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Possibly the most important of our mind’s abilities is the ability to simulate the future.
Built into our mind is the power to take a set of facts, combine those facts with knowledge about how certain situations have played out in the past and use this data to anticipate the future. Creatively, the mind can iteratively cycle through a set of variable circumstances, predict the outcomes and evaluate best combinations. The mind can do this quickly, almost as though the simulations are being done “in parallel” or “in the background”, if you follow computer terminology.
You might be thinking this line of discussion isn’t helpful when trying to understand myself and what I am, but you’d be wrong. Future simulation is the foundation of our hope and faith and assists us in all the moral decisions we make. Let’s start with a diagram to describe these relationships.
Diagram of Confusion
Figure 1 is a confusing diagram, but give me a chance to explain. Oversimplified, we face many situations in life that are bounded by a set of situation facts (pink ovals). These are the unchangeable parts of your circumstances.
For example, consider these facts: (a) I need to be at the doctor at 2pm; (b) I need to pick up my daughter at 3:15pm. (c) I need 20 minutes of travel time. These are all fairly unchangeable circumstances.
To help us predict the future, our minds are filled with prediction knowledge that are related to these facts. For example, in the past, my doctor’s appointments have lasted anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes. This experiential knowledge will help you predict a future outcome and is represented by the yellow rectangles.
Based solely on what you know now, if the doctor’s appointment runs a full 60 minutes, you could be a few minutes late in picking up your daughter. So of the set of possible futures represented by the grey cloud, some of those futures are negative and some are positive. A good future simulator will warn you that negative futures are possible so that you can work to eliminate the risk of that outcome.
Most situations in life contain a few controllable variables, situation facts that you can alter, tweak or modify to insure all possible futures are positive and lower the risk of a negative future. In this case, perhaps you could (1) arrive early in anticipation of being seen early; (2) Call your spouse to pick up my daughter; (3) Do nothing and take your chances. These variables in your control are the blue diamonds.
Given the situation, the future outcome where your 8 year old daughter jumps in a car and drives herself home is an impossible future. None of the facts or prediction knowledge fed to your mind’s simulator would ever predict this outcome.
Illustrations
A Simple Game
Let’s try out future simulation with some other illustrations. Most of us have played the game of Tic-Tac-Toe. Figure 2 is a game already in progress and it’s your move. You are the X’s. What will be your next move? You have the power to simulate the consequences of several possible moves and select the move that will give you the best future.
Here are your options:
- Move to ‘a’– O takes ‘d’ to block, tie game
- Move to ‘b’– O takes ‘d’ to block, tie game
- Move to ‘c’– Silly move, O wins
- Mode to ‘d’– Best move, X wins
- Move to ‘e’– tie game
It wasn’t necessary to write down all these possible moves and consequences because most of us could have found the move to ‘d’ in our heads by just thinking about (simulating) how each of our options would turn out in the end.
Our minds can do the calculations of future outcomes based on input facts for far more complex situations than a Tic-Tac-Toe game. Chess players simulate potential moves, and subsequent reaction moves, ten plays or more in advance, looking for the move that would leave them the best future.
And our future simulators aren’t limited just to games. We simulate investment strategies; we simulate time schedules; we simulate the best lines of dialog at parties; we simulate the lesser of many evils, as they say, when all future outcomes have negative consequences.
Driving a Car
The consequences of an error when driving a car are so severe, that governments won’t allow just anyone to drive. Driver’s are offered the privilege of a driver’s license only when they are trained to know the rules of the road, a body of prediction knowledge necessary to predict other driver’s behavior and assure that other drivers can predict your behavior. No licence is given to anyone lacking this knowledge. Driver’s must also demonstrate a competence to anticipate ever-changing traffic conditions and navigate safely through. Almost anyone can drive, but not everyone should be on the road, especially if they can’t observe the state of other cars on the road with them, predict their behavior and react in ways that show they can select a safe future.
Existing licensed drivers are removed from the road when they behave in ways that put themselves and others at risk. Driving too fast is a sure way to change the predictability of situations and arrive at an accident. Failure to yield to drivers with a right-of-way, or failure to respond to road warning signs are known factors that cripple future simulations, also leading to accidents.
Failing at Life
Similarly, if a soul isn’t properly trained with the knowledge of consequences to behavior known to lead to bad future outcomes, that soul becomes a threat to society. Many people are dangerously ignorant, making uninformed choices that can give them horrible futures. In addition, we have a serious issue with ourselves because our souls are clearly unwilling at times to follow a path of future simulation that will lead to the best outcome.
