نشریه آینده پژوهی ایران
سال یکم شماره 1 (پاییز و زمستان 1395)

Most often the social and political changes do not happen suddenly. In other words, they are today’s clues and signs that provide us with hints of possible futures, events, wildcards and trends. In this line, the main question of this paper is: why do policy-makers face with challenges of futures blindly, and how weak signals and potential future changes can be made sense? Therefore, the focus of this paper is to examine weak signals as a fundamental approach in futures studies in an attempt to open up the past and present to create alternative futures. With regard to the question, we find that understanding future’s weak signals is a social phenomenon related to social reality. So the theoretical framework for clarifying the blindness is discourse. It is crucial to be aware of social and political discourses. Obviously, the short-time discourses exclude the signals of future as well as policy consequences and significations, thus long-term efforts often fail dealing with short-time articulations. But the hegemony of existing discourse is temporary and is not necessarily consistent, and understanding temporary state opens up alternative futures. Having investigated the ignorance from future signs, the present paper can be useful in FS, policy-making, organizational strategizing and etc.

The aim of this research is to answer this key question: What are the effects of cognitive metaphors on futures studies? Achieving this objective needs deep understanding of cognitive situation of metaphors in shaping human’s perception. Since perceiving future is the most important source of futures studies, opening the situation of cognitive metaphors has a big and bold function in futures studies. Therefore, in an attempt to provide an introduction to the theory of cognitive metaphors and its role in FS with an emphasis on Sohail Inayatallah’s viewpoints, the present study aims to address the concept of cognitive metaphors in FS, approaches and paradigms of FS, influencing mechanism of cognitive metaphors on FS paradigms, and religious metaphors effecting FS. Finally, the position of future metaphors originated from divine religions and cultures is illustrated in creating religious FS discourses.

God is the creator of all beings and creatures, and the creator of time and space, and all that happen in the capacity of these two. His command is predominant in the past and present in an equal way. So he is a prevenient and eternal agent, the first and the last, who, regardless of the worldly constraints, has time in his dominance, and he creates what he intends to create without delay.
His connection with time and space is as his connection to other creatures. He himself is free of all that he has created and is needless of all of them. Although he is observing the condition of all of them, and has dominated his command on them. His dignity in the realm of perception of sincere people is glorious of any defect and motion. Therefore, time in their memory is a creature that is subdued by the almighty God who does in it whatever he pleases; while his creatures are of two kinds. One kind that created them apart from their time and place, and another kind who are subdued by time and place, and are captured in the fence of length, width, height, and movement. In this way, men begin to develop their own evolution in his presence and end it depending on their own existential level, in the presence of God who compelled them to be free, so they can demand what they want with their prayers in his presence and affect past, present and future free from impossibility!

In this paper, the main assumptions of the futures studies, introduced by Wendell Bell, is evaluated. The purpose of this evaluation is the validity check of these assumptions based on the Islamic teachings, specially the Quran and Nahj-al-Balagha. Obviously, this paper does not claim that Futures Studies is fully approved by Islamic principles, because it is impossible to cover all aspects of Islam in a paper. It has been just tried to explore some evidences from the Holy Book and Nahj-al-Balagha to confirm some assumptions of futures studies, according to the self-extraction. However, this paper has shown that most of the assumptions of futures studies can be evaluated by the teachings of Islam, and hence it can be concluded that Islam - as the most complete divine religion and like many spectrums of scientific fields - has the guidelines and principles for futures studies, too.

Futures Studies is an emerging science-techno which has brought important achievements for countries and societies in a way that it is now estimated as an important tool for policymaking, decision-making and strategy-making. Today there are widespread struggles inside the closed circle of powerful countries to attain sustainable, competitive advantages in order to proactively manage and control the world. Projects like Globalization and concepts like Millennium are the outcome of such struggles. So, competition in this area has formed worldwide players having diverse goals and inclinations. This event intensifies the importance of accessing more powerful approaches in the area of Futures Studies. Undoubtedly, beyond any other school and system of thinking, Islam intellectual and philosophical system especially the credible scientific sources of Shiite can explain the most strategic problems in Futures thinking. One of the excellent and rich contexts in this system is Mahdaviat thinking or Mahdavi Utopia, because the belief in Last Day Messiah or Rescuer is the preference of all Devine and human religions. Yet, it is only in the realm of Islam- and not any other sect or religion- that one may access the full capacity of using Devine thoughts regarding Futures-thinking. So, it is worthy to accomplish credible and comprehensive studies in the area of Mahdaviat system of futures-thinking. In this paper, we try to deeply investigate Futures functions of Mahdaviat through an analytic survey of Shiite credible sources. This paper is in the area of strategic studies and philosophical studies of science based on five dimensions of epistemology, methodology, ontology, axiology and Semiotics.

The research hypotheses have been suggested based on four aspects of the mass media (television, radio, print and the Internet). The research sample consists of 110 participants selected from among the IRIB managers and employees according to Morgan. The data-collection has conducted through library studies including books, articles, journals, reports, papers, documents as well as the Internet. Using the Friedman nonparametric test, each dimension has been ranked. Accordingly, the effect of the news channels to manage future battles, with the statistical average of 09.11, has the greatest impact and the effect of the publications on the management of the upcoming wars, averaging 12.7 letters, has the minimal impact. Finally, the four hypotheses were confirmed using the binomial test hypotheses.