Beyond the Mundane:

Integrated Individual and Collective, Inner and Outer in Our Long Term Futures Thinking

Understanding the future of the global mind and soul necessitates taking an epistemological approach that focuses both on the empirical model (what is out there) and the interpretive model (what is in our minds) at individual and collective levels. This requires an integrative model of past and future. Indeed, I would argue that it has become clear that our ability to understand the world ‘out there' crucially depends on an underlying world of reference that is ‘in here'. Understanding the near-future and far future environment calls for a combination of ‘inner' and ‘outer' views. This paper considers a way of considering these very different ‘ways of knowing'. Overall, the aim to go beyond what might be termed ‘mundane' analysis, ie., that which is preoccupied with surfaces, and to open out a broader arena for futures enquiry. This is a depth approach to the future, one that is clearly required if we wish to move out of our data information society to a knowledge and wisdom society