The Greatest Human Invention?

If you had asked me when I was a child in the 90s whether we would have self-driving cars one day, I probably would have guessed, “yes.” But if you had asked me whether the premier encyclopedia in the world would be a website that anyone can edit (for no pay), I probably would have thought you were out of your mind. However, Wikipedia is here to stay, and self-driving cars are still a work in progress.

Human foresight obviously has its flaws, and try as we might, we can’t predict the future with certainty. However, the fact that we can even imagine and speculate about the future is nothing short of extraordinary. This ability is what has allowed humans to achieve the seemingly unachievable. The Invention of Tomorrow: A Natural History of Foresight by Suddendorf, Redshaw, and Bulley (out now, from Basic Books) delves into foresight, exploring how it works, how it develops, and how it evolved. The book is meticulously researched, thought-provoking, and engrossing, and I highly recommend it.

As a cognitive neuroscientist, I study how people make decisions about the future, including how the ability to imagine the future influences those decisions. So, I didn’t think I would learn that much from reading this book. But just as I would have failed to predict the success of Wikipedia, I failed to predict just how eye-opening and informative this book turned out to be. Suddendorf and colleagues do discuss, in very accessible prose, the psychology and neuroscience behind foresight, but that is just a small slice of the book.

The rest reads less like pop psychology and more like history. The authors do a deep dive into many topics related to foresight, including the development of foresight in children; its evolution in early humans; whether foresight is present in other species; the inventions and tools that resulted from and aid foresight; and the implications of human foresight for the future of our planet.

A few chapters stood out as especially noteworthy. First, I had often heard the assertion that the capacity for foresight is uniquely human, but I always wondered about how that factoid was established. In one chapter, the authors synthesize illuminating research done in both humans and non-human animals, and they make a compelling case that other animals lack the capacity for “contingency planning” and other complex forms of thinking that endow human foresight with much more power.

I also enjoyed the section that focused on the origins of the tools humans developed to aid their mental time travels, such as early timekeeping devices and calendars.

Finally, the last chapter is truly a gem, an essay worthy of reading on its own. In it, Suddendorf and colleagues describe the successes and failures of human foresight over the course of history, including how some of humankind’s innovations have had devastating repercussions for the Earth. But the authors’ tone is concerned rather than judgmental; they acknowledge the challenges inherent in intergenerational cooperation.

In addition to the content, I really enjoyed the writing style. The book is jam-packed with stories–some historical, some scientific–that are easy to follow. The authors punctuate the narrative with just the right amount of humor and incisive commentary.

Finally, despite the fact that there are three authors (Thomas Suddendorf and his former Ph.D. students Jonathan Redshaw and Adam Bulley), the text flows with a coherent, unified voice.

All in all, I walked away from The Invention of Tomorrow with a renewed appreciation for my ability to think ahead and a sense that I should use this enormous power wisely.

Then, I began planning my future post.