Pub Date : 2023-05-11DOI: 10.1177/27538699231171797
K. Facer
There is a clock with three hands in my hometown of Bristol. It sits high up on the sandstone wall of the market hall, above the busy crowds below. One hand marks the hours, while 2 different minute-hands, one red one black, mark ‘time’ 10min apart. A short walk away, fixed into the pavement outside a supermarket on a busy road, beneath the feet of passers-by, you can see a small bronze plaque. This marks the place, it tells us, where ‘London time’ was first brought to the west country, via a telegram carrying the Greenwich Meantime signal to the city. The plaque and three-handed clock are both material reminders that time does not just ‘exist’ as a neutral container for human life waiting to be discovered; rather, the time measures we use are a product of people, technologies and political decisions. They remind us that any measure of time is always selected from many possible measures of change, some of which may be in conflict. And they remind us that such measures come to normalise particular social relations and naturalise particular non-inevitable ways of coordinating and organising ourselves in this case, bringing Bristol’s day-to-day working practices into alignment with the centre of power in London. Timing mechanisms today are wildly diverse, from the calculation of parts per million of carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere telling us that it is time for wealthy nations to reduce their consumption, to the rewriting of calendars by populists and demagogues as tools to ritualise collective memory and coordination social relations. The selection of timing practices reflects dominant values and has material, cultural and social effects, bring particular activities into alignment and coordination, alienating others, drawing attention to and valuing different forms of change. In turn, timing practices create what Barbara Adam calls ‘timescapes’, rhythms of life that coordinate human and non-human actors and that naturalise the values and structures of institutions, communities, particular places or whole societies (Adam, 1998; Lefebvre, 2004; Southerton, 2020). Consider the familiar organisation of schooling around the time of the clock and a set of progression targets rather than the non-linear, multidirectional learning practices of young children. Or the international timing mechanisms of ‘development’ used to position and compare nations against measures of industrial and infrastructural investment (Escobar, 2011).
{"title":"Possibility and the temporal imagination","authors":"K. Facer","doi":"10.1177/27538699231171797","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/27538699231171797","url":null,"abstract":"There is a clock with three hands in my hometown of Bristol. It sits high up on the sandstone wall of the market hall, above the busy crowds below. One hand marks the hours, while 2 different minute-hands, one red one black, mark ‘time’ 10min apart. A short walk away, fixed into the pavement outside a supermarket on a busy road, beneath the feet of passers-by, you can see a small bronze plaque. This marks the place, it tells us, where ‘London time’ was first brought to the west country, via a telegram carrying the Greenwich Meantime signal to the city. The plaque and three-handed clock are both material reminders that time does not just ‘exist’ as a neutral container for human life waiting to be discovered; rather, the time measures we use are a product of people, technologies and political decisions. They remind us that any measure of time is always selected from many possible measures of change, some of which may be in conflict. And they remind us that such measures come to normalise particular social relations and naturalise particular non-inevitable ways of coordinating and organising ourselves in this case, bringing Bristol’s day-to-day working practices into alignment with the centre of power in London. Timing mechanisms today are wildly diverse, from the calculation of parts per million of carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere telling us that it is time for wealthy nations to reduce their consumption, to the rewriting of calendars by populists and demagogues as tools to ritualise collective memory and coordination social relations. The selection of timing practices reflects dominant values and has material, cultural and social effects, bring particular activities into alignment and coordination, alienating others, drawing attention to and valuing different forms of change. In turn, timing practices create what Barbara Adam calls ‘timescapes’, rhythms of life that coordinate human and non-human actors and that naturalise the values and structures of institutions, communities, particular places or whole societies (Adam, 1998; Lefebvre, 2004; Southerton, 2020). Consider the familiar organisation of schooling around the time of the clock and a set of progression targets rather than the non-linear, multidirectional learning practices of young children. Or the international timing mechanisms of ‘development’ used to position and compare nations against measures of industrial and infrastructural investment (Escobar, 2011).","PeriodicalId":147349,"journal":{"name":"Possibility Studies & Society","volume":"93 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124210847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-09DOI: 10.1177/27538699231162311
Michael Hanchett Hanson
What can science and science fiction tell us about the intertwining of the actual and the possible, the relations of imagination and reality? What are some of the ways those relationships can work? Should we be foregrounding possibilities that come primarily from our imaginations or the realities that push our imaginations? Contrary to common assumptions, this essay argues that imagination itself tends to be quite limited, but in some situations can become dangerously ungrounded. In contrast, the challenges of reality are more likely to push us to imagine previously inconceivable and transformative possibilities.
