Are You Getting Older?

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When you're younger, you have a really hard time imagining anything further out than you have a memory of. People who get older are less actively volved as they age in thinking about far futures. Ten per cent of people over 65 say they regularly imagine what the world might be like in ten years. As we age, many of us experience a physical decline or mental decline or loss of loved one. Soif we imagine the futures as being painful, we don't want to think about it,. We think, well, i'm not going to be around for it."

Shermer speaks with world-renowned future forecaster and game designer, Jane McGonigal, about her book Imaginable in which she draws on the latest scientific research in psychology and neuroscience to show us how to train our minds to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable by inviting us to play with provocative thought experiments and future simulations.

Shermer and McGonigal discuss: what a futurist is and what they do; counterfactuals: predicting the past; how could the present moment be different?; how can you imagine the unimaginable, or think the unthinkable?; how to envision what our lives will look like ten years from now; how to to solve problems creatively; how to make decisions that will help shape the future we desire; how to simulate any future you want; simulations as thought experiments as counterfactual causality tests; gaming as simulation of problem solving; the 10,000-hour rule for success; your present self vs. your future self and why most of us discount the future too much.