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Future Rising: A Journey from the Past to the Edge of Tomorrow
Embark on a journey into the future.
The future holds a unique fascination for most of us. Simultaneously unknowable yet strangely malleable, it saturates our lives as completely as the air we breathe. Yet how many of us can truly say that we understand what the future is, and how we’re connected to it?
In Future Rising, Andrew Maynard takes you on a remarkable journey from the Big Bang to our collective responsibility to future generations. Weaving together ideas and insights from science, philosophy, art, and more, Future Rising traces a pathway along the emergence of intelligent life, through what makes us uniquely capable of imagining and creating different futures, to the profound challenges and opportunities that come with this.
Through sixty short reflections, Future Rising reveals a compelling vision of the future and how it impacts our lives. Beguiling, serendipitous, often-startling, and ultimately life-affirming, Future Rising will change how you think about the future and your relationship with it.
The future holds a unique fascination for most of us. Simultaneously unknowable yet strangely malleable, it saturates our lives as completely as the air we breathe. Yet how many of us can truly say that we understand what the future is, and how we’re connected to it?
In Future Rising, Andrew Maynard takes you on a remarkable journey from the Big Bang to our collective responsibility to future generations. Weaving together ideas and insights from science, philosophy, art, and more, Future Rising traces a pathway along the emergence of intelligent life, through what makes us uniquely capable of imagining and creating different futures, to the profound challenges and opportunities that come with this.
Through sixty short reflections, Future Rising reveals a compelling vision of the future and how it impacts our lives. Beguiling, serendipitous, often-startling, and ultimately life-affirming, Future Rising will change how you think about the future and your relationship with it.
218 pages, Hardcover
First published October 20, 2020
10 people are currently reading
841 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Maynard
3 books14 followersAndrew Maynard is a professor at Arizona State University where he studies and writes about emerging technologies and their impacts on society and the future. he is author of Future Rising: A Journey from the Past to the Edge of Tomorrow, Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies, and AI and the Art of Being Human (with Jeffrey Abbott).
In addition to his academic work, Andrew writes widely on the socially responsible development of new technologies. He writes for the Substack The Future of Being Human and co-hosts the podcast Modem Futura. His work has been appeared in publications from The Washington Post, to Slate, Salon, and The Conversation.
In addition to his academic work, Andrew writes widely on the socially responsible development of new technologies. He writes for the Substack The Future of Being Human and co-hosts the podcast Modem Futura. His work has been appeared in publications from The Washington Post, to Slate, Salon, and The Conversation.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 1, 2021
Disclosure: the author gifted me with a PDF copy of his book, and I have some knowledge of the extraordinary depth and breadth of his expertise on technology and society.
Dr. Maynard's newest book "Future Rising" contains 60 chapters grouped into 4 sections, on different topics related to the past, present, and future. These topics include, among others: Entropy, Evolution, Reason, Faith, Complexity, and Cataclysm. Each of these describes how the topic might influence the future, for good or for bad. What delights in these chapters is the sheer variety of topics discussed, the in-depth knowledge shared in multiple scientific and technological areas, and the clarity with which Dr. Maynard links them to each other and to the broader subject of our future. Occasionally the book poses intriguing questions, such as whether we are already living in a large computer simulation controlled by artificial intelligence, or whether life ultimately increases the rate of entropy of the universe.
Interestingly, the one critique I would have about this book is that it is too short, for the enormous range of topics it covers. Each of the 60 chapters is worthy of a considerably longer essay. At the end of each chapter, I wished that it had delved even more deeply into one or another of the questions raised (e.g., the potential ethical implications of gene-edited babies in the chapter "Ethics"). Additionally, the section "Uniquely Human" contained elements where it seemed that animals other than humans could have some of these characteristics as well, such as Feelings, Curiosity, Fear, Loss, and Possibility - a minor point in an otherwise excellently organized book.
Finally: many of these topics, though written before the COVID-19 pandemic, are prescient of and relevant to the pandemic: the ways in which it was inevitable that something of this magnitude would affect humanity, and how we did or did not respond appropriately to it as a species. This highlights the importance of considering these subjects carefully in shaping the future for ourselves and all future generations.
