Stewart Brand: This present moment used to be the unimaginable future

We cannot accurately imagine the future for two reasons.

One is that our imagination is made up of mental images and words. These are different in nature from what they refer to. And they are, by necessity, very simplistic while what they refer to is immensely rich and complex. They are as different from what they refer to as a map is different from the terrain.

Our individual and collective lives, and the world and this universe, is so rich and complex we cannot predict the future with any certainty. And much of what happens is something we didn’t and couldn’t have imagined.

This present literally used to be our unimaginable future.

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