Mother: “Listen sweetie, I think you’d have a better chance at that job interview if you wore an outfit that was workplace-casual…”
Daughter: “Stop it, Mom! I’m wearing these torn-denims and halter-top because I like them!”
Like Science Fiction
This concept of future simulation is really quite fantastic. Fiction writers and Hollywood have produced dozens of works that toy with the concept of predicting and altering the future, yet we have been given the power to change the future.
I live in a house that at one time in the past didn’t exist. Someone, intentionally and deliberately, worked their future simulators backwards. They envisioned a plot of land and a house on that plot, then worked the machinery backwards to put into place all the factors that had to come together to make that particular future a reality. An imagined possibility was changed from a dream to a reality through the power of future simulation.
Say the light bulb in your refrigerator is broken. Your goal is to get a replacement installed so that you can see food in your refrigerator again. Work the future simulation backwards, using your understanding of the predictable parts of the world around you, and come up with a “plan” that will achieve your goal. Once you have a plan, you can simulate the plan forward and examine the risks of failure, tweaking the plan to achieve the best possible outcome.
Types of Future Simulation
Future simulation comes in three types, divided by how our beings use the information our future simulators generate. Future simulation helps us change the future, predict the future and choose the future.
Changing the Future
We’ve already talked about changing the future through the indirect way we work the future backwards.
Moral Behavior
Maybe you’re asking yourself, “Why did God give us the ability to predict the future?” The reason comes from the very beginning, right from the book of Genesis. Future Simulation is the ability to make decisions that avoid moral consequences. We can select paths through the future that help us achieve our goal without breaking moral laws.
God’s very first moral law was clear, with consequences of violation spelled out in simple terms.
16 And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
Genesis 2:16-17
Breaking God’s moral law, or even just violating our own conscience, has undesirable consequences. Future simulation can map a course through time to arrive at our goals without becoming criminals in the process. Read “What Went Wrong?” for a great example of how God put Adam and Eve’s future simulation abilities to a moral test.
In the moral side of the universe, consequences for immoral behavior can be simulated and consequences avoided. At the same time, if a future goal is worked backwards to develop a plan, and that plan contains behavior with moral consequences, we “should” find a different plan or abandon the goal. Those that continue toward the goal through the execution of an immoral plan will suffer the consequences. Sadly, this situation happens far too often today– we allow “the ends to justify the means”.
If you discover that you are continually reaching for ends that only have immoral means, you need to do some soul-searching. “Why do I desire what is illegal or immoral?” “Mom says I can’t have a cookie now, but I want a cookie! Why is that?” You can learn a lot about your self when you ask accountability questions like these to your self.
Expanding Possibilities
Everyone has situations in life where all future outcomes are negative. No change to any variable within your power will help you avoid a bad outcome.
Your car broke down, you just paid your rent, your credit card is maxed out, your friends are tired of loaning you money you never repay, the repair will run you $800, your bank account has $50 in it and payday is still thirteen days away. Without a car, normal life will be impossible. We are in love with our normal life so changing normal isn’t an option. When future simulators run empty, we begin to get very anxious, stressed, worried, depressed, despairing and distracted– maybe even irritable. Stress gives us headaches. Nights become restless and sleepless as we run more and more bizarre options through the simulator to see if there is any more favorable future outcomes. Maybe another mechanic is cheaper? Could I afford a rental car? How much would a payday loan-shark take me for?
If this has ever happened to you, then you know what it means to be in a “hopeless” situation. At this point you need a miracle, some change to your simulation variables that will expand your possibilities and lead you to at least one positive outcome.
As you walk to the corner to take the two-hour bus ride to work the next morning, you explain to your neighbor why this is the first time you’ve ever been seen at the bus-stop. Your neighbor listens to your troubles and then offers you their car for free! Anxiety vanishes, hope returns and you smile from ear to ear. All it took was one more fact– just a promise of a fact– to open up an entirely new possibility.
This simple story illustrates two very important concepts that relate to our future simulators: hope and faith. When there are no positive outcomes to a simulation situation, even when all avenues have been explored, that situation is a hopeless situation. Faith is the power to let a simple promise from a trustworthy source take the place of a fact, opening new and favorable simulation outcomes.
Biblical Examples
The Woman at the Well
In John chapter 4, Jesus has another one of His critical one-on-one conversations with a lost soul.
