Temporal and Atemporal Foresight

Abstract

The thesis of the following paper is that one's conception of foresight depends on his conception of man's cognitive nature and the systems in which man operates. Two decision theorists are contrasted, one a political scientist, the other an economist. It is alleged that one emphasizes the passive, reactive, outer-stimulated character of man's mind and the permanent, predictable character of the world he inhabits. The other allegedly emphasizes the active, spontaneous, autogenic character of man's mind and the changing, unpredictable character of his world. These pairs of conceptions lead to conceptions of foresight as respectively atemporal and temporal. Atemporal foresight is represented as calculation within a closed system, an essentially mechanical operation better performed by computers than by men. Temporal foresight is represented as creation within an open system, an essentially human operation performable only by the frontal lobe of the human cerebral cortex.