5.4. Changing the world for better

How can we utilize foresight and future scenarios for change? What kind of practices can we engage in to create a better future?

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Where does the thinking about the future come from?

We all make plans. We imagine a desired future. We shrink at the dreadful image of how things might go wrong for us. We may shrug our shoulders when we hear someone talking about a future that sounds silly or ridiculous. We all do all these sorts of thinking about the future. Our brains do it. Why?

The human brain developed the function of visualizing the future driven by the need for safety. More precisely, the executive part of our brain is developed to be capable of planning, reasoning, visualizing the future and decision-making so we can continue having a life (Herbert & Dufau, 2022, Carson, 2012). Anatomically, the executive center is composed of the front and side regions of the prefrontal cortex (See Figure 5.4.1 below).

Other brain areas communicate summarised information to the executive center. There is a wealth of information that is constantly processed downstream, which does not make it to the executive center. Thus, based on incomplete and biased information, the executive center of the human brain performs the following functions:

• It finds the problems or the challenges that you will be spending your time addressing.
• It reflects on the identified problems in search of solutions.
• It changes perspectives on how to look at the problem.
• It decides when to step out and allows the lower-order areas of the brain to communicate their information.

Some of us have an executive center that is rather micro-managerial with the rest of the brain, which makes it difficult to come up with creative ideas. Some others have a more flexible executive center that delegates responsibility to other brain areas. For instance, when the executive center is more open to communication with the parts of the brain where our memories are encoded and stored and with the areas where we are self-aware, empathize with others’ perspectives and scenarios, understand social situations, we thus become able to “see” a future that hasn’t yet happened and make decisions both for survival and non-survival creative ideas. (Beaty et al., 2014)

So, the ability to think about the future evolved in the human brain, at the same time with the collection of memories of individual and collective experiences of success and failure throughout civilization. The executive center may not make the perfect decisions, but in collaboration with other brain areas becomes a powerful and spontaneous generator of visions, mental imagery, and hypothetical thinking.

So, we definitely do possess a creative brain, which propels us into thinking about the futures we could, might, should or will create.

Future themes and future thinking

What are future themes, and how are they important? What is future thinking, and what kind of scales does it operate on?

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In this sub-chapter, we will explore three topics: the different future themes and types of future thinking, the actions involved in creating the content of future scenarios, and what kind of practices we can engage in to shape social transformation.

While the future cannot be precisely predicted, it is worth trying to anticipate it and shape it in accordance with our preferences.

Some people have turned foresight, prescience, and anticipation into a profession. They are the experts in futures studies, which explore theories and methods for forecasting, envisioning, and creating the future. In turn, the futures theories become useful frameworks for planning strategies for organizational and societal change (Dator, 2019, Voros, 2003). We’ll now turn our attention towards some essential insights coming from the work of futurists.

So, when you hear the word “future”, what comes to your mind? What sensations do you feel in your body?

Future thinking is centred around a theme of the current reality that has meaning to you. You cannot imagine a future about nothing. Differently said, future thinking is a driver of engagement. Future thinking about your professional life in ten years from now. Future thinking about your lifestyle when you’re 80. Future thinking about the progress in society in the next fifty years. Future thinking about the expansion of the Universe in the next thousand years.

You see the point. There are different foci and time horizons – from the micro level of our individual experiences to the macro level of our societal experiences in a specific place and finally to the grand level of human civilization – based on which we can exercise our ability to envision and forecast alternative scenarios in the next 10 years, 50 years, 1000 years, and so on.

In Aalto University, an illustration of the future themes at the micro level of human experience is the collaboration between professors at the Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Computer Science who work on developing artificial intelligence for dementia prevention. The goal is to facilitate a paradigm shift in how medical doctors treat patients with mild memory and thinking afflictions. In addition to the team of Aalto University, researchers at HUS Helsinki University Hospital are involved in the project.

Another research team, Empathy Building Neuro-Lab, at the Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, investigates the neural mechanisms of prejudice, intergroup empathy, and empathy development.