4 Now He had to pass through Samaria. 5 So He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Since Jacob’s well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 “You are a Jew,” said the woman. “How can You ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman replied, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then will You get this living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” the woman replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are correct to say that you have no husband. 18 In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truthfully.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I see that You are a prophet. 20 Our forefathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Believe Me, woman,” Jesus replied, “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”
26 Jesus answered, “I who speak to you am He.”
John 4:4-26
This is an absolutely amazing discussion between Jesus and the woman He met at the well. There are a million insights to glean from this passage, but since we’re here to talk about Future Simulation, please focus your attention on the genius of Jesus in verse 10:
Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
John 4:10
Jesus actually fills this woman’s future simulator for her and claims that if the injected facts and future possibilities are legitimate future outcomes, then this woman would concoct a plan and execute it in order to make her best future outcome a reality.
Let’s break it down one little piece at a time.
This woman is not even thinking about her future– she is living day by day in subsistence, survival mode. Jesus then places a desired future outcome directly into her future simulation: “There is a gift of God and it is worth having.” Then Jesus places a fact right in one of her situation fact slots: “Someone who can grant you this gift of God is is right here and He’s the one asking you for a drink.” Jesus even offers her a suggested plan of faith so that the future outcome could be hers: “All you have to do is ask.” Finally, Jesus and His genius tie this whole hypothetical future simulation personally into her own circumstances by letting her know “this gift of God worth having is ‘living water.'”
Most of the time, people recognize their hopelessness, but this woman is way past that. She’s been hopeless for so long, her mind doesn’t even dream any more of what life could be like if circumstances were better or if she even had a choice about her future. Jesus drops a better future right into her dreams, offering her something that is immediately appealing: living water. This woman now tastes, for just a moment, what hope feels like.
But the woman, after years of the painful rise and fall of hope in her life, isn’t so quick to just let a taste of hope draw her into the unseen world of faith and impossible futures made possible by vague promises. My heart breaks thinking how many time she believed “This new husband will be different! I’ll be tenderly and affectionately loved! I’ll be secure!” And every time her hopes are dashed to pieces when his facade of lying manipulation falls off to reveal the corrupt reprobate inside. And so on she goes. Life isn’t fair and never will be. Jesus opens the curtain of her heart again and lets a thin ray of light shine in, but she is quick to close the curtain again:
11 “Sir,” the woman replied, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then will You get this living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?”
John 4:11-12
The woman isn’t going to bother to ask for water from a crazy man, sitting on the wall of a deep well, who has no bucket. The battered and wounded of this world have learned the hard way to walk by sight, not by faith. And besides that, He couldn’t really mean “living” water… He must have meant “spring” water. And this is no spring. He’s not going to get “spring” water here even if He had a bucket. This is Jacob’s well, dug personally, and passed down to those who dwell in this country. Of course He wasn’t greater than Jacob. The wonderful set of facts and circumstances Jesus injected into her future simulation were swept out with a few simple doubts and observations.
But Jesus doesn’t give up easily either… Jesus is speaking in figurative terms about the Holy Spirit and not actual water.
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”
John 4:13-14
Jesus restores the attractiveness of this beam of hope by pointing out the difference between mere “water” that won’t slake ones thirst and water that can become “a fount of water springing up to eternal life.” Jesus can offer this education because the woman has had her curiosity piqued. And the education works to convince her that he is able to give it to her even tho she can’t see where it might come from. The battle for future simulation is back in her court.
The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
John 4:15
Ugggh… we almost made it. She recognizes the worth of this water. Having a built-in fountain of water is priceless. The time and work savings is enough to make this a favorable future outcome. She recognizes that this future outcome is only a possibility because Jesus is right there. She executes the faith plan Jesus suggested to reach out and ask for what He offers, but she’ll still not understanding what it is she is asking for and what it takes to have it.
In truth, Jesus is giving her this Water! The Water of the Holy Spirit flows through pipes of faith and repentance. The faith-pipe appears to be open. She is following a plan to acquire a future that is only accessible through Jesus, but without repentance, an urgent reversal of her direction, and without dropping “lord sin” and turning to Lord Jesus Christ, she won’t be receiving what she now hopes for.
Jesus brings a lamp right into the darkest rooms of her heart with one simple request:
Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
John 4:16
Now the woman is actually in charge of her own future simulation, being forced to apply her conscience, her knowledge of right and wrong, to this situation. Her choices are:
- Leave and not come back. Shame would win because she would be unwilling to stand in naked guilt before Jesus.
- Leave Jesus to fetch the man she’s living with. This would be a lie in action. The man would not be her husband, but her actions would try to pass him off as her husband.
- Stop and explain to Jesus that she is unable to fulfill His request. The follow-up questions from Jesus would self-incriminate her and the shame would be nearly impossible to bear.
To her credit, she selects option number 3. Just my guess, but I would imagine she might be trembling and feeling very insecure.
