Freitag, 2. Februar 2018

Prospection Theory:

"pragmatic prospection theory says the main thrust in thinking about the future is less to predict what will happen than to predict points at which multiple different outcomes are possible and incompatible (so some will come true while others will not) - and, crucially, that oneself can exert some control over which ones come true. The important thing is predicting the choice points, not the eventual outcomes. Put another way, the purpose of prospection is not so much to predict future reality as to predict future possibilities - especially situations based on offering competing, incompatible ones. Those choice points and performance demands are the raison d'etre of agency.
Indeed, ... we seriously entertain the notion that consciousness creates alternative possibilities (in the sense that it makes it possible for them to become reality). It is precisely because people can imagine alternatives to the present that they can implement them, sometimes by creating a future situation that is importantly different from the present one."

------

"People think about the future, not primarily as an attempt to predict what is bound to happen, but as a series of points at which events can go in different directions. The future is less a matter of something to be known than something to be shaped and guided amid multiple alternative possibilities."

------

Consciousness of the Future as a Matrix of Maybe
R. F. Baumeister, H. Maranges, H. Sjåstad (2018)

Keine Kommentare:

Kommentar veröffentlichen