The Evolution of Future Consciousness: The Nature and Historical Development of the Human Capacity to Think about the Future [Paperback]

Thomas Lombardo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2006

Are there any unique qualities that humans possess that make us special within the world of nature? Since the beginnings of recorded history, we have pondered this question. What if many of humanity's highest qualities and unique achievements, such as technology, civilization, morals, self-consciousness, freedom of choice, religion, and science are all built upon a single distinctive human capacity? It may be that our highly evolved mental power to envision and think about the future is at the core of our greatest accomplishments and most unique human attributes. In The Evolution of Future Consciousness, psychologist and futurist Tom Lombardo examines the human ability to be conscious of the future, to create ideas, images, goals, and plans about the future, to think about these mental creations and use them in directing one's actions and one's life. In the opening chapter, he looks at the psychology of future consciousness and its values and benefits, as well as ways to enhance this human ability. Subsequent chapters describe the emergence of future consciousness in pre-historic times and how it was critical in the development of love and bonding, the family, tools, and human aggression and hunting; the central importance of the future and time in early myths, religions, and classical philosophy; and the rise of modern futurist thinking, covering the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, the Western Enlightenment, and the Romantic counter-reaction. The book concludes with Darwin and how the theory of evolution revolutionized humanity's conception of both the past and the future. In its companion volume, Contemporary Futurist Thought, Tom Lombardo completes his survey of the historical development of future consciousness, discussing significant ideas and approaches to the future in the last century, including science fiction, future studies, and an extensive array of recent theories and paradigms of the future.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tom Lombardo, Ph.D. is the Faculty Chair of Psychology, Philosophy, and Integrated Studies at Rio Salado College in Tempe, Arizona. He is a graduate of the University of Connecticut and the University of Minnesota and a graduate fellow of Cornell University. He has served as the Chief Psychologist and Educational Director at John Madden Mental Health Center, the Dean of Forest Institute of Professional Psychology, and the Chair of the Psychology Instructional Council at Maricopa Community Colleges. His book The Reciprocity of Perceiver and Environment is the best selling volume in Lawrence Erlbaum's Resources in Ecological Psychology and has been translated into Japanese.Dr. Lombardo is an award-winning educator with over thirty years professional experience. He has supervised college faculty, designed innumerable college courses, as well as complete undergraduate and graduate programs. His disciplinary background is very broad and highly integrative. Aside from psychology and philosophy, he has extensively studied intellectual history, evolutionary theory, cosmology, the philosophy of time, science fiction, and most recently futurist literature, ranging from the future of science and technology to the future of human society, culture, and religion. He has worked in academic, clinical training, and mental health settings, and is well versed in theories and practices of human growth, personal development, and self-fulfillment.Tom has been designing and teaching college courses and giving professional presentations on the future for the last dozen years. He is a regular contributor to the World Future Society conventions. His most recent publications include "Evolving Future Consciousness through the Pursuit of Virtue", "The Value of Future Consciousness", and "The Pursuit of Wisdom and the Future of Education" published in the annual World Future Society Anthologies, and "Thinking Ahead: The Value of Future Consciousness" published in The Futurist. Also, he has recen

Product Details

• Paperback: 452 pages
• Publisher: AuthorHouse (June 23, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1425944469
• ISBN-13: 978-1425944469
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,215,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A comprehensive look at humanity's relationship to the future, December 31, 2006

By 

Copthorne Macdonald (Prince Edward Island, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Evolution of Future Consciousness: The Nature and Historical Development of the Human Capacity to Think about the Future (Paperback)

Rarely does an author cover an area of knowledge so comprehensively that there is little more to say about it. But that is what Thomas Lombardo has done with his two recently published books about humanity's relationship to the future. THE EVOLUTION OF FUTURE CONSCIOUSNESS focuses on the psychology of the phenomenon he calls future consciousness and the history of its development in many cultures, from ancient times through the 19th century. CONTEMPORARY FUTURIST THOUGHT focuses on the various expressions of future consciousness in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

THE EVOLUTION OF FUTURE CONSCIOUSNESS is devoted to giving the reader a sense of what Lombardo means by future consciousness. His short definition is that future consciousness is "the total integrative set of psychological abilities, processes, and experiences humans use in understanding and dealing with the future." Among these are

* the perceptual awareness of time;

* emotional feelings about the future and ingrained attitudes coming out of them such as hope, fear, despair, goals, purposes, motivations, etc.;

* thoughts about the future; and

* higher cognitive skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, planning, decision making, ethical thinking, and (ideally) wisdom.

