“The Science of Foresight Starting from a Sense of Unease” — Not about “predicting the future,” but the power to notice “current fluctuations.” Quiet strategic thinking learned from Kongming [Column] The Science of Thought (No. 58)

🌈 “The Science of Foresight Starting from a Sense of Unease” The Science of Thought: No. 58

— Not about “predicting the future,” but the power to notice “current fluctuations.” Quiet strategic thinking learned from Kongming

🌟 Column Overview

🔍 Three points of this column

• 1️⃣ Foresight is not the power to predict the “future,” but the power to read the signs hidden within the “present.”

• 2️⃣ That power can be polished by anyone through the habits of daily observation, hypothesis, and dialogue.

• 3️⃣ Listening to daily unease and sublimating it into questions is the quietest strategy for opening up the future.

🌱 Prologue | Why was that person able to “notice ahead of time”?

📜 Let us summon a military strategist from across time.
His name is Zhuge Liang Kongming.

“If only I had noticed back then—”
Have you ever thought that yourself? 👀💭

• A strategy you thought of sharing in a meeting, only for someone else to beat you to it...

• A company you were slightly interested in, now riding the wave of the times...

• If you had just had one more breath of courage, a different path might have opened up...

Human life is often shaped by “noticing after the fact.”

However, the reverse is also true—
🔮There are people who “can notice in advance”—this is also an undeniable fact.

Here, I would like to ask you one question 🧠💡

🌟 Is “foresight” an innate “intuition”?
🌟 Or is it a “skill that can be cultivated”?

In this book, we will break down the factors that constitute 🧩 “foresight,”
🔍 and explore together the “lenses of thought” that will allow you to notice “signs” and build a bridge to the future at the crossroads of education, business, and life.

The future is not something that lies on a distant horizon.
👣Right here, right now, at your very feetis where the light of signs shines.

Now, let us begin—
following the gaze of the strategist Kongming,
🧭 on a journey of the “science of foresight” that focuses on subtle changes.

In the next chapter, let us first unravel the question, “What is foresight in the first place?”✨

🔍 Chapter 1 | The True Nature of “Foresight”: The Power to See the “Now,” Not the Future

When you hear the word “foresight,”
do you imagine something like “fortune-telling” that predicts the future with precision?🔮

If so...
that impression is, perhaps, a bit of a “misunderstanding.”

🧠 True foresight is—
not the “power to predict the future,” but the power to see the “now” deeplyindeed.

The future is not something that suddenly descends from the sky.
🌱 Its “sprouts” are already lurking within this “very moment.”

🎩 In the past, I, Kongming, also listened to the direction of the wind, changes in provisions, and the sound of a single arrow,
perceiving the enemy's intentions and reading the course of the battle.

But that is no magic.
🔍 Observing slight “fluctuations,”
💭 forming a hypothesis of “could it be…,”
🗺️ and mapping that onto a strategy.
That is all there is to it.

In your daily life, too, there are surely “signs”👇

• 📰 You felt a strange movement in a corporate personnel change in the corner of the news

• 👩‍💼 A colleague who is always smiling was quiet today

• 📚 A passage in a book you read seemed to overlap with the current social situation for some reason

These are all “signals of signs”
🔔occurring in the “now,” not the “future.”

And how should you face these signals?
Here, I, Kongming, would like to offer you a proposal👇

• ✅ “Butterfly Effect”: The possibility that small changes will later create a large flow

• ✅ “Abduction”: A method of thinking that acts on “plausible hypotheses” even if they are not certain

• ✅ “Weather Forecasting”: The art of viewing the future not as a prediction, but as a “design for preparation”

🌤️ Just as one reads the flow of clouds and calls the wind,
to depict the “shape” of the future,
one must first possess the sensitivity to feel the “fluctuations” right before one's eyes.

In the next chapter—
let us unearth this “future sensitivity” from the learning you have already received.
🏫 Let us go together to find the “raw gems of foresight” that were hidden in the classroom ✨

🧩 Chapter 2 | The “raw gems” of foresight hidden within school education

When one speaks of “honing foresight,”
it may seem like something only the “chosen few” can acquire in some special place of training...
you might think so.

However—
that is not the case.

🧑‍🏫 The “raw gems” were already buried
within “that classroom” you walked through.

🎩 Once, I, Kongming, also
opened books in the bamboo forest and pondered while listening to the sound of the wind.

The “raw gems of foresight” sleeping within you
have been polished in the following ways 👇

• 📘Japanese Language: The power to read the “voice of the heart” drifting between the lines of a story
  → Cultivating sensitivity to the “signs” behind silence and words

• 🧪Science: The cycle of thinking: observation → hypothesis → experiment → verification
  → Seeing through the causal relationships of change and understanding the structure behind them

• 🌏Social Studies: Grasping the “fluctuations of time” from the flow of history and geographical changes
  → Cultivating a perspective that connects the past and present to sense the future

• ➕Mathematics: Grasping the “regularity” and “skeletal structure of logic” within formulas and shapes
  → Organizing the big picture and the power to verbalize complex phenomena

• 🎨Art, Music, and Physical Education: Physical sensors that notice “discrepancies” and “unease” that words cannot capture
  → The power to perceive the feeling that “something is somehow off” as a sign

🗺️ In other words, the “realization sensors” you still possess today
have been naturally honed through these subjects.

🧭 Foresight is—
Sensitivity × Structural Understanding × Awareness of Time Axis.

All of these, as “cross-curricular literacy,”
are already alive within you.

Now, in the next chapter 🌟
let us move this “eye for the future” to the battlefield of daily life,
🐾 and search for the “seeds of signs” in our living and work.
Your sensitivity may quietly awaken once again.

🏙️Chapter 3 | The Seeds of 'Signs' Lurking in Daily Life and Work

🌱A sign is not some special revelation that descends from the heavens.
It is something that lies quietly right beside you—
🛒on supermarket shelves, 🏙️on posters at street corners, and 📱in the flow of social media.

🎩I, Kongming, also often walked through the town before a battle.
Smelling the wind, listening to the murmurs of the people, and observing the color of the sky—
these were allseeds of signs for 'winning without fighting'.

👀So, where do signs