COVER STORY • Future Design – Thinking About Our Legacy to the Next Generation • 8N

euro Future Design: Prospecting
a New Transdisciplinary Sciencefor a Sustainable Society

By Ryuta Aoki

Introduction: The Intersect of Future Design &Neuroscience
The aim of Future Design (FD) is to solve the problems that affectthe sustainability of future generations by designing social systems
from the ground up and putting them to work in the real world(“Future Design” by Tatsuyoshi Saijo, TRENDS IN THE SCIENCES,
2018, Vol. 23, Issue 2). In order to tackle global environmental
challenges, inequality and poverty, and other issues of global andhistorical proportions, it is necessary for researchers from a wide
range of academic disciplines to bring together completely new ideas
and cooperate while utilizing their respective expertise.
Meanwhile, neuroscience seeks to “uncover the relationshipbetween mind and matter”. It has drawn the interest of many people
from natural science and the humanities alike because of this corefeature. The development of neuroimaging technology, whichenables the measurement of the brain activities of live human beings,
in particular has enabled it to make progress as a transdisciplinary
field of research while connecting with a wide range of disciplines
including sociology, economics, and philosophy (“Searching for aNew Science of Humanity” by Hideaki Koizumi, TRENDS IN THE
SCIENCES, 2004, Vol. 9, Issue 2).
It is natural, then, for FD and neuroscience, having atransdisciplinary aspect in common, to intersect. In this article, Ioffer my expectations on how neuroscience may contribute in going
forward with FD research. The term “neuro future design” that isused here includes all research that undertakes issues in FD utilizing
the knowledge and expertise in neuroscience.

What Does Neuroimaging Tell Us Regarding FD?
One of the greatest advantages of neuroimaging research is that it
can illuminate the “hidden” process going on inside the human skull.
Human behavior is the manifestation of the neurological process that
occurs inside the brain. Therefore, it may be possible by analyzing
the pattern of brain activities to uncover the truth that cannot bedetected by the mere observation of the behavior itself.
For example, applied research in FD to date indicates that gaining
experience in thinking as an “imaginary future generation” enhancesconsideration for future generations and promotes creativity. Why
does acting as an “imaginary future person” have this effect?
28 Japan SPOTLIGHT • March / April 2019

Author Ryuta Aoki

Peering into the brain raises the possibility of identifying theneurobiological substrates of concepts that can only be inferred frombehavioral data as latent variables. This is particularly useful when
multiple explanations concerning the motive behind certain behavior
are possible from the analysis of behavioral observations and verbal
reports. Brain activity data may help to ascertain which of thecompeting explanations is the most plausible.
Neuroimaging also helps to clarify the common neural mechanismthat underlies a wide variety of expressive behavior. Empiricalresearch in recent years in Bangladesh, Nepal and elsewhere verifies
the possibility that FD may be a method whose effectiveness
transcends language and culture. By analyzing the function of thebrain, it may be possible to clarify the neural process through which
the deliberation methods used by FD that are invariant vis-à-vis
language and culture transform people’s behavior and thinking.
Furthermore, the FD method has the potential to be effective onissues ranging from the sustainability of local infrastructure toenvironmental and other global issues, from which it can be inferredthat it has the characteristics of fractals such as scale invariance(Saijo, keynote speech at the 22nd Experimental Social ScienceConference, 2018). Interestingly, scale invariance is one of thefundamental characteristics of the brain. One of the core issues inneuro FD should be to illuminate the common neural mechanism of
the brain that explains “why the FD approach is effective” acrosslanguages, cultures, and the issues subject to debate.

