Metropolis ─ Future Oriented Thinking Through Science Fiction

• Develops the ability to anticipate future
• Unites experts from different fields
• Enhances competitivity by helping to anticipate possible developments of one's own field
  

What?

Metropolis develops a model of operation which develops participants' abilities to envision a long timeframe.

Often the functionality and development in different branches is aimed to the near future because of practical realities. However, creative functionality, and in a large scale also the future of the society, needs long timeframe visions and enthusiastic ideas which go beyond everyday life. Metropolis offers a method with which to detach from the present and reflect on which directions it is preferable and reasonable to develop toward.

Metropolis is also a way to unite different fields, organisations, companies and schools within the creative branches. The strength of the method is that it is easy to unite within it sub tasks from different fields. Once the different participants have got to know each other through this method, it will produce besides the models of the future, also new ways for organisations to work together with people from other fields in diverse research and development activities.

How?

In Metropolis developing science-fiction scenarios will unite people from different fields. The outcome from this development process can be short films, or possibly text, animation, plays, or something else. The central point being, that people from different fields are included in the envisioning process, and that they all bring their expertise with them.

One central method in developing these futuristic visions is a so called thought experiment. The thought experiment helps people analyse and further develop different visions.

The process could unfold like this:

1. The different participants decides on the themes, techniques and restrictions of the upcoming envisioning
2. The participants start collecting background information. There are many methods available for this, among others:
   1. group interviews (within a organisation or some other group)
   2. crowdsourcing (and other social media models)
   3. expert interviews
   4. benchmarking
   5. researching the history of the future (that is how the future was envisioned in the past)
   6. using analogies from the development of other industries or technologies
   7. theatrical expression and their methods
   8. future sketching
   9. considering weak signals
3. Thought experiments are carried out with the help of the background material, considering different possible future scenarios
   1. Getting feedback and repetition, i.e. doing the thought experiment again, is important in this phase
4. The most interesting and inspiring ideas are chosen as topics for the science fiction production
5. The thought experiments are developed into production manuscripts
6. Production
   1. For example movies can be produced using light equipment. Communicating the idea is the most important
7. Publication of productions
8. Feedback about the visions is collected

The work in Metropolis is strongly centralized on the web. The different phases (information retrieval, planning, sketching, ideas, method information, finished productions, and so on) are stored on the web (in a Wiki for example), so that the process will be as open as possible and so that the materials from different phases can be put to use all-round and asynchronously.

The thought experiment

The thought experiment is a method with which to create ideas of the future in a creative way.

In the thought experiment, a statement is presented about something which is different in the future. The thought experiment can base itself on researched future anticipation, wild guesses, or a combination of these.

The thought experiment should include these dimensions:

• Technology
  • What technology is used, how has it changed
• Society
  • What are the social structures, values and operations models
• Environment
  • What kind of surroundings are people living in

The different dimension do not have to be answered comprehensively, they can be just suggested in the thought experiment.

You can test the depth of your experiment with the following questions:

• What are the intentions of the creator of the thought experiment when he presents it?
• What facts are presumed in the thought experiment?
• Are the presumed facts true?
• Is the scenario physically possible in our world?
• Is the scenario coherent? Are there any principal conflicts within the presumed facts?
• What does the thought experiment reveal about our world, our ways and moral intuition?

The questions are shaped from the book: Philosophy Through Science Fiction 2009