When it comes to the focus on future themes at the macro and grand level of our societal experiences, Solutions for Sustainability is a cross-cutting theme in the activities that unfold at Aalto University. For instance, Creative Sustainability is a master’s degree program, initiated in 2010 as a joint effort between the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, School of Business and School of Chemical Engineering.

In 2024, a group of three Creative Sustainability students won with their solution MingeforGOOD, in a hackathon with over 500 participants in Finland and India gathered to address challenges linked to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. In 48 hours, over 130 innovative projects come to life. The MingeforGOOD solution is not on its way to becoming a reality.

A last illustration of future themes at the macro and grand level in Aalto University is GreEnergy. Current energy solutions are inefficient, depend on dwindling non-renewable resources, and significantly harm the environment by contributing to global warming. Solar energy, being the most abundant and potent energy source available, presents an underutilized opportunity, currently supplying about 4% of global electricity due to cost and efficiency barriers. The photovoltaic solar energy technologies currently have low efficiency and relatively high cost. GreEnergy addresses this issue by prototyping a self-powering system based on optical nano-antennas to efficiently capture solar energy, marking a significant shift towards more sustainable and eco-friendly energy sources.

What are the themes that inspire you to dream about a better future?

Since you started taking this course, what new actions have you taken in anticipation of a positive impact on a specific area in the future?

Five types of futures

Next, we’ll explore the kind of futures you can come up with.

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Voros (2003) distinguishes between five types of alternative futures: potential, possible, plausible, probable, and preferable.

The potential future is about all the future events that are about to unfold, including those we cannot even imagine. The possible future includes all sorts of future scenarios that we could possibly imagine by breaking the assumptions of the existing knowledge. Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity states that the strength of gravity between two objects depends on their masses and the distance between them: the greater the mass, the stronger the gravitational pull. What if the greater the mass, the weaker the gravitational pull? What might happen then?

An apple has a very small mass compared to the Earth (let’s say approximately 0.1 kilograms). When you hold an apple at a height (say 1 meter above the Earth’s surface) and let it go, it falls to the ground because of the gravitational pull between the Earth and the apple. What if there was another universe where objects the size of an apple hold the gravitational pull? What kind of a world might that be?  This is a game of imagination that reflects the possible future type of thinking.

Plausible futures reflect the events that could happen according to our general knowledge of how things work. Plausible futures do not necessarily stem from our knowledge of facts in a specific domain. Rather, they are an extension of our current understanding of processes, systems of human interaction, ways of creating knowledge, etc. The probable future is about the alternative future scenarios that are likely to happen based on the existing trends. Some dominant trends may fade out, while marginal ones may emerge slowly but surely. What is likely to happen based on the trends’ dynamics?

If the above three types of futures are mostly concerned with general and specialized knowledge, preferable futures are about scenarios that we would like to happen. In other words, these futures are more emotional than cognitive, being derived from personal values and are thus the most subjective.

Summing up, each of the five types of futures has a foundation on which they are built (See Figure 5.4.3. below).

Potential futures are the most comprehensive of all the alternative scenarios, referring to beyond anyone’s wildest imagination kind of future events, from the most dramatic to the most idealistic. Possible futures refer to scenarios that result from breaking assumptions on the facts and principles that govern a specific domain. Plausible futures are about the events that could happen considering the existing norms of social interactions. Probable futures are about scenarios built on possible shifts in the dominant and less dominant trends in society. And the fifth and last, the preferable futures are the versions of futures we would like to see, in an ideal world.

Framework for envisioning the future

When you choose the theme and type of the future, how can you go about creating an alternative scenario?

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Voros (2003, 2017) suggests three steps in formulating a future scenario: input, foresight work, and output (see Figure 5.4.4. below).

The input stage refers to scanning the environment where the phenomenon of interest takes place and collecting as much information as possible from varied sources about random events, trends, key actors and their actions, and key relationships between key actors. The aim is to use the collected data as a basis for formulating key questions around central topics that would open the mind to future visions.

In its turn, the foresight stage is formed of three steps: analysis, interpretation, and prospection.

