Worldviews Part 2: Futures Worldview Questions

Exploring how to adapt worldview questions to explore futures.

In this post, we explore how our worldviews shape our thinking about futures by adapting Vidal’s worldview questions to use in foresight processes (Part 1).

Any view of ‘the future’ is first an interpretation of reality in an individual brain. It is only when collective interpretations of the future – collective worldviews – are defined and considered holistically that their influence on action and decision-making in the present becomes apparent. That is, it is not until individual images of the future are surfaced can they be used in the present – defining individual images of the future is a precursor to using them collectively in the present.

Vidal’s questions are interpreted for use when thinking about futures.

1. Ontology - What is? This question asks us to define what we believe reality is in the present. Do you believe reality is what you can empirically observe and measure? Or do you accept that our reality involves more than what we see - that our individual and collective interpre…