History = Future Studies

Your humble servant here has two degrees in history: B.A. University of Wisconsin - Madison and M.A. University of Toronto, plus one year of study at the University of Dublin, Ireland in the Honours School of History and Political Science. What he has discovered goes like this. History no longer exists. It is over, in the past. However, we imagine, key word here, imagine, based on evidence what has happened in the past. If we are good at it, we can even hear the historical persons talking - in our imaginations. Note imagination based on evidence is not fantasy which requires no evidence to support it, e.g. Harry Potter. In the same vein, the future does not exist, yet, but we can imagine, key word again, imagine, based on evidence today what the future may or may not be. Again, the requirement is evidence, which separates trend forecasting, future studies from fantasy. What your humble servant here has found is that his historical studies - practice in "imagineering" - has prepared him for future studies - which is also practice in "imagineering." It is the same process - fact-based "imagineering" of the past and fact-based "imagineering" of the future. The techniques are exactly the same, except in one case we apply them to past events and in the other case to probable, possible future events. It took a bit of time to realize this is one of the reasons why future studies have captured my imagination! Dr. Rux