Here, analysis answers the question of “what trends and random events can we observe about the phenomenon of interest?”  There are different methodological tools, such as the futures wheel for instance. Developed by futurist Jerome Glenn in the 1970s, the futures wheel is used for exploring and mapping out the potential direct and indirect consequences of a specific trend or event (Glenn, 2009). For example, Toivonen et al., (2021) explored the potential of the futures wheel to empower students in the private city development field with futures literacy skills. They found that when they used the futures wheel method to think about what might happen in the future, a lot depended on the people who participated. In addition to the futures wheel, there are other methodologies, like the cross-impact matrix and trend analysis, which have a similar aim of analysing and understanding how different actors and events might interact with and influence each other.

However, all these methodologies should be used with the grain of salt. After all, they are subject to three inherent complexities of collecting information to predict the future: the uncertainty and the complexity of global, technological, economic, and social systems; the cognitive biases of the decision-makers, such as overconfidence, confirmation bias, and the anchoring effect; and limitations in terms of resources – which include time, money, and expertise – dedicated to long-term analysis. Summing up, when collecting and analysing information on trends and events related to a specific phenomenon of interest, it’s beneficial to remind ourselves that there is no perfect data and methodology.

Once the collected information about the phenomenon of interest is processed through a preferred methodological tool, the next step is the interpretation of the identified consequences and connections of the events. The question is, “What is happening beyond the surface of the identified patterns?” The aim is to look for insights into system dynamics and drivers to understand what the causes of the observed trends and events at the analysis phase might be. Then, at the prospection stage, a future scenario is generated, based on the future type you are interested in – possible, plausible, probable, or preferable. You want to show in the scenario, what might happen, what could happen, what is likely to happen or what you’d like to happen.

Lastly, at the input and foresight work stages comes the output stage, where the alternative scenarios above generated are taken into consideration by strategy teams in making strategic decisions and taking actions towards actually creating the future.

All in all, these three stages are meant to open one’s mind to the alternative visions related to the phenomenon of interest, which were not even considered at the outset. Also, this framework can increase awareness of drivers of change for enabling a preferred future.

Practices shaping societal transformation

In this section, we address how practices in the arts and education realms can shape societal transformations.

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So far, we covered three key issues related to creating a better future:

1. The importance of identifying a future theme that has meaning to you – on the micro, macro and grand level.
2. The types of future thinking that can be used to create alternative future scenarios – what is possible, plausible, probable, and preferable.
3. The framework that we can use to actually create future scenarios.

Next, we’ll look into some examples of initiatives we can engage in when we entertain a specific image of the future, called societal transformation.

Societal transformation envisions a future where current behaviours, beliefs, norms, and organizational forms end, giving way to new ones. These new forms are distinct from a mere return to older or traditional models. In general, futures studies discussed two primary categories of societal transformation: “high-tech“, which focuses on technological breakthroughs, and “high spirit“, which centers on consciousness transformations (Voros, 2017).

Vervoort et al. (2024) propose a framework through which we can analyse how arts and creative practices can stimulate the high spirit transformation, new forms of human consciousness, by influencing the fundamental ways of making sense of the sustainability needs. Creative practices encompass the art domains, including disciplines like design. Creative practices can be performed by both professionals and volunteers who utilize their personal and/or collective craft skills and creativity to innovate, refresh, or reinterpret aspects of the world and educate the end users about new meanings of sustainable futures. The impact of creative practices on sustainable futures can be facilitated by a variety of activities, from writing, art, and theatre to design and participatory community development, to storytelling.

Creative practices stimulate sustainability transformation by creating emotional experiences that could “change us by giving a foretaste of what radical respect for life might be like” (Light 2023, p. 27). From this perspective, creative practices can support individuals develop new meanings about transformational futures, in three ways: embodiment, learning and imagining.

Here, embodiment refers to the the use of the body to experience and comprehend the world beyond traditional rationalistic methods. The embodiment enables access to diverse ways of knowing, facilitating a deeper connection with various perspectives often overlooked in a rational-centric approach. Also, embodiment connects to metaphors and meaning, allowing for a physical engagement with ideas and theories.

For example, the organizers of the creative practice Invocation for Hope, invited people into a burnt but secretly alive indoor woodland. This immersion evoked many reflections on new embodied experiences among visitors who described mixed feelings of desolation and aliveness (Superflux 2021).

