Impossible. No. Not impossible. I can... and will show you documentation of the Future.

In reading many of the tasks on sf0 I have been reminded of my time as a student of philosophy. In that time my fellow students and I endeavored to understand various notions. We searched for understanding of ethics, logic, metaphysics, and the the linear notion of time. Having had some years pass since I reflected on the notion of the term "future", I thought that this prompt would suit me well.

In order to document an instance of the future there are at least a couple of things we should endeavor to do before we begin. We must understand the term in question. Examine how the definition interrelates to the concept of inductive reasoning. We must also somehow address the fact that the task itself may be begging the question.

m-w.com defines future as:
1: that is to be ; specifically : existing after death
2: of, relating to, or constituting a verb tense expressive of time yet to come
3: existing or occurring at a later time

This is pretty straight forward. The time that will come after now will be called the future. The human condition is geared toward guessing how the future will be. We base our existence on inductive reasoning in order to make better predictions of what the future will be like. The sun has come up every day of my life which means that it will likely come up again tomorrow. However, if I were to say "The sun will come up tomorrow," and then tomorrow submit the image of the sunrise as confirmation of an instance of the future I would be committing a fallacy. This would be a fallacy on two accounts. The premises from which the conclusion is derived are not logically sound.

Just because the farmer always feeds the turkey at sunrise, doesn't mean that at sunrise on thanksgiving day the turkey won't be slaughtered instead of being fed. Events do not always follow the pattern of inductive reasoning. This means that a prediction of the future is no more than a well educated guess. By documenting a guess one is not documenting the future, but rather one is documenting his or her ability to guess.

The other facet of the fallacy is that even with a time specific prediction such as "The sun will rise at 6:02 tomorrow." and a confirmation as "It is now 6:02 and the sun is rising" there is no way of being in the future, McFly. One is only able to confirm present events. So it really reads "At the present time I am postulating that the sun will rise at 6:02 tomorrow". Again it is a postulation, not a documentation. All one may document is that in the past he or she reasoned a thing and that said thing was confirmed after the time at which he or she reasoned it to be.

In essence the term future is simply a convenient label for the culmination of inductive ideas. The idea of the future itself is inductive. Time throughout our experience of it has continued. Much like the sun coming up daily, our analog clocks have ticked on and on. However simply because time has continued in the past we cannot assert with logical certainty that time will continue to continue.

This brings us to the possibility that this task may be begging the question. In the question the term future is treated as an a priori piece of knowledge. If the individual writing this task presumed the concept of future as a priori, then he or she assumes the existence of the future, which then by creating the task may be considered begging the question. Suggesting that someone document the future is an assertion of the existence of a future which then is in itself a documentation of the belief of the future. Obvious to the reader however, is the notion that I may or may not personally believe in the existence of the future.

This being said, I must allow the reader to know that I consider myself at times to be an american pragmatist. Additionally, I believe that relativity of thought exists. Thusly, if a person believes that there is a future then there is a future (in his or her version of reality). This also means that I don't generally exist in this world of philosophical skepticism which I am putting forth currently. I am able to deal with the term future, and when I wake up in the morning I don't sit in bed asking myself "do I really have to pee?" "is there really pee at all?" until I eventually wet the bed. Instead I don't question; I plug on. I get out of bed and go the bathroom. In fact, I postulate that in the morning I will do just that. But back to the future (sorry)...
So all I have done so far is show that I am unable to prove the future. Without being able to prove the future, I am unable to document the future. So why did I pick this task? Why didn't I write this rant under 'failed tasks'?






Well... Let me introduce you to my little friend.

There is a spider that lives in the corner of my room. This spider has been there long enough for me to garnish an emotional attachment to it. It sits there in an unthreatening way and when disturbed does this crazy spinning/bouncing move which I find fascinating. The spider also catches bugs.

I like the spider.

I like the spider so much that I named it.

I named the spider the Future*.

I now present to the reader documentation of the Future (my seven legged free range pet spider).


*(please note that the word future was originally capitalized in the task, indicating a proper noun.)