Artificial Future, Model, Mode for FUTURLOGICS a system of prospective thinking
FUTURLOGICS a system of prospective thinking:
by james n. hall
COPYRIGHT © 1983 BY
JAMES NORMAN HALL
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Chapter VII
ARTIFICIAL FUTURE
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THE ASSUMPTIVE MODE
What we have discussed so far has been in the arm chair of our
living room. We have not really come to terms with the real world.
The need and demands of material necessities force a need for
certainty. Life goes on regardless, and we often must live and act with
inadequate knowledge of the actual future. *
*The term actual future refers to the future we will
eventually experience both mentally and physically.
We must learn what to do in the face of such ignorance. In a
dangerous environment ignorance is a special problem. Doing the
wrong thing would lead to disaster. But what happens in a relatively
save environment? A mistake is simply a mistake, and not a dangerous
error of judgment.
Action without some kind of notion is impossible. Action must
be pointed toward some goal, real or imagined. Truth guarantees
favorable results. In every case when we act upon the truth things go
as expected. It would be nice if we could always wait until everything
has been proven true or false, but time and circumstances never
present themselves so handily. We often act upon unproven data.
Action is basic to the conception of this mode and future. Action
upon the proven and certain presents no problem. But what about
action based upon assumptions? Action is generally prompted out of
commitment to and idea or and ideal. Such commitment is the end of
further deliberation. Action then becomes a form of limitation of the
thought process, since it is difficult to "think" and "do" at the same
time. Action in the assumptive mode of approaching the future is then
seen as a cycle, producing that part of the thinking we put aside as
foregone conclusions. We need only to observe the difficulty encountered
when we try to change the mind or the course of action of a
committed person. First he must be persuaded to stop the ongoing
action prompted by his commitment before he is able to change his
course of direction. The totally committed person has stopped thinking
or else he uses only a part of his mind which is necessary for him to
continue his pursuit.
Prior to commitment is decision. Decision produces anxiety, as
they are limiting. Decision would be unnecessary if there were no
limits ever placed upon us. but because we are limited, we must decide
where to stop and when to go.
To act upon thought we have to conclude or condense deliberation
to a point at which we are motivated to act. Often in the face of
poor information we assume things just to expedite thought, or to
simplify conclusions. Action in progress rarely is a time of deep
meditation. We wait for times and places free of action to begin such
deliberations. Action, by its nature, is not conducive to thought.
Since assumption is a trick we use to expedite thought or to begin
or maintain action, assumption can be a superficial means to allow
thought, as when the researcher or scientist assumes certain theories in
order to prove them. Otherwise, he might continue waiting for conclusive
evidence which may never come, except by trial and error.
Because assumption can be taken as a means to continue thought,
assumed "facts" assist us to keep the ball rolling, as it were, in certain
speculative developments.
If we accept the saying "what you don't know won't hurt your" as
true, then ignorance is safety. We might justify not waiting for the
facts by saying "a little assumption is not dangerous." But the proper
wait only hurts ignorance. Waiting is investigated further in chapter XI.
The cycle generating the assumptive mode of approaching the
future starts from a motive, or drive. These motives initiate commitment
to some imagined or subconsciously generated condition, event,
knowledge, or notion. This, in turn, prompts action which meets
experience. If there are no contradictions to assumptions, then
further assumption continues the action. If this cycle of assumption is
used to view the future, the future seen might be called the Artificial
Future.
The artificial future is influenced by the things that motivate us.
If we did not have an artificial future we could not act, except when
the truth was known. Because truth is sometimes absent, the artificial
future is a substitute for the truth, and it exists until it is revealed as
false.
The optimist and the pessimist reflect different styles of assumptions
in their views of the future. The artificial future of other people
is noticed only when it conflicts with our own. Therefore, it may be
largely unnoticed and often subconscious.
The only one who would not have an artificial future would be
God. If God has a perfect foreknowledge, assumptions need not exist
in His approach to the future.
Our lives are built upon concepts of the future that later may
become irrelevant to new conditions. No matter how perfect our dream
worlds might be, the hard, cold realities often wake us to the
actual future, and when it becomes real and present we are tossed
between a rock and a hard place, seeing our assumptions exposed.
This constant disillusionment drives the process of belief in the
imaginary future to the subconscious level. Our imagined futures, driven
underground and dealt with subconsciously, produce the mode that
generates the artificial future.
CALAMITY REVEALS THE ARTIFICIAL FUTURE
How do we know our artificial future? We need only interview
the victims of a drastic life-changing event to find that it exist within
us. Earthquakes and hurricanes interrupt what we supposed our
future to be. They reveal to us that what we believed to be the itinerary
of future events were only hopes. If tonight the inside of the earth
were to burst like an egg, all our assumptions would be of no
consequence. Doomsday talk has been around for ages. It does not
alarm any experienced historian. Yet the point we silhouette against
all this is that we live by assumptions so common they are taken for
granted. During changes we become able to discern between delusion
and illusion recognizing them for what they are.
