The Forecasting Dilemma: Predicting the Future Versus Creating the Future.
*** Auto-Propagating Paradoxes;
*** Castle's Law of Predictive Bias.
Dear Friends:
The information which follows was excerpted for a bulletin which I received from Timothy Mack, the President of The World Future Society, regarding the WFS' predictions for the next 25 years. I enjoy reading the WFS' insights, and they are one of many selected providers of information from which I derive my own insights and draw my own conclusions. Should you have an interest, you can visit their website at http://www.wfs.org/, and become a member. While I do not always agree with their views and I do not endorse them, their material provide some fine food for thought.
The reason for my request that you read the excerpted piece that follows is to prepare you for some observations which I have made in terms of some curious and challenging dilemmas and auto-propagating paradoxes (a lingovation) which all futurists face in rendering forecasts. Please read on:
7 Ways to Spot Tomorrow’s Trends Today
In the more than 40 years since the World Future Society was founded, futurists have developed a range of techniques to study the future. Here are a few techniques which futurists use to spot new opportunities and potential problems. These methods give individuals and organizations an edge to help them succeed in a fast-changing world:1. Scan the Media to Identify Trends—Futurists often conduct an ongoing and systematic surveys of news media and research institutes. These surveys help spot significant trends and technology breakthroughs. Futurists call this environmental scanning.
2. Analyze and Extrapolate Trends—After the trends are identified, the next step is to plot the trends to show their direction and development into the future. Trend analysis and extrapolation can show the nature, causes, speed, and potential impacts of trends.
3. Develop Scenarios—Futurists often describe the future development of a trend, a strategy, or a wild-card event in story form. These scenarios can paint a vivid picture that can help you visualize possible future developments and show how you can prepare effectively for future risks and opportunities. Scenarios help you to blend what you know about the future with imagination about the uncertain. Scenarios help you move from dreaming to planning and then to accomplishment.
4. Ask Groups of Experts—Futurists also conduct “Delphi Polls” which are carefully structured surveys of experts. Polling a wide range of experts in a given field can yield accurate forecasts and suggestions for action.
5. Use Computer Modeling—Futurists often use computer models to simulate the behavior of a complex system under a variety of conditions. For example, a model of the U.S. economy might show the effects of a 10 percent increase in taxes.
6. Explore Possibilities with Simulations—Futurists create simulations of a real-world situations by means of humans playing different roles. For example, in war games, generals test out tactics they may later use on the battlefield, or corporate executives can explore the possible results of competitive strategies.
7. Create the Vision—Futurists help organizations and individuals systematically develop visions of a desirable future. Visioning creates the big picture of the possibilities and prepares the way for goal setting and planning.
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The short piece above is interesting for several reasons. The numbered items that follow are my thoughts:
1. The first three points made in the excerpt are classic. We must observe. We must analyze and extrapolate. We must describe scenarios (some call these "futurescapes," a terrific term which I did not get to invent). Every futurist who is serious about this prediction business must do all three.
2. The Delphi Poll (a poll where a selected sampling of experts are asked what they feel about the likelihood of something occuring or not occurring) is a rather statistically "fuzzy" approach but is generally very predictive in terms of the median results (of those experts polled) and their correlation with future events. But correlation does not imply causality -- Simply stated, are the results accurate because of the expertise of the respondents, or were they accurate because: a) these experts, collectively, were in a position to "create" the future through their influence and policymaking; b) these experts, upon hearing the findings of the study made the prediction into a reality through the very Human phenomenon of a self-fulfilling prophesy? The issue is whether these experts, through either means, were able to (whether deliberately or unconsciously) influence the outcome... to create the future by their conscious or subconscious will.
I am not speaking about creating the future through some arcane means of visualizing it and bringing it forth due to the Law of Attraction or through any such mechanism. I am speaking of the same phenomenon which occurs when major institutional investors start making "predictions" about stocks which become true as investors follow their lead.
When I spoke earlier about auto-propagating paradoxes, I meant that the experts influence the trends which they are observing, and then, having observed the effect of their own influence (perhaps unbeknownst to them), further steepen and sharpen those trends by further action of the self-fulfilling prophesy.
From this notion of auto-propagating paradoxes a general rule appears: Honoring myself, I'll call this Castle's Law Of Predictive Bias:
"The more influential the person or group making a prediction, the more likely it is that the prediction will be accurate or fulfilled."
As simple as this sounds, its ramifications are amazing. To an extent, it means that authority and power dictate the future, barring certain foibles of nature and other intrusions into the plan by the Laws of Physics or Physiology. This also explains why today's dream can be tomorrow's reality -- if the dreamer is influential enough.
3. As for statements 5, 6 and 7 in the excerpted text above, they are all really related tools: simulation, sensitivity analysis and model algorithms or result-generating programs are all just means of seeing how a change in a particular variable can change the outcome of an event. The issue here is still one of Human bias: Who chooses the variables? Who writes the original program? Who frames the study? The answer is "Humans."
Summing it all up, Prediction is:
- Always going to be influenced by auto-propagating paradoxes;
- Always going to be subject to questioner's bias;
- Always going to be subject to respondent bias;
- Always going to be part prognostication and part creation;
- Always going to be a fascinating sport.....
Faithfully,
Douglas Castle
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