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Pub Date : 2023-05-08DOI: 10.1177/27538699231172562
T. Ormerod
In creative domains such as art, design and science, the generation of novel possibilities is highly desirable. However, most human activity takes place outside of domains where the generation of novel possibilities is prescriptively optimal, and indeed to do so may be undesirable. In this paper, evidence for the paucity of possibility generation will be described, even in instances where generation of multiple possibilities might be desirable. Conversely, the value of focussing on currently explored rather than novel possibilities is demonstrated with reference to a computational model of insight problem-solving. It is suggested that, in domains where generation of creative possibilities is a task requirement, strategies acquired though domain expertise are needed to push thinking into new possibility spaces. These strategies are illustrated by case studies and data from domains of insurance fraud and police investigations, educational task design and puzzle solving.
{"title":"Possible, yes, but useful? Why the search for possibilities is limited but can be enhanced by expertise","authors":"T. Ormerod","doi":"10.1177/27538699231172562","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/27538699231172562","url":null,"abstract":"In creative domains such as art, design and science, the generation of novel possibilities is highly desirable. However, most human activity takes place outside of domains where the generation of novel possibilities is prescriptively optimal, and indeed to do so may be undesirable. In this paper, evidence for the paucity of possibility generation will be described, even in instances where generation of multiple possibilities might be desirable. Conversely, the value of focussing on currently explored rather than novel possibilities is demonstrated with reference to a computational model of insight problem-solving. It is suggested that, in domains where generation of creative possibilities is a task requirement, strategies acquired though domain expertise are needed to push thinking into new possibility spaces. These strategies are illustrated by case studies and data from domains of insurance fraud and police investigations, educational task design and puzzle solving.","PeriodicalId":147349,"journal":{"name":"Possibility Studies & Society","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121285038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-06DOI: 10.1177/27538699231172435
A. Montuori
In a time of global unrest and “polycrises,” the study and utilization of possibilities is a matter of urgency. In this article I briefly review some of the current studies that point to a view of human beings as having greater capacities, potentials, and possibilities, from the cognitive to the relational and spiritual. I celebrate the birth of this journal in the hope that a greater awareness of human possibilities will lead to more attention and research and an awareness that current assumptions about human possibilities are too limited.
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Pub Date : 2023-05-06DOI: 10.1177/27538699231173344
Kiene Brillenburg Wurth
Comparative Literature brings to Possibility Studies the toolbox to closely read the generative materiality of things, and the resonances between them, from a plurality of cultural, temporal, affective, and critical perspectives. What is the agency of things in making people think and feel “otherwise”? In this article, I try to answer this question with a view to the idea of the sublime. I revise this idea within a Daoist theoretical perspective of wuwei (doing not-doing)—carefully differentiating it from Czíkszentmihályi’s idea of flow— and self/no-self: of entanglement. I call this re-vision easing the sublime, and I argue that such easing is crucial to the continued relevance of this esthetic category in Possibility Studies. As I conclude, easing the sublime ultimately boils down to an attitude of a being-at-ease with (without being indifferent to) the eternal transformation of things (wu hua).
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Pub Date : 2023-05-02DOI: 10.1177/27538699231171448
Hanna Meretoja
By exploring our sense of the possible as a narratively mediated phenomenon, this essay brings possibility studies in dialogue with interdisciplinary narrative studies. It suggests that (1) the possible is entangled with actual life worlds that are heterogeneous spaces of possibility, (2) the possible is crucial to our temporal existence as being in the world with others, (3) narratives shape our sense of the possible, (4) possibility studies can contribute to strengthening our narrative agency, (5) narrative imagination has transformative power, (6) fiction can explore worlds as spaces of possibility, foster perspective awareness, and expand our sense of the possible, (7) the possible exists through processes of interpretation, and hence (narrative) hermeneutics is relevant to possibility studies, (8) our relationship to cultural models of sense-making is a possibility relationship, (9) possibility studies can bring to dialogue memory studies, futures studies and narrative studies, and (10) possibility studies should articulate and evaluate the ethico-political affordances and dangers of different discourses of the possible.
