The Anthropocene, 'Threshold 9' and the long-term future of humankind

Thinking about the future relies on the use of frameworks of understanding upon which to base different modes of futures thinking. These frameworks are usually implicit and thereby not often subject to being critically examined. The development of a ‘generic foresight process’ framework has allowed the critical selection of distinct and appropriate frameworks of understanding for use in foresight work and futures research matched to context and scope. As part of this work, a generalised framework for ‘layered methodology’ has also been developed, in which the scope—in both space and time—of the ‘deepest’ level of interpretive inquiry could involve just one society, a number of societies or civilizations, or, on the grandest of all scales, might encompass cosmology and Universal evolution. Thus, by using historical and macrohistorical models, theories and perspectives—of increasing scope and time-frame—we may look for insights about potential futures at a very deep level and thereby undertake profoundly ‘deep’ futures thinking. Perhaps the grandest perspective currently available for use in this way is the scenario of Cosmic Evolution, which includes the specific case of how that evolution has played out here on Planet Earth, namely, what has come to be known as ‘Big History’. This presentation will: introduce the elements of the Generic Foresight Process framework (GFP); examine a variety of different types of futures thinking; ‘locate’ the use of macrohistorical models within the broader foresight thinking process; examine some key aspects of the Big History perspective; and use this perspective to conduct ‘macro-prospection’; i.e., to think systematically about the future, informed by Big-Historical thinking. From this will emerge a thumbnail sketch of some of the issues we may need to confront at the civilizational, planetary, and even species level as we navigate our way into the near-to-medium-term future. Furthermore, if we take seriously the idea that Big History is simply ‘our’ example of the broader process of Cosmic Evolution playing out, then we can seek to further broaden our view of our possible fate as a species over the very long term by asking questions about what paths or trajectories other species’ own versions of Big History might take or have taken. This presentation therefore also explores the broad outline of a possible scenario for the evolution of long-lived intelligent engineering species—a scenario which might have been part of another species’ own Big History story, or which may yet lie ahead in our own distant future. A sufficiently long-lived engineering-oriented species may decide to undertake a program of macro-engineering projects that might eventually lead not only to the case of a re-engineered solar system—such as has been recently suggested for the unusual light curve readings of the star KIC8462852—but to a re-engineered galaxy so altered that its artificiality may be detectable from Earth. We consider activities that lead ultimately to a galactic structure consisting of a central inner core surrounded by a more distant ring of stars separated by a relatively sparser ‘gap’, where star systems and stellar materials may have been removed, re-engineered, ‘lifted’ or turned into Dyson Spheres. When one looks to the sky, one finds that such galaxies do indeed exist—including the beautiful ringed galaxy known as ‘Hoag’s Object’ (PGC 54559). This leads us to pose the question: Is Hoag’s Object actually an example of galaxy-scale macro-engineering? And this suggests a program of possible observational activities and theoretical explorations, several of which are outlined here, that could be carried out in order to begin to investigate this beguiling question. It is hoped that the activities of generating such sketches of the future potentialities of our species, both near- and long-term—as well as demonstrating the processes of thinking that lead to it—will help contribute to the successful navigation by humankind of the rapidly emerging and increasingly dangerous futures that lie ahead of us, in the Anthropocene, and also beyond.