History of the Future

Abstract

The human future has been a subject of major secular speculation since the emergence of modern symbolic thought. In these representations of the future, the human species is often conceptualized as occupying an intermediate transitory space of existence between a lower and a higher state of being that is destined to be conquered or overcome with the mechanisms of science and technology. In this section, we give an overview of this modernist history and attempt to connect this history to its most forceful postmodern criticisms. We also attempt to articulate the structural logic of renewed contemporary speculations of a human future grounded in scientific and technological transcendence.