TODAY
We sense an ever-evolving present. We live it day in, day out. Then there’s the future that’s harder to sense. A single future emerges every day. Futures methods show us what's emerging, already in progress.
A double rod pendulum illustrates the sensitivity of futures to original conditions in a complex system. We do not live in chaos. We simply cannot measure all of the variables to the degree necessary to fully grasp an ecology and therefore predict strengths of forces over timelines.
In the present we have tangible or observable objects, structures, and people that show us what might soon be.
Product Prototypes: ideas being made tangible for the product development team and stakeholders.
The final version or a prototype is intended to be a product on the commercial market.
Props (short for "properties"): non- or partly functioning objects meant to support the depiction of a fictional or non-fictional narrative world in any place or time period. A prop in a futuristic setting may assume the role of Speculative Design and later a product prototype if it inspires its form and function IRL (e.g., sci-fi objects or costume).
TERMINOLOGY TO DESCRIBE TOMORROW
In Futures studies and projects, concepts, values, behaviors, and worldviews can be foreseen and displayed for futurists to see emerging changes more clearly.
Worldbuilding: generation of all/most functional and aesthetic aspects of a specific fictional world in any time or setting.
Orthogonal: forces with intersecting vectors in time that do not influence each other over their subsequent trajectories.
Protopia: incremental progress over a long period of time due to human-centered sustainability and technological advancement enhancing natural evolutionary processes.
Protopia Readings
Forget Utopia. Ignore Dystopia. Embrace Protopia! NYT March 2023
Prudence: the quality of being careful and wise in looking ahead; involves being able to imagine and empathize with future concerns.
"...it is better for a good decision not to turn out right in action [due to bad luck] than for a bad decision to turn out right because of chance. [luck]" Epicurus, Letter to Menoikeus
Speculative Futures: multiple imagined not-yet times derived from empirical evidence of present and some past conditions.
Speculative Fiction: a much-debated term among writers but generally regarded as a super-genre. With appreciation and apologies to human belief systems, Futurists disregard fantasy elements to favor realistic possibilities.
Anything supernatural such as fairies/sprites, unicorns and dragons, ghosts/spirits, elves and orcs and wizards, zombies and vampires, and gods.
Not yet confirmed entities such as intelligent extraterrestrial beings.
Extra-human abilities such as self-propelled flying, willful invisibleness, telepathy, x-ray vision, transmogrification, energy shooting from fingertips or eyes, hyper-strength – which rule out all superheroes.
Imaginary Earth physics such as variable gravity fields.
The noted author Margaret Atwood is known to prefer the term Speculative Literature, which hasn’t yet gone viral. The term implies written rather than other forms of storytelling expression.
Transhumanism: a philosophical and intellectual movement that champions the augmentation of humans and their environments by developing and proliferating sophisticated technologies that may optimize human longevity, cognition, and well-being.
SENSING TOMORROW
A futurist's dictionary appropriates and expands upon terminology from various fields - the mark of a maturing field.
Speculative Design: an object or image derived from and intended to prompt visions of a particular Speculative Future or Futures. Sometimes exhibited in an art gallery or immersive environment.
Diegetic Element: any object or behavioral expression that exists or occurs within the world of a narrative in any place or time period. An antique that exists in a later time period is still diegetic to that later time period, whether or not it is used as intended.
Artifact: Futurists ponder imaginary artifacts, usually mundane, that illustrate life in a speculative world in a future timeline.
As an archaeologist does, Futurists consider an artifact’s purpose, who uses it, where it fits in that world’s ecosystem, and what meaning it might have to that person and others.
Unlike archaeologists, Futurists and their creative cohorts generate artifacts as diegetic elements and situate them in the ecosystems of imagined worlds.
Design Fiction: a media expression of the existence of a diegetic element/artifact which prompts speculation today about the rest of that imagined world.
SITRA Dictionary
Finally (pun unintended), here's SITRA's dictionary that covers a much wider range of less designerly concepts, some with EU origins, and enthusiastically shared here.
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