Authors
Tomas Backström, Anders Fundin, Peter E Johansson
Publication date
2017/7/13
Volume
255
Publisher
Springer
Description
In research focusing on innovation, design, and engineering, there is a belief that such research contribute to society with new solutions, products, and services for the future. But what will the future look like? Future scenarios are often based on what we understand from the present and the past. This can be explained by the fact that human beings are largely unable to think of or imagine something that goes beyond their own personal experience. Already in the eighteenth century Immanuel Kant (1724–1802) claimed that we are not able to think of something that we have not experienced personally, whether personal lived experience or something that we have read or heard from other people. Though there is an ongoing intense and lively debate about the negative effects of climate change and limited natural resources, we can hardly imagine a future without oil, electricity, or food supplies—at least not in the …
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