The remainder of the book is devoted to outlining the evolution and complexification of future consciousness. Lombardo begins by discussing its origins in prehistoric times. He then discusses the effect on future consciousness of the many mythic, religious, and philosophical developments that occurred in East and West from about 3000 BCE to roughly 1000 AD. He concludes with a discussion of modernism, the scientific revolution, the Enlightenment, the theory of secular progress, and important 19th-century theories such as those of Marx and Darwin.

If you are interested in our complex relationship to the future and would like to know more about it, you will find this book and its companion volume to be highly informative and satisfying reads.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Human Condition and the Future, February 6, 2007

By 

Timothy C. Mack (Bethesda MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Evolution of Future Consciousness: The Nature and Historical Development of the Human Capacity to Think about the Future (Paperback)

While Lombardo's other recent book, Contemporary Futurist Thought, includes the realm of science fiction under its umbrella, this realm and the futures practitioners and scholars considered by Lombardo are relatively familiar to those involved in the foresight universe. In The Evolution of Future Consciousness, the author moves to consider those collateral fields which may have an influence on futures thinking (and vice versa), including psychology, anthropology, theology, sociology, political science and philosophy. While this creative undertaking illustrates the truly `Renaissance' nature of Dr. Lombardo's thinking, it is not clear that every reader, including this reviewer, can match his understanding of so many disparate fields. Accordingly, some may find themselves unable to fairly assess the accuracy of all of his conclusions about the role of `future consciousness' in the evolution of the human condition over the entire history of humanity (such is the breadth of his vision).

Given that caveat, it is easy admire the undertaking and to offer comment in the more familiar areas. The uniting of future awareness to the fundamental `temporal awareness' of humans is a bold move, as it places the future at the very center of most human activity. Hope, motivation, memory, language, ethics, self-consciousness and even basic cognition now seemed shaped by a questing after the future. This bold supposition thus explains the depth of the discussion that follows and why of the two volumes, this is the longer book.

This is not a complaint, but more a statement of awe. The ensuing discussion is cogent, enlightening, entertaining, and at points transformational in its insights. One of the influences on this volume is the work of Leonard Shlain, a leading neurosurgeon who has also found time to write extensively on human cultural evolution and Shlain's breadth of vision clearly matches Lombardo's own, which challenges the reader at each turn in the discussion. Moving from the author's assertion that, "Acting on the future proactively alters one's self identity" to "Changes in human psychology and mental health affect economics and vice versa. Biological and medical advances affect society and social growth" gives just a small sense of the width of the author's reach in this volume.

At points, the benefits of future consciousness begin to approach the feel of a patent medicine show, as it is undoubtedly "improves imagination, creativity and flexibility...facilitates the development of courage and wisdom (and) energizes, enriches and benefits the total human mind." The most impressive aspect of this potential overdose of admiration for the study of the future is that the author then proceeds to systematically illustrate and convincingly support these points. For example, he convincingly aligns future thinking with adaptive learning and anticipatory behavior, a strong ingredient in species and individual success.

Dr. Lombardo then proceeds to weave in the `discovery of death,' the evolution of family and human love, the development of agriculture, etc., weaving each into a context with future consciousness. The conflicting impulses toward conquest and cooperation and other central dualistic concepts are well explored, as is the power of myth and story and the development of human religions. The author argues that reciprocity is one of the central concepts of cultural development and that foresight is a central element as well. The continuing conflicts between the doctrines of destiny and free will are traced and explicated, setting the stage for the modern world and the struggle between authoritarianism and individuality (with future consciousness displaying a strong affinity for the latter).

Lombardo closes the book with a review of modernist scientific and philosophical thought. Darwinism, pragmatism, and even psychotherapy have been productive partners in the more recent and ongoing development of future consciousness and this is certain to continue. The term `holistic' is used in the book to describe the connection between futures thinking and the rest of human experience and it is a testament to the author that by the end of the book, the reader is likely to be sympathetic to his closing assertion that "Clearly, future consciousness has been of pivotal importance in defining the meaning and purpose of human existence for people around the world."

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Future thinking through the ages, January 14, 2007

By 

Walter Truett Anderson (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Evolution of Future Consciousness: The Nature and Historical Development of the Human Capacity to Think about the Future (Paperback)

THE EVOLUTION OF FUTURE CONSCIOUSNESS is an engaging, readable and informative tour through major themes of human evolution, from myth and early religions through several schools of psychology and fields of science. To me it represents a maturing of future studies, placing it solidly within the larger frameworks of human thought, and I would recommend it to anyone practicing or teaching in that field.