Our assumptions are not a logical choice, but they are a subconscious
process, born of our culture, and bred in particular societies.
When we visit other countries we are aware of their assumptions because
they are strange to us. They conflict with our own. Also, the shock of
living in a new culture often opens the mind to the artificial future.
IT DOES NOT MATTER IF WE CAN OR CANNOT KNOW
The position of the skeptic or the agnostic is that we can't know
anything of the future because it is beyond our senses and therefore
does not exist. This claim takes us to a point where anything that is
future is a product of assumption and belief.
The difference between the artificial future and the imaginary
future is this: when we are motivated to act upon the imaginary future
it becomes the artificial future. Also, the artificial future is largely a
product of the subconscious mind and the imaginary future is of the
conscious mind. The deciding factor is the principle of action.
Skepticism has never built anything, created anything, dared anything,
but waits for "George" to do it. Before we allow the negative process
to operate we must give creative thoughts dominance. The absolute
"knowability" of the future doesn't matter, because either we know
the future, or we must come up with a reasonable substitute.
We cannot act without some kind of "future."
WE MUST BE PURPOSEFUL AND ORGANIZED
It seems we can't tolerate lives that have no purpose or direction.
Why is this? It seems to be INSTINCTIVE. Maybe our sense of
economy places us in a position not to waste the time we have. We live
approximately seventy years, and we don't want to do anything that is
not fulfilling. Purpose contributes to the quality of our lives. For
better or worse, act we must and act we do. Organization and quality
are byproducts of purpose.
PHYSICAL LAW DEMANDS DIRECTION AND PERMANENCE
Time is relative motion compared. It is contrary to the laws of
physics that all things move in all directions at once. A body at rest
tends to remain at rest and a body in motion tends to remain in motion
until an outside force changes its direction. We are in motion, and it
follows from the above law that we have direction.
If we had a perfect foreknowledge we would be able to move in
the temporal environment in complete harmony to all other things in
the physical environment. Selecting goals and objectives and having
means to fulfill them would be second nature. Our motivational
system would have perfect expression. But we are born nearly void of
knowledge and practically powerless to express it.
THE BODY AS A BASIS OF PREDICTION
From birth to death we should be increasing in our knowledge
(and foreknowledge). But during the time of growth our body will
remain essentially the same. Through one person may be more educated
than another, the motivations of people are essentially the same.
The fact that we can make a systematic science of psychology is
offered as proof. We all have the same biological makeup. The main
difference between the retarded and genius is his intellect. Our
motivational system is similar even though the intellect may vary. Our
appetites and desires make us able to sympathize, if not empathize
with our neighbors' failures and successes. Our motivational system
operates with or without knowledge or foreknowledge. No matter
how educated we become, we still get hungry and thirsty. Our body
acts, interacts, and reacts; therefore, the body is the foundation of the
modal division of the future.
This substitute future is created because we are deficient of a real
one. The prosthesis here is similar to the production of an artificial
limb or organ. It is substituted to expedite "normal" living. The
prosthetic future we are discussing here performs the same function
as the artificial eye, but it suggests more than this, as we shall see as
the chapter develops.
We have an either-or situation. Either we know something about
the future or we know nothing about it. The philosophy of Futurlogics
takes neither position, but says that knowing does not matter,
because everybody has a "future." True or artificial, it makes no
difference, because we act and use these futures either because they
are true or because we take them as a substitute. This makes the
investigation of man and prospective thinking continuous and systematic.
Everyone has an artificial future of some degree. We constantly
act upon assumptions either consciously or subconsciously. It is a
daily event to have these assumptions revealed as such. The old gentleman
who said the "future ain't what it used to be" said it for all of
us.
The process of revising the artificial future is a painful one, as
seeing the economic future eaten away by inflation and the diminishing
prosperity will testify. Revisions and updating of the future
certainly occur so much we no longer pay any attention. Portions of
the artificial future are sometimes made conscious, but these fringe
experiences do not destroy the continuous nature of the future. We
find a constant flip-flop between the futures. If we act upon the
percept or thought, then we act in the realms of the artificial; if we do
not act, but only think about acting, the future remains imaginary.
The indecision as to where our percept of the future belongs is the
beginning of conscious understanding of the divisions of the future
and the definition of Futurlogics. Futurlogics is a mode in itself, but
it is intended to point us to an eventual encounter with the true future.
SUBCONSCIOUS GAMBLING
The calculated risk, the wager, the bet, the dare, the "I'll take a
chance" are conscious manifestations of the subconscious workings.
As long as we believe we are safe and secure, the artificial future
remains below the conscious. If the action prompted by one percept of
the artificial future is deemed dangerous or extraordinary, then
consciousness is brought to the fore.
Every one takes a chances--not just on cards and dice or race
horses, but subconsciously. Many times it takes a lifetime to discover
we assumed things would happen or had "feelings" which are no
longer appropriate. The artificial is subconscious gambling.