“I have no husband,” the woman replied.
John 4:17
Jesus is the lover of men’s souls– and of course women’s souls too. When the heart is ashamed of its sin but willing to confess it, Jesus becomes the “Love that covers a multitude of sins”. Jesus lets her know that it was all a test. She has emptied her dark heart at the feet of the Lord of Love and Light. She was probably anticipating a condemning judgement, but Jesus’ response was a warm, understanding hug. There is something about being loved even when your secret sins are known to the lover.
Jesus said to her, “You are correct to say that you have no husband. In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truthfully.”
John 4:17-18
Here is such a superb lesson in dealing with hearts that confess. Encourage the truth of the confession. So often we self-righteous counselors miss this opportunity and instead focus on reputation– she’ll just return to her life of dysfunction. We start working on the clean up before God’s Spirit has started His promised work.
Continue reading John chapter 4 verses 19 through 26 and you’ll see how Jesus is able to draw her natural desire for a better life towards the Savior who can grant her that life through Himself.
This is a great story illustrating a wise use of our Future Simulation facility. The woman at the well had completely stopped using her facility because no hope was ever offered to her. Once hope was born in her through a message about God’s gift of the Holy Spirit and our Savior Jesus Christ, she was shown the direction of repentance and a plan of faith. The results show that this woman’s life was wonderfully changed and a whole city of people without hope found the Savior. Jump all the way to the end of the narrative:
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days. 41 And many more believed because of His message. 42 They said to the woman, “We now believe not only because of your words; we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man truly is the Savior of the world.”
John 4:39-42
The Frustrated Paralytic
Another interesting biblical example where Future Simulation comes into play is the story of the frustrated paralytic. This man had his Future Simulation facility primed with bogus inputs, causing future outcomes to be plain wrong, no matter which plan of faith he tried to execute. The text below skips a few verses because part of this story is also about the Jews and their desire to persecute Jesus for encouraging the violation of misunderstood Sabbath regulations.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool with five covered colonnades, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda. 3 On these walkways lay a great number of the sick, the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed [, awaiting the moving of the waters. 4 For from time to time an angel descended into the pool and stirred the water. As soon as it was stirred, the first to enter the pool would be healed of his disease.] 5 One man there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and realized that he had spent a long time in this condition, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am on my way, someone else goes in before me.”
8 Then Jesus told him, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.”
9 Immediately the man was made well, and he picked up his mat and began to walk.
o o o
14 Afterward, Jesus found the man at the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.”
John 5:2-9,14
This paralytic’s Future Simulator was primed with the knowledge that a positive future outcome was possible if you are the first lame person to enter the water after it had been stirred by an angel. This of course is plain superstition and not true knowledge. This man trusted that the stirred water had the power to heal. So his plan of faith was to get to that pool first after the water was stirred. He was determined in his plan, but it was missing one dependency: since he was lame, he needed someone to get him to the pool, but no one strong enough was willing to sit with him and help him with the plan. Thus he was frustrated. He could see the positive future outcome, but he couldn’t experience the joy of that outcome because his plan was inadequate.
As an aside, I wonder what would have happened if he had been there first just once. My guess is that he would be disappointed that he wasn’t healed– but in determined faith, would have tried again. This was his only hope. He likely would have blamed some fault in the execution of his plan, or perhaps may have thought he misread the swirling waves on the water, cause by the wind as the movement of an angel.
Jesus enters this story with a keen observation: Verse 6 notes that Jesus was able to infer that the paralytic had been here in this condition for a long, long time– another clue that his man had a certain determination about him. When he had his sights on a goal, he stuck to his plan.
Jesus follows up on His observation by asking a question. Remember that Jesus doesn’t need to ask questions to get information. He already knows what people are thinking in their hearts. By asking this man this question, “Do you want to get well?”, Jesus is helping this man rediscover the reason he is brought here every day to sit by this quiet pool.
The paralytic’s response echoes a mature frustration. “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am on my way, someone else goes in before me.”
Not only can this man not get to the pool, when he can get to the pool, he’s not the first one there.
Jesus responds to this man’s pain with a simple command, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.”
There is a lot to unwrap here in terms of Future Simulation. How difficult was it for this man to alter his plan of faith from a trust in primed miracle waters to trust in an unknown Jesus? (See verses 12 & 13.) How much education time should be spent in true learning about the invisible world since this man has been living the hope of a superstition for so long? Apparently Jesus thought it was going to be a simple task for him to transfer his ignorant trust from the water to an unknown person. Jesus commanded this man to execute a whole new plan
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