What Are the Neurobiological Substrates of“Futurability”?
One important concept in FD is “futurability”. Futurability, as Saijo
states, means “the capacity of human beings to feel happiness bymaking decisions and engaging in behavior that make future
generations wealthy even if they reduce current benefits orfurthermore by merely thinking that way” (“Future Design”, TRENDS
IN THE SCIENCES, 2018, Vol. 23, Issue 2). Homo economicus thatclassical economics assumes cannot have futurability. Therefore, thehuman beings that FD presents are completely different from thosein the economics of old.
If futurability is part of human nature, what are its biologicalsubstrates? The knowledge accumulated through neuroscience gives
us some useful hints. First, human beings have the capacity for
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episodic future thinking, the ability to imagine a future event as if you
are experiencing it now (“Remembering the Past to Imagine theFuture: The Prospective Brain” by Daniel L. Schacter, Donna RoseAddis and Randy L. Buckner, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2007,8(9)). This ability is one of the necessary conditions of futurability,
since it is essential to imagining what the circumstances andenvironment will be for future generations and how decisions by thecurrent generation will impact future generations. Interestingly,
episodic future thinking is an ability unique to human beings. It isbelieved that it is difficult even for chimpanzees, who are the closest
relatives of humankind (“Prospection and Natural Selection” byThomas Suddendorf, Adam Bulley and Beyon Miloyan, Current
Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 2018, Vol. 24). There is anatomical
research showing that the frontal pole, one of the brain’s regions
responsible for episodic future thinking, is most prominently
developed in human beings among primates. Episodic future
thinking is also closely associated with the cognitive function called“prospection” in psychology. Martin Seligman, the prominent
psychologist, emphasizes that prospection is the feature that defines
human beings and argues that the current version of human beings
should be called Homo prospectus, not Homo sapiens.
Second, it is recognized that human beings have the ability ofvicarious reward processing, the ability to process rewards to others
as if they were rewards to themselves. This also should be essential
in order to be able to feel happiness through behavior that benefits
future generations. It was reported recently that a gene expression
pattern that does not exist in other primates such as monkeys andchimpanzees can be observed in the striatum, one of the regions in
the human brain responsible for processing rewards (“Molecular andCellular Reorganization of Neural Circuits in the Human Lineage” byAndre M. Sousa, Ying Zhu et al., Science, 2017, Vol. 358, Issue
6366). Some researchers are beginning to think that the histologicalcharacteristics of this reward system are related to the social
capabilities of human beings such as empathy and altruism.
Based on these findings, futurability can be interpreted as anability unique to human beings that is expressed through the
combination of episodic future thinking and vicarious rewardprocessing. To be sure, the two elements here are merely necessaryconditions. Other cognitive functions must be interactively involvedto actually generate futurability. That said, the analyses there should
constitute a foothold for future research to clarify the actual workingsof futurability. For example, in a laboratory experiment using anintergenerational sustainability game (“Negotiating with the Future:Incorporating Imaginary Future Generations into Negotiations” by
Yoshio Kamijo, Asuka Komiya, Nobuhiro Mifune and Tatsuyoshi
Saijo, Sustainability Science, 2017, Vol. 12, Issue 3), a stronger
functional connection may have been generated between brain
regions that are responsible for episodic future thinking (e.g. thefrontal pole) and brain regions that are responsible for various
rewards (e.g. the striatum) in the brains of the participants whochose sustainable options even when it required personal sacrifices
compared to the brains of those who did not. Practical studies on“citizens discussions” (discussions among citizens randomly
selected by governments or NPOs in Japan on any social or politicalissue) indicate that there are some people who are exceptionallyskilled at thinking as imaginary future generations and coming up
with innovative ideas (“Future Design – Evidence and Insights from
Participatory Deliberations” by Keishiro Hara and Tatsuyoshi Saijo,
Journal of Japan Society on Water Environment, 2017, Vol. 40, Issue
4). These people may have some common features in their striata
and frontal poles. These are merely working hypotheses for now, but
it is possible to verify them by analyzing the functions and structureof the brain through neuroimaging.

Can Changes in Social Systems Change
Human Nature?
Even if futurability is part of human nature, it appears that it is noteffective enough, at least for now, to solve the challenges related tosustainability. FD proposes to change the fundamental nature andmindset of human beings by not accepting the market, democracy,and other existing social systems as given and instead designingthem anew. This proposal seems ambitious. Is it really possible tochange human nature by changing social systems?
The latest research on neuroimaging is revealing that the humanbrain demonstrates incredible malleability in response to social andenvironmental factors. One example is a study with more than 1,000
participants that indicates that the socioeconomic status of parents
has a wide-ranging impact on the structure of their children’s brains,which in turn affects reading, writing, and other cognitive functions(“Family Income, Parental Education and Brain Structure in Childrenand Adolescents” by Kimberley G. Noble, Suzanne M. Houston, et al.,Japan SPOTLIGHT • March / April 201929

