« As we study our current situation and explore ways to improve it, we find that if we are to enhance human survival and well-being, we must be concerned about the future. For human survival and well-being depend upon our ability to anticipate and cope with future problems and threats, to perceive, evaluate and control the effects of our actions, and to imagine and create more desirable futures.
How we can improve our ability to pursue theses goals through research is the subject of this volume.
If we are to enhance human survival and well-being, we need to improve our capacity to ask and answer questions about the future and implement the answers, increase our understanding and agreement about future problems and options in order to make possible effective action, and create a process to improve such capacity, understanding and agreement.
Important elements on this difficult and important process include actions to perform research concerning the future, to evaluate and revise the content and methods of such research, and to communicate and use the results. We need, for example, to improve the adequacy, clarity and precision not only of the concepts which we use to think about the future, but also of the symbols (the words, mathematical symbols and graphic/visual techniques) which we use to express, manipulate and communicate the concepts.
The following are some of the important questions which we need to address. What aspects of the future do we wish to consider, for example, climate, environment, resources, technology, the economy, social structure, and human values? What are the characteristics of theses elements, for example, predictability, uniqueness, stability, and controlability ? What factual, policy, and value questions should we ask about future events? For example, what future events and impacts are possible? How probable are they? What sorts of contingency are involved. That is, if we take a particular action, then what will be the impacts, or if we wish to achieve a particular goal, then what actions must we take? With what degree of certainty can we make statements about possibilities, probabilities and contingencies? How desirable and popular are the events and impacts, for what systems, groups, and values? What actions should we actually take? We need also to ask what intellectual tools, technologies, social processes, and institutions can we develop and use if we wish to address these problems and questions, and to implement the answers effectively?
This book was created in order to help us address many of the problems, questions, and needs outlined above. It contains an agenda for research which presents a challenge and an opportunity to those who perform, support, and use research on the future, and is the result of a project supported by the National Science Foundation’s Research Applied to National Needs (RANN) Program in order to assess the state-of-the-art and needs for additional research in the field of forecasting. Although the conferences leading to this volume were held in January 1974, and the papers printed here were prepared primarily during 1973-1975, the volume is still timely since cumulative progress in this fields is unfortunately slow.
It is hoped that, by helping to stimulate research on the future and raise its quality, foster an ongoing dialogue about subjects and methods for research, and strengthen the community of performers and users of research on the future, this book will help us more effectively to anticipate and cope with future problems, threats, and opportunities; to perceive, evaluate, and control the effects of our actions; and to imagine, design, and create more desirable futures. »