{"title":"Expanding our sense of the possible: Ten theses for possibility studies","authors":"Hanna Meretoja","doi":"10.1177/27538699231171448","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/27538699231171448","url":null,"abstract":"By exploring our sense of the possible as a narratively mediated phenomenon, this essay brings possibility studies in dialogue with interdisciplinary narrative studies. It suggests that (1) the possible is entangled with actual life worlds that are heterogeneous spaces of possibility, (2) the possible is crucial to our temporal existence as being in the world with others, (3) narratives shape our sense of the possible, (4) possibility studies can contribute to strengthening our narrative agency, (5) narrative imagination has transformative power, (6) fiction can explore worlds as spaces of possibility, foster perspective awareness, and expand our sense of the possible, (7) the possible exists through processes of interpretation, and hence (narrative) hermeneutics is relevant to possibility studies, (8) our relationship to cultural models of sense-making is a possibility relationship, (9) possibility studies can bring to dialogue memory studies, futures studies and narrative studies, and (10) possibility studies should articulate and evaluate the ethico-political affordances and dangers of different discourses of the possible.","PeriodicalId":147349,"journal":{"name":"Possibility Studies & Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129432650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-02DOI: 10.1177/27538699231166486
Kim Wilkins, L. Bennett, H. Marshall
This essay establishes a link between skills associated with creative writing and the generation of possibilities across other domains. While the essay is written mostly in first person (by Kim)
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Pub Date : 2023-04-29DOI: 10.1177/27538699231170817
G. Mulgan
Social science no longer does enough to map out the possibilities for the future, at a time when there is a serious need for more options. There are many reasons for this including the structure of incentives within universities, and the impact of an otherwise healthy focus on evidence and data. This piece describes both how social sciences can better understand the future and their role in helping to shape options, including methods for creativity, and the relationship between broad goals and experimental methods to find pathways. It addresses the problems of ‘materiality bias’, a bias towards exaggerating the influence of material over non-material factors and concludes with a discussion of how to think about future consciousness.
{"title":"Possibility space: The role of social sciences in understanding, mapping and shaping the future","authors":"G. Mulgan","doi":"10.1177/27538699231170817","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/27538699231170817","url":null,"abstract":"Social science no longer does enough to map out the possibilities for the future, at a time when there is a serious need for more options. There are many reasons for this including the structure of incentives within universities, and the impact of an otherwise healthy focus on evidence and data. This piece describes both how social sciences can better understand the future and their role in helping to shape options, including methods for creativity, and the relationship between broad goals and experimental methods to find pathways. It addresses the problems of ‘materiality bias’, a bias towards exaggerating the influence of material over non-material factors and concludes with a discussion of how to think about future consciousness.","PeriodicalId":147349,"journal":{"name":"Possibility Studies & Society","volume":"201 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126058371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-27DOI: 10.1177/27538699231171432
R. Byrne
Hypothetical thinking is an extraordinary human ability that allows people to think beyond the facts of a situation to imagine alternative possibilities. I first consider how people understand factual conditionals, such as, ‘if there was an apple in the fruit bowl there was a banana’, then how they understand counterfactual conditionals, such as, ‘if Pearl had studied harder she would have passed the exam’, and then how they understand counterpossible conditionals, that is, conditionals about impossibilities, such as, ‘if people were made of steel they would not bruise easily’. I discuss the theory that people understand conditionals by envisaging models of possibilities, and consider experimental evidence that corroborates its predictions for factual, counterfactual, and impossible conditionals.
{"title":"How people think about possibilities","authors":"R. Byrne","doi":"10.1177/27538699231171432","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/27538699231171432","url":null,"abstract":"Hypothetical thinking is an extraordinary human ability that allows people to think beyond the facts of a situation to imagine alternative possibilities. I first consider how people understand factual conditionals, such as, ‘if there was an apple in the fruit bowl there was a banana’, then how they understand counterfactual conditionals, such as, ‘if Pearl had studied harder she would have passed the exam’, and then how they understand counterpossible conditionals, that is, conditionals about impossibilities, such as, ‘if people were made of steel they would not bruise easily’. I discuss the theory that people understand conditionals by envisaging models of possibilities, and consider experimental evidence that corroborates its predictions for factual, counterfactual, and impossible conditionals.","PeriodicalId":147349,"journal":{"name":"Possibility Studies & Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130894562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-26DOI: 10.1177/27538699231171450
A. Escobar
A main goal of Possibility Studies is to explore the complex cultural-political work of imagining the future(s). As this brief note argues, this task is deeply shaped at present by the narrow notions of reality, and hence of the possible, inherited from Western modernity. Becoming aware of the onto-epistemic foundations of modernity thus becomes essential for the collective journey into the reinvention of possibility.
{"title":"Welcome to possibility studies","authors":"A. Escobar","doi":"10.1177/27538699231171450","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/27538699231171450","url":null,"abstract":"A main goal of Possibility Studies is to explore the complex cultural-political work of imagining the future(s). As this brief note argues, this task is deeply shaped at present by the narrow notions of reality, and hence of the possible, inherited from Western modernity. Becoming aware of the onto-epistemic foundations of modernity thus becomes essential for the collective journey into the reinvention of possibility.","PeriodicalId":147349,"journal":{"name":"Possibility Studies & Society","volume":"100 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116779049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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