Humanistic Futurism

The 10 Paradigms of Humanistic Futurism

  1. Humanistic futurism looks at the future from the perspective of man, his whole being . The approach is sceptical of technical or apocalyptic exaggerations.
  2. Humanistic Futurism believes in the ability to consciously shape the future.
  3. Technology is important, but not everything. The future depends not on sensational innovations, but also fundamentally on socio-technologies, human forms of cooperation, emotions and psychological processes.
  4. Humanistic Futurism understands conversion processes in evolutionary and systemic models. It is about understanding complexity beyond linear and reductionist thinking patterns.
  5. Humanistic Futurism is the attempt towards a UNIVERSAL DISCIPLINE, in which human, natural and systems sciences enter into new connections. The evolutionary biologist and universal philosopher Edward O. Wilson speaks of a Third Enlightenment:
    “Contrary to the common belief, the humanities are not distinct from science. Each permeates the other. No matter how distant phenomena addressed by the scientific method may seem – all scientific knowledge must be processed by the human brain. The act of discovery is completely a human story.“
    (Edward O. Wilson, The Origins of Creativity, p. 186).
  6. The view of the future includes the reflection of inner expectation patterns. It is always about self-questioning: Who are we? What can we recognise? Where are we wrong – and for what reasons?
  7. Humanistic futurism distinguishes between the future as imagination and fiction and the future as the potential for improvement.
  8. If you want to understand the future, you have to hear the soft sounds, not the noise.
  9. The future arises when new ways of thinking emerge in which we transcend cognitive narrowness. We use prediction to enable thinking for a better future.