Future

For other uses, see Future (disambiguation).
"Futuristic" redirects here. For other uses, see Futuristic (disambiguation).
The Zeitpyramide is an unfinished concrete pyramid. Because a block is only placed every 10 years, it is expected to be completed in 3183.

The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist can be categorized as either permanent, meaning that it will exist forever, or temporary, meaning that it will end.[1] In the Occidental view, which uses a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the projected timeline that is anticipated to occur.[2] In special relativity, the future is considered absolute future, or the future light cone.[3]

In the philosophy of time, presentism is the belief that only the present exists and the future and the past are unreal. Religions consider the future when they address issues such as karma, life after death, and eschatologies that study what the end of time and the end of the world will be. Religious figures such as prophets and diviners have claimed to see into the future. Future studies, or futurology, is the science, art, and practice of postulating possible futures. Modern practitioners stress the importance of alternative and plural futures, rather than one monolithic future, and the limitations of prediction and probability, versus the creation of possible and preferable futures. Predeterminism is the belief that the past, present, and future have been already decided.

The concept of the future has been explored extensively in cultural production, including art movements and genres devoted entirely to its elucidation, such as the 20th-century movement futurism.

  1. ^ Encyclopædia of religion and ethics. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. pp. 335–337.
  2. ^ Moore, C.-L. & Yamamoto, K. (1988). Beyond words: movement observation and analysis. New York: Gordon and Breach. p. 57. (cf., The representation of time as a linear, unidirectional progression is a distinctly Occidental point of view.)
  3. ^ Eddington, A. S. (1921). Space, time and gravitation; an outline of the general relativity theory. Cambridge: University Press. p. 107.