While looking up some other info, I came across this article by foresight educator Andy Hines. Specifically the article goes over some recent changes to the University of Houston Foresight Masters program’s primary approach to scenario building. It is Andy’s revised version of Jim Dator’s well known Scenario Archetypes. Andy now calls these scenario archetypes the HAT (Houston Archetype Technique). The article uses a lovely little graphic (below) to show UH’s recent research into change dynamics and how the archetypes can be placed on trajectories or pathways of change.
Specifically it shows how a future based on a partial systemic change (New Equilibrium) can lead to one transformational future where the whole system has changed, and the other where a second transformational future happens after rebuilding from a Collapse future (systemic collapse). He leaves it open to further revelations about which path is more likely. (Spoiler alert: changing an existing system is easier than building a new one from scratch).
I’ve seen this chart several times and talked with Andy about it at least once. What hit me this time is that the Baseline-New Equilibrium-Transformation pathway is an answer to the ancient Ship of Theseus paradox.
Futures thinkers look at different futures as different systems. Theseus’s ship behaved in exactly the same ways after each part was replaced. Even if the original parts were reassembled, per the paradox, both ships would behave like the original ship. Basically both are clones of the original, one with newer parts. The rebuilt ship of Theseus would be newer than the original, but behave the same way as the original. Future change doesn’t work like that.
So? Why is it important?
HAT implies that Transformation futures are fundamentally no different than New Equilibrium. They are simply a multi-stage systems change. A Transformation future is just a NEW New Equilibrium. We get the nice gradual developmental change up until the Baseline assumptions no longer work. A big adjustment is made to the system configuration, new systems goals are added and others purged. The systems then proceed to do a mix of old and new things. That New Equilibrium system becomes the new Baseline, which will then trundle along its S-curve until it ages-out and is replaced by another big systemic adjustment. It is a continuum of discontinuities that futures thinkers generally call Eras.
Why it is important: while we can steer toward truly transformational futures, we cannot get there without passing through “compromise” equilibrium futures. We can change the ship, but we only get to steer on the journey.
Theseus’s ship is always sailing into a different future.