Future Perfect What next? And other impossible questions

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Thinking about the future is not a normal human activity. This may seem weird. Why would the most intelligent and imaginative species in the known universe insist on being stuck in the present, marooned in the past?

It is not so surprising when you look at the conundrum personally and historically. During the first 200,000 years of human existence not much changed. Yes, we did nip out from Africa across the globe, occupying six continents, but that took aeons. The average lifetime of 30-odd brutish years saw little variation beyond volcanic eruptions or freak weather. Otherwise, in a world uniformly hostile to human existence (not for one moment to be underestimated!) the struggle was to keep your hairy and heavy-browed self alive and ready

Future Perfect for tomorrow’s quest for dinner. Five-minute plans were occasionally legitimate; five-year plans out of the question.

About 35,000 to 40,000 years ago, in several parts of the world, something changed. We invented culture. In both Australia and Europe cave paintings show a new sophistication, probably linked to the development of complex language. Leaving aside how this may have happened at the same moment among people so far apart, it is interesting that the works reflect a life integrated with the animals they depict and with landscape. The only gesture towards a hypothetical future is seen in religious iconography as we began to wrestle with the consequences of death and alternatives to oblivion. Life was still brutish and short, just better decorated. It was essentially reactive; innovations such as fire and cooking occurred only too rarely and (according to Professor Richard Wrangham at Harvard) were more a matter of improvisation than planning.

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