At individual and group levels, embodiment fosters changes in emotional energy and social interactions, which can lead to new values and social relationships, essential for sustainability transformations.

Learning has a profound impact on sustainability transformations when it involves changes in basic assumptions, worldviews, and knowledge. Creative practices play a significant role in facilitating complex sense-making processes among the public, with reflection being a key component in altering understanding through artistic and creative experiences.

Individual learning requires deep evaluation and reflection on acquired knowledge, aligning it with more fundamental assumptions and broader understandings, which can then lead to personal transformations. Social learning is also essential when individuals collectively gain insights through communication, observation, and problem-solving. This relational and collective learning not only facilitates the expression of concerns and externalization of problems but also fosters a shared critical consciousness that recognizes societal issues as structural and requiring change. Ultimately, both individual and collective learning processes are crucial for shaping actions toward sustainability transformations.

Imagining refers to imagined futures, present-day life, and remembered pasts are entangled in creative practices to which the audiences react, both individually and collectively. Art and creative practices expose the audiences to new ways of being or doing that can expand people’s imaginative capacities, through open associations and interpretations. Moreover, the frequent communication of visions and narratives of the future can gain widespread attraction, garnering support and resources. These visions may evolve into “imaginaries”, which are images of the future that are backed by different organizations and repeatedly presented to the public. Such imaginaries extend the scope of what societies can envision, opening up new possibilities for change.

For instance, in the practice of the Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025, imagination is central (Furtherfield, 2022). Participants work together to imagine festival activities and other group plans to foster the different species in the park. These scenarios are purely fictional, but they intend to serve as inspiration for real action. As imaginaries gain institutional support and public recognition, they become deeply intertwined with institutional change, shifts in public perception, and systemic transformations.

So far, we discussed how arts and creative practices can stimulate changes in meaning-making for sustainable futures. In addition, societal transformation requires the re-imagining of the skills we need to create the future. Here, educational institutions play a key role.

We thus conclude this sub-chapter by emphasizing the importance of changing the educational systems in higher education to support the learning and practice of the skills for future work. To this view, we need educators who understand the need to take radically creative initiatives in designing the learning content and spaces.

Johannes Kaira is a University Teacher at Aalto University who is part of the Co-Educator team whose goal is to prepare Aalto graduates to be responsible and influential experts. In an interview with Johannes, Oana asked what motivates him to do what he does. Johannes answered as such:

“I think the impact through education is way bigger than me building anything myself. So, if I can influence students that’s already scalable. That’s already something that can potentially grow exponentially rather than me trying to do something. Of course, building something by my own could be also very motivating. But I feel that here my ability to have a larger impact is so evident.

We get to be in touch with many students and hopefully even slightly change the way they approach these sustainability problems and maybe give them some more courage to be proactive towards these challenges. And then I think it’s something that can sort of have a life of its own even after I’ve kind of done my part. And I think that to me personally gives a huge meaning for what I do because I could kind of imagine, like, if I was working on some products or product ideas, I might be struggling with, you know, ‘Is this really important? Is this a product that people need?’. But here in Aalto education, I can be quite confident that good education is something that people need now and in the future.”

To empower students to understand and address the sustainability challenges in their future careers, there is a need for both a transformation in the courses and curricula that nurture creativity in teams and individuals and a re-evaluation of the teachers’ competencies and teaching culture (See Figure 5.4.7. below).

When Oana asked Johannes Kaira what radical creativity is to him, he replied as follows:

“My personal take on the word ‘radical’ is, is that I think that radical creativity implies something that takes a leap. So, it’s not incremental, but it’s a radical leap forward. I think to me radical means when you need to change conventions.

If you want to break conventions and really change how things are being done, usually it can be a very lonely place to be. Obviously, if you see something that you know others haven’t either seen or don’t believe in, it may be that you know that your environment isn’t as supportive as you wish. So, I think radical is the personal courage to believe in your own vision, but obviously not blindly.

Obviously, you know you’re open to feedback. But keep your focus on the goal, even though your close environment might say like, ‘Hey, you know, this is just a waste of time.’, like why don’t we just go back to the way we’ve done before. Still, push it through until you start getting some concrete results that can show you whether it makes any sense what you’re doing.

