Exerpts from “Changing Images of Man”
Posted Jul 07, 2007
There is a great deal of information hidden in plain sight contained within the introduction to this document -- we leave the reader form their own conclusions as to what that information is.
In 1968 the Office of Education launched two research centers in an ambitious undertaking to "investigate alternative future possibilities for the society and their implications for educational policy." One of these Educational Policy Research Centers, or EPRCs as they were called, was established at Syracuse University, the other at SRI International (then known as the Stanford Research Institute). The SRI center, after assessing available methodologies, chose to develop a totally new approach.
First, we attempted to identify and assess the plausibility of a truly vast number of future possibilities for society. We next followed a method of analysis that determined which sequences of possible futures (that is, which "alternate future histories") appeared to be the most plausible in light of human history and to most usefully serve the needs of policy research and development. Lastly, we derived a variety of policy implications, some of which dealt with how best to continue this type of inquiry (Harman, Markley and Rhyne, 1973; Rhyne, 1974).
I'll pause for a second here: take a look at this here link. "VISIONARY FUTURES: Guided Cognitive Imagery in Teaching and Learning about the Future," by O.W. Markley. It discusses the methodology that was used to "continue this type of inquiry" and it's remarkably similar to Remote Viewing. Dig:
Guided cognitive imagery is described as an appropriate technology of choice for intuition-based exploring, learning and teaching about alternative futures?especially suitable for futures involving cultural transformation. Two methodological approaches with case examples are described: (a) a virtual time travel method for visionary futures exploration and for experiencing the needs of future generations and (b) a set of depth- intuition methods for need finding, transforming perceived needs into opportunities, choosing between policy options, and transcendental exploration.
Although these ?visionary futures" methods extend well beyond the conventional paradigm of the behavioral sciences, they are consistent with the cannons of science in that they are trainable and can be replicated. Moreover, they can readily be used to help integrate the methodologies of social action research, futures research and political activism?a task which urgently needs to be done.
Back to the Changing Images of Man introduction:
"From this excercise a suprising -- and very sobering -- conclusion emerged. Of some fifty highly plausible future histories, only a handful were by usual standards at all desirable (Harman, 1969). The reasons why this is so are now, a decade later, familiar to serious students of the future. (They involve interconnected issues and problems of population growth, resource depletion, pollution and so forth, variously termed "the world-macroproblem," "le problematique," or "the crisis of crises.") Other investigators soon came to similar conclusions using different methodologies (see, for example, Meadows et al, 1972; or Salk, 1973.)
In the research on the "world macro-problem" that followed, a second sobering conclusion emerged: that an essential requirement for realizing any of the more desirable alternative future paths would likely require fundamental changes in the way our industrial culture is organized. Laws, attitudes, ethics -- even the way we conceptualize the nature of humankind -- may require reform if they are to "fit with" and appropriately guide the complex interrelated politcal and social systems the have come to dominate modern life. As the inimitable Pogo said in the comics, "We have met the enemy and he is us!"
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