Consciousness of the Future as a Matrix of Maybe: Pragmatic Prospection and the Simulation of Alternative Possibilities

Baumeister, Roy, Heather M Maranges, and Hallgeir Sjåstad 2018. “Consciousness of the Future as a Matrix of Maybe: Pragmatic Prospection and the Simulation of Alternative Possibilities.”. PsyArXiv. January 29. psyarxiv.com/a3r7h

Abstract: Thinking about the future highlights the constructive nature of consciousness, as opposed to merely representing what is there — because the future is not yet available to be seen. We elaborate this point to emphasize how consciousness deals in alternative possibilities, and indeed preconscious interpretation confers meaning by recognizing these alternatives. Crucially, the goal of prospection is less to predict what is sure to happen than to prepare for action in situations defined by sets of incompatible alternative options, each of which might or might not come true. We review multiple lines of evidence indicating that people conceptualize the future as just such a matrix of maybe. Thus, people think of the future as highly changeable. Most prospective thinking involves planning, which is designed to bring about one outcome rather than alternatives. Optimism may often reflect an initial, automatic response that is soon followed by conscious appreciation of obstacles and other factors that can produce less desired, alternative outcomes. People moralize the future more than the past, presumably to promote the more desirable outcomes. Anticipated emotion helps people evaluate future possible outcomes. People specifically anticipate the matrix of maybe and sometimes seek to preserve multiplicity of options. We integrate these patterns of findings with a pragmatic theory of prospection: Thinking of the future as a multi-maybe matrix is useful for guiding action.

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Recent laboratory work provides further evidence that it takes the power of conscious human thought to project the future as a matrix of maybe. Redshaw and Suddendorf (2016) provided dramatic evidence that human children far surpass adult nonhuman apes on this. Their apparatus was a tube shaped like an inverted Y. Thus, a ball or grape was dropped into the top and could come out either opening at the bottom. Either the participant caught it or it was gone. One could guess by holding one’s hand under either of the openings, thereby succeeding about half the time — or one could use both hands to cover both openings, thereby succeeding 100% of the time. Two-year-old human children failed to solve this, but three-year-olds and older children all soon achieved the perfect solution and caught the ball on every subsequent trial. In contrast, chimpanzees and orangutans never solved it. In fact, a couple of them stumbled by accident on the correct solution, happening to use both hands and catching the treat — but they failed to learn even from this success and on the next trial went back to one-hand guessing. Thus, success at this task required adjusting one’s behavior to the fact that two different outcomes are possible, and this was apparently beyond the mental powers of the smartest nonhuman primates, whereas human children could all figure it out. Human children could understand the future as multiple different maybes, but grownup apes apparently cannot think that way.