Thinking about the Future like a Meditator

This is the second post in this series of providing additional lenses one can use to think about the future differently. In the first one, we looked at how one can think about the future like an architect. In this one, we will turn to another lens with which one can learn to appreciate the future differently – the lens of a meditator.

When I say a meditator in the below, I’m referring to the tradition of meditation that I practice and am familiar with, that of vipassana, also known as insight meditation. Some of this may also apply to other schools of meditation, but that is not something I have certainty about. In this short post, I will describe two practices of meditation that also lend themselves very well to how one should think about the future.

Noticing, not Clinging

In meditation, we practice noticing everything. This can be any sensory impression, from a bodily sensation to a thought in the mind. It could also be a smell, or an emotion. The point one could say of meditation is to be fully awake to everything happening within oneself. We train ourselves to be able to notice the smallest things, such as a change in the feeling of temperature on the skin.

Importantly, however, we also train to not cling to these. The art lies in noticing, but not holding on to anything. The easiest thing in the world is to latch on to a thought that arises in the mind, but then one quickly gets lost. One later wakes up again to awareness and realizes that one had been lost in the thought.

This is highly relevant when considering how we should form our views of the future. It is important to notice all signals that are out there, but not to over-update on them. This means we should read widely and skim a lot of sources, but treat each individual source or piece of information with skepticism and not jump to conclusions or throw out earlier forecasts and views of the future.

This is what I practice as a superforecaster. I look for knowledge inside the torrent of information. A good recent example is that of AI timelines, and specifically AGI (artificial general intelligence) timelines. An example of this forecasting question can be seen here on Metaculus. Recent progress in AI has been astounding. There is a lot of agreement that even experts have been taken by surprise by the capabilities of GPT 3.5 and 4. What this means is clearly that timelines for AGI have moved forward. Timelines in the Metaculus question mentioned above have moved closer by decades over the past months. However, it doesn’t mean that we will get to AGI tomorrow. The Metaculus community prediction for weakly general AGI is now in 2026, which seems overly optimistic. This seems like overly updating on the new information.

Going forward, precisely because of the advent of stronger AI, this will only become more important. As we become surrounded by more and more AIs, using their blurry jpeg of the web, as Ted Chiang memorably phrased it, the amount of misinformation and erroneous information will increase disproportionally. AIs will hallucinate information, creating simply erroneous information, which will inevitably eventually make its way back into the training data for future models, and then get expanded upon further. AIs will also be used by humans as efficient ways to create disinformation and misinformation. The signal will become even further hidden in the noise, and it will become even harder to be a good Bayesian and keep existing views in mind when updating one’s views.

Everything Changes and Nothing Changes

Sitting in meditation, one notices quickly that everything is change. Small sensations quickly arise and just as quickly fade away. They can be bodily sensations or impressions in the mind, but they all just as easily come as well as go. As the Buddha said, “Whatever has the nature of arising, all of it has the nature of ceasing”. However, this is the truth at the superficial level, the truth of worldly convention. As the Buddha also taught, there are two levels of truth. At the level of ultimate truth, the situation is the opposite, nothing changes. At that level, there is only a steady awareness. This is unchanging and stable, and always there beneath any arising and ceasing thoughts and impressions.

This dichotomy is useful to keep in mind when studying the future. There is constant change and every moment, there are new events that may influence the future. However, at the same time, at the fundamental level, there is very little that changes. Most importantly, at the level of human behavior, guided by human preferences, things are very stable. Human behavior seems consistent throughout all of recorded history. Human preferences are guided by a need for self-preservation, social connection and pleasure. Society as a whole, being the sum of all the individuals, tends to display similar preferences.

These are the preferences for the actors that must effectuate change for there to be change in the world. As a superforecaster, I find it very useful to keep this in mind. If a proposed future development relies on a set of assumptions that could run counter to human nature, such as the widespread decline in car ownership due to the introduction of self-driving cars, just to take one example (tweet can be found here), it should be questionable to assume that this would happen quickly.

Keeping these characteristics in mind when forecasting or deciding one’s view of the future goes a long way to being a more accurate forecaster.