Obviously, sometimes you can be proven wrong which is part of taking a radical leap. But I think to me ‘radical’ mostly means that you have the courage to kind of turn against the current. Be rebellious in an environment that might otherwise be very comfortable to you and still challenge it. And question some very fundamentals about it. So that’s how I see radical creativity.”

The Aalto Co-Educator for students aims to develop four types of competencies: domain competencies, solution-focused, sustainability competencies and interpersonal competencies. The future envisioned is that the students who start their studies in 2024-29 will participate in building the carbon-neutral Finland by 2035. The students starting after, will graduate into a carbon-neutral Finland.

To conclude, in this section, we discussed two paths for creating a better future: engagement in arts and creative practices and engagement in education for societal change.

The key takeaways of this sub-chapter are:

• The human brain evolved with the capacity to see future scenarios. Your brain relentlessly imagines the future. The question is, how actionable, constructive and educated are your visions?
• When you want to have an active role in creating a better future, the starting point is to ask yourself, “What are the future themes that have meaning to me?”.
• There are different assumptions we can play with and that can result in different types of futures: What might happen? What could happen? What is likely to happen? What would I like to happen?
• To create the content of a future scenario, you might want to go through three crucial stages:
  1. Collect data on the trends and events that are relevant to your future theme.
  2. Analyse, interpret, and create future alternatives.
  3. Make recommendations of future options to consider for strategy planning.
• To actually start working on a transformative future strategy, you have two options, at least. These options are engagement in arts and creative practice and engagement in education.

Dance into the future!

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To prepare for a transformational future, our abilities to stay present with the senses arising in our bodies and to be sensitive to emerging visions are fundamental.

20 Minute Dance is an embodied practice supported by Aalto University and proposed by u-school. The goal is to practice noticing when your mind is lost in messy thoughts, and when you notice that, to bring it back to the present moment.

In this assignment, you are to engage in this practice. First, get familiar with the instructions of the 20 Minute Dance tool crafted by u-school. Kindly also watch the 3 videos, which are published at this link. You can decide if you want to do this exercise alone or in a group.

Now, do the dance!

References

Beaty, R.E., Benedek, M., Wilkins, R.W., Jauk, E., Fink, A., Silvia, P.J., Hodges, D.A., Koschutnig, K., and Neubauer, A.C. (2014). Creativity and the default network: A functional connectivity analysis of the creative brain at rest. Neuropsychologia, 64, 92-98.

Carson, S. (2012). Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life. Jossey-Bass.

Dator, J. (2019). What futures studies is, and is not. Jim Dator: A Noticer in Time: Selected work, 1967-2018, 3-5.

Furtherfield. 2022. The Treaty of Finsbury Park 2025. https://creatures-eu.org/productions/treaty/

Glenn, J. C. (2009). The futures wheel. Futures research methodology—version 3, 1-19.

Herbet, G., & Duffau, H. (2020). Revisiting the functional anatomy of the human brain: toward a meta-networking theory of cerebral functions. Physiological Reviews, 100(3), 1181-1228.

Light, A. (2023). In dialogue with the more-than-human: Affective prefiguration in encounters with others. interactions, 30(4), 24-27.

Superflux. 2021. Invocation for hope. Superflux, London, UK. https://creatures-eu.org/productions/invocation/

Toivonen, S., Rashidfarokhi, A., & Kyrö, R. (2021). Empowering upcoming city developers with futures literacy. Futures, 129, 102734.

Vervoort, J., Smeenk, T., Zamuruieva, I., Reichelt, L. L., van Veldhoven, M., Rutting, L., … & Mangnus, A. C. (2024). 9 Dimensions for evaluating how art and creative practice stimulate societal transformations. Ecology and Society, 29(1), 29.

Voros, J. (2003). A generic foresight process framework. foresight, 5(3), 10-21.

Voros, J. (2017). Big History and anticipation: Using Big History as a framework for global foresight. Handbook of anticipation: Theoretical and applied aspects of the use of future in decision making, 1-40.