Possibility space: The role of social sciences in understanding, mapping and shaping the future

Abstract

Social science no longer does enough to map out the possibilities for the future, at a time when there is a serious need for more options. There are many reasons for this including the structure of incentives within universities, and the impact of an otherwise healthy focus on evidence and data. This piece describes both how social sciences can better understand the future and their role in helping to shape options, including methods for creativity, and the relationship between broad goals and experimental methods to find pathways. It addresses the problems of ‘materiality bias’, a bias towards exaggerating the influence of material over non-material factors and concludes with a discussion of how to think about future consciousness.