Dr. Maynard's newest book "Future Rising" contains 60 chapters grouped into 4 sections, on different topics related to the past, present, and future. These topics include, among others: Entropy, Evolution, Reason, Faith, Complexity, and Cataclysm. Each of these describes how the topic might influence the future, for good or for bad. What delights in these chapters is the sheer variety of topics discussed, the in-depth knowledge shared in multiple scientific and technological areas, and the clarity with which Dr. Maynard links them to each other and to the broader subject of our future. Occasionally the book poses intriguing questions, such as whether we are already living in a large computer simulation controlled by artificial intelligence, or whether life ultimately increases the rate of entropy of the universe.
Interestingly, the one critique I would have about this book is that it is too short, for the enormous range of topics it covers. Each of the 60 chapters is worthy of a considerably longer essay. At the end of each chapter, I wished that it had delved even more deeply into one or another of the questions raised (e.g., the potential ethical implications of gene-edited babies in the chapter "Ethics"). Additionally, the section "Uniquely Human" contained elements where it seemed that animals other than humans could have some of these characteristics as well, such as Feelings, Curiosity, Fear, Loss, and Possibility - a minor point in an otherwise excellently organized book.
Finally: many of these topics, though written before the COVID-19 pandemic, are prescient of and relevant to the pandemic: the ways in which it was inevitable that something of this magnitude would affect humanity, and how we did or did not respond appropriately to it as a species. This highlights the importance of considering these subjects carefully in shaping the future for ourselves and all future generations.
August 16, 2021
If you have ever read a good book but thought it would have been truly excellent at 1/10 of its length, you will love this book. Future Rising contains 60 short (really! 2-3 pages) chapters organized into four sections that distill the author's ideas to a "just right" length. The chapters comprise a sort-of conceptual Cliff's Notes for charting the future - Maynard reminds us of aspects of our incurable humanness that shape our approaches to the unknown ("fear", "creativity", "memory"), as well as introducing us to a host of ideas and schools of thought ("design thinking", "Moore's Law", "the singularity", "complex systems", "wicked problems") and challenges ("hubris", "deception") that will undoubtedly shape the future we end up inhabiting. The book's succinctness lends itself to a reading in a single sitting to maintain Maynard's flow of thought (the end of one chapter generally leans into the topic of the next). However, most readers will probably head back to re-read several chapters and maybe be interested enough in a cool idea or book that Maynard mentions in passing to trigger an afternoon lost in a Wikipedia rabbit hole. A complex book in an accessible package, sure to make you think intentionally about your own vision of the future.
January 9, 2025
I enjoyed this book! I'm really interested in questions of temporality and I loved how Maynard takes a number of pretty normal situations and compellingly shows that they are examples of humans' remarkable ability to imagine the future. This ability is not just the basis of utopian and dystopian fiction; it underlies practically everything we do.
The format of 60 short essays leaves me a bit mixed.
OTOH, it's a really fun book to breeze through, with lots of good insights creating a sort of tapestry of philosophical musings. OTOH, I would have liked a lot more detail on several of the examples.
The audiobook, narrated by Dan Mellins-Cohen, is excellent.
The format of 60 short essays leaves me a bit mixed.
OTOH, it's a really fun book to breeze through, with lots of good insights creating a sort of tapestry of philosophical musings. OTOH, I would have liked a lot more detail on several of the examples.
The audiobook, narrated by Dan Mellins-Cohen, is excellent.
January 17, 2021
A quick read, but engaging and filled with thought-provoking ideas! This book doesn’t offer promises of what the future will be like; to quote an excellent movie “they’re more like guidelines, really”. These are insights into how we, as individuals, and as members of a global community, can work toward building a future that we want. The release of this book, during 2020, feels aptly timed, while the world feels like its falling apart and the future looks bleak.
November 15, 2020
Another juicy juicy read. How fun. How comforting.
October 2, 2024
I took his film class and enjoyed the perspectives he presented about Science fiction and how it had a cyclical relationship to how society interacts with technology. This book clearly outlines different components that contribute to the future and bases analysis in past events. I can easily follow along and also see where great academic conversations can arise.
July 25, 2023
Humans affect the current state of reality, and it affects us. This book presents a collection of concepts that one must consider when making sense of this complexifying interaction and to shape a future more in line with the qualities of existence we need and want.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews