On Futurology
Futurology: The forecasting of the future on a systematic basis, especially by the study of present day trends in human affairs.
Oxford English Dictionary
I use the term 'futurologist' about myself with more than a little touch of irony. How can there be an 'ology' - a science - of studying the future? The concept is oxymoronic - a contradiction in terms - rather like 'military intelligence' or 'European harmony.'
One of the reasons that I use such a pompous and faintly ridiculous word to describe my work is that I wish to highlight the most difficult problem that confronts those of us who contemplate things yet to come: We have no language for the future.
In particular, we have no language for the technological future and where there is no language, there can be no thought.
Recognising this difficulty, I do indeed study current trends in human affairs in the hope of divining which may affect the future most powerfully and I use my writing, both fiction and non-fiction, as a laboratory in which I can try out my ideas.
Writing fiction set in the future is a novel way to explore scenarios. It allows me to describe and inhabit 'real life' situations and then consider the likely impact of future technologies on the way humans interact (individually and collectively). I try these ideas out on my colleagues, university students and my business audiences, constantly testing their level of approval and acceptance.
I do not forecast the future. As Sam Goldwyn said, 'Never make predictions, especially about the future'. This is good advice, but it is often possible to identify trends that will clearly affect our future and to extrapolate their likely effects. This is what a futurologist does, whether for fiction or for business consumption. It's fun and I get some things right and some things wrong.
The proof of whether I get more things right than wrong lies within the text of the sixteen books I have written in the last twenty-five years.
Theres' a fun interview with me 'as a futurologist' here.