People who wage or bet frequently are bored with life and seek to
spice up the commonplace. The gambler gets his excitement from the
value of the wager. Events become interesting not for their own sake,
but for the hinge on the turn of events. Those people who are emotionally
anesthetized by the commonplace like to tease their artificial future to
get more feeling out of the usual because the lack foreknowledge.
UNDERSTANDING THE ARTIFICIAL FUTURE
How do we understand the subconscious? Since the motivations
and drives that urge us are mostly unconscious process, this means
the artificial future develops below our awareness level. Some might
say that we cannot understand it because of its internal nature. But
since our actions are the result of these subconscious drives and
motivations, understanding comes within the parameters of behavior.
Therefore, the artificial future will be best studied from a behaviorally
defined system.
One person deals with the future by not thinking of it at all, or so
he reports. At first this sounds like escapism, but upon further
analysis, it is quite appropriate. What he means is he doesn't
consciously think of the future. He goes to work, buys a new care on time
payments, shops a the grocer's for two weeks a time, borrows on
future earnings, goes to sleep at night, buys insurance policies, plans a
big fishing trip and sets his vacation schedule, phones ahead to make
reservations, weeps a funerals, saves money--all this, and he doesn't
think of the future! But his behavior says that all he does has a
prospective dimension that extends into the future. We can map his
futures by his behaviors.
The conscious mind deals easily with the observable, but fights to
deal with intangibles. When we study the future--especially the artificial
future--we must suspend conscious logic and be able to turn it off
and on as required. DMP is part of this ability. Understanding our
motivations will be a key to this subconscious future.
We have a hierarchy of drives and motivations. We cannot be
hungry and satiated, tired and energetic, sexually attracted and
repulsed all at once. There is and order to all our urges and it is rare to
have them hit all at the same instant. We have schedules and habits
that give these body functions their turns. This may mean that the
artificial future may have a schedule and a routine also, that dovetails
into the other.
Every organ of the body hues and tenors the behavior and
thoughts of man. The brain is an organ containing a force to act also in
itself, consisting of feelings, sentiments, will, and the higher emotions
of love, trust, giving, etc.. These higher motives do not always work in
harmony with the appetites of the body, and discordance produces the
conflicting drives of fatigue or guilt. The artificial future is shaped
and generated from this interaction.
We can put off drives and wants and needs for varying lengths of
time--some extended beyond the life span. All this shapes our individual
artificial futures. The greater our control of the drives that move
us to act, the easier it is to see the artificial nature of these "futures."
In ancient days, prophets fasted to learn of the future. This may be
described in the terminology of this book as subduing the artificial
future in order to make it easier to learn what will truly happen. If we
remove the causes of the false future we can think more clearly and
wait for the truth. The value systems of men, indeed, there very
consciences, spur them to action. The conscience has be traditionally
at war with the body's needs. Fasting will allow the artificial future
opposed by the conscience to attenuate. This denial may have been the
genesis of the world's religions, since they mainly deal with the future
as "afterlife" ignoring personal needs which cause assumptions.
THE ARTIFICIAL FUTURE MAY APPROXIMATE THE TRUE FUTURE
It may be that someone will generate in the subconscious mind as
artificial future that is just as good as the real thing. We are now
trying to make artificial hearts that rival the actual heart. This rough
comparison shows a possibility that the artificial future may
approximate the future so exactly that it is as good as true.
If the future is discerned by DMP then we tell the difference
between a good imitation and the genuine. Precognition is now under
investigation in the laboratories. DMP and precognition may be the
same thing. While we leave this an undetermined and an open issue,
as there are great arguments attached to the possibilities. Whether DMP
is insight or abstract thought does not matter to the system of
Futurlogics, because either opinion should be productive of a clearer
view of the futures of man.
DISCERNING THE MODE
Introspection may reveal some of the artificial future, but such a
sustained analysis produces anxiety. Reprocessing of foregone conclusions
and 'proven' assumptions is disturbing. To the subconscious
everything is true, and it acts accordingly. How much of it is take for
granted and never brought to light? The artificial future persist
because men do not like to change. Change produces anxiety. They
ultimately try to arrange everything within to match the status quo. If
you change a man's artificial future, you change the reasons that
motivate him. This future is meshed with everything that motivates
mankind. It is the deepest rooted.
The collective nature of the artificial future makes this revealing
even more difficult. The culture in which we are raise as children also
assumes a future to facilitate the aims of that society. To change the
artificial future of that society can bring one into conflict with that
society, and there are a host of great men who have met the opposition
of bigoted people and not survived. The artificial future handed down
from one generation to the next is the hardest to discover. In Russia,
the goals of communism are taught, and sanctions for the visionary
who challenges it are strict. The fact that there is an iron curtain
evidences the need to confine the Russian population to isolation,
because it contributes to the belief in the future the propagandist
"forsee." Men always try to make their future match the artificial
by engineering it to be so. The synthetic future has this effect.
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