause) and generates an innovative understanding of complexity

Our understanding of anticipation is still cursory, and the novelty of the perspective may conceal the difficulty implied by this otherwise refreshingly new vision

Nonetheless, anticipation is increasingly at the heart of urgent contemporary debates, from climate change to economic crisis

Anticipation


Anticipatory capabilities of individuals and communities can enhance the overall sense-making process and improve decision-making, strategy formation and societal resilience

The deepest driving force is the recognition of the empirical fact of anticipation in all systems (biological, psychological, social)

As a consequence, the focus on anticipation may help challenging the fragmentation of the human and social sciences – helping them to make a more significant contribution to the world

Anticipation


Why now? – Because the human and social sciences are refocusing on the future

Why do this? (1) – to challenge the fragmentation of the human and social sciences; to help them to make a more significant contribution to the world (and, as a consequence: to empower citizens and social groups)

Why do this? (II) – this isn’t about guaranteeing a better way of living in the world, it is about the recognition of the empirical fact of anticipation in all systems – there is an empirical and theoretical challenge to understand how this works. It is also about building our capacity to reflect upon how anticipatory processes are working, and about broadening our repertoire and our sensitivity and reflexivity about this

1 introduction roberto poli anticipation, complexity and the future [email protected]

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