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Nature Neuroscience, 2015, Vol. 18, Issue 5). There is also a reportthat indicates that the experience of urban life affects the structure ofthe brain (“Environmental Influence in the Brain, Human Welfare andMental Health” by Heike Tost, Frances A. Champagne and Andreas
Meyer-Lindenberg, Nature Neuroscience, 2015, Vol. 18, Issue 10).
This may be related to the finding that the proportion of people who
perform sustainable decision-making differs greatly between urbanand rural areas. There is also a report to the effect that the structureof the brain changes in women after childbirth and that the change isrelated to their attachment to their children (“Pregnancy Leads toLong-lasting Changes in Human Brain Structure” by Elseline
Hoekzema, Erika Barba-Muller et al., Nature Neuroscience, 2017, Vol.
20, Issue 2). As these examples illustrate, it is becoming increasingly
evident that environmental factors and life experiences have a global
impact on the structure of the human brain and that this in turn
alters cognitive and social functions.
There is no evidence yet directly showing that social systems suchas the market mechanism and democracy affect the structure of thebrain. However, the possibility cannot be denied that current social
systems affect the structure of the human brain and thereby define
the nature of the people who live in contemporary society. To put it
another way, it may be possible to promote change in the structureof the brain regions that are responsible for episodic future thinking
and vicarious rewards and unlock the potential in human beings byconstructing new social systems using FD. It will be difficult to verify
this hypothesis by actually changing social systems. However, astarting point for research on this point could be having a few dozen
participants undergo training to think as imaginary future
generations through discussions and other means and studying how
the effect appears as long-term changes in the structure of the brain.
One recent report says that the structure of the brain does change
after several months of training to nurture empathy and mercy forothers (“Structural Plasticity of the Social Brain: Differential Change
after Socio-affective and Cognitive Mental Training” by Sophie Louise
Valk, Boris C. Bernhardt et al., Science Advances, 2017, Vol. 3, Issue10). Although the replication of this finding with independent groups
is required to determine how definitive it is, it should be possible tointroduce a similar research method to neuro FD.

30 Japan SPOTLIGHT • March / April 2019Conclusion: Towards a Sustainable Species
From an evolutionary psychology perspective, it may be natural tothink that futurability was never exposed to selection pressure sinceintergenerational sustainability never had a significant impact on
adaptability in the environment in which human beings evolved.
However, if social systems artfully combine episodic future thinking,vicarious reward processing, and other capabilities that have evolved
separately, an evolutionary timespan may not be necessary forhuman beings to demonstrate futurability and share it broadly
throughout society (“Cultural Recycling of Cortical Maps” by
Stanislas Dehaene and Laurent Cohen, Neuron, 2007, Vol. 56, Issue2). To borrow the term from Seligman, it must have been useful forhuman beings to have acquired the capability for prospection as itevolved in order to survive the global environments of the past.
However, in order for human beings to continue to prosper as asustainable species, it may be necessary to acquire futurability andtransform itself into “Homo futurabilis”. This change should bedistinguished from biological evolution. Instead, it appears to be amatter that should be achieved through the transformation of socialsystems.
Neuroscience can be viewed as a discipline that has sought todiscover “where human beings have come from and where they areheaded” and “how human beings may be able to change” bystudying the uniqueness and malleability of the human brain.
Meanwhile, FD is a discipline that asks “where human beings shouldbe headed and how it should change for that purpose”. Thus, neuro
FD as the composite of the two fields can be characterized as adiscipline that brings together all contemporary knowledge and asks
anew the philosophical question concerning the essence of what itmeans to be human that humanity has asked itself over themillennia: “Where have human beings come from, where are they
now, and where are they going?”

Dr. Ryuta Aoki is a lecturer at the Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi
University of Technology. He studies human cognition and social decisionmaking using functional brain imaging. He collaborates with Prof. Tatsuyoshi
Saijo to incorporate methods and knowledge of neuroscience into FD research.