possibility studies
“experience is never limited and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web, of the finest silken threads” (p. 12). Those silken lines are threaded and rethreaded, knotted and reknotted, to make and remake webs of sense.
Perry Zurn, Dani S. Bassett • Curiosity and Networks of Possibility
The problem is the gulf between this restless, fascinating technological imagination and the much more limited imagination that exists in relation to so much else. It’s not that alternative futures are absent.21 It’s just that the scientific side of imagination is far more prominent, far better funded and inevitably far less sensitive to the
... See moreGeoff Mulgan • Another World Is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination
the scientific and technological imagination means very little absent an active social and human imagination [e.g., when tech gets it wrong - apple, google ads]
our engagement with possibility is, at all times, constrained (e.g., by what is, by previous imaginations of what could be, by their enactment). This doesn’t mean that we cannot envision radical possibilities but that constraints – themselves never fully fixed in time and space – are enablers of our relationship with what is possible, both in its
... See moreVlad P. Glăveanu • Possibility Studies: A Manifesto
We can imagine almost anything, but only a tiny fraction of what we imagine can become real. There is no easy way to verify how much change is possible. Hard-nosed realists may be right much of the time, but then, periodically, they become dramatically wrong. Wild-eyed visionaries may be wrong much of the time, but occasionally they become
... See moreGeoff Mulgan • Another World Is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination
Do you feel it is important for you to constantly investigate and come up with alternative scenarios?
Yes, personally I find it a very exciting and necessary kind of practice in the present. I should also reiterate here that my work is absolutely not trying to future-cast a singular vision or offer immediate solutions to the present, which is an
... See moreOn Technology and Humanity: Alice Bucknell and Her Alternative Worlds
"Isn’t it telling that in modern usage the realist has become synonymous with the cynic–for someone with a pessimistic outlook? In truth, it’s the cynic who’s out of touch." (from "Humankind: A Hopeful History" by Rutger Bregman, Erica Moore, Elizabeth Manton)
The world is combinatorially weird and fractally interesting. And therefore, omnivorous curiosity is the only proper response. ... let’s optimize instead for the interesting, the strange, and the weird. Ideas and topics that ignite our curiosity are worthy of our attention, because they might lead to advances and insights that we can’t anticipate.
📡 No.317 — From utopian Star Trek to absurdist Douglas Adams? ⊗ How to fix “AI’s original sin” ⊗ Islands of coherence
Collectivities of humans, moreover, take a myriad of shapes, from small groups to organizations and transnational corporations. This is not even to mention the curious possibilities pursued in and among the more-than-human world. The dynamics we are describing, then, are scalar in nature and have wide conceptual purchase accordingly.
Perry Zurn, Dani S. Bassett • Curiosity and Networks of Possibility
After all: who gets to decide what is impossible anyway? If the future only exists in our imagination, then who gets to say what belongs between or outside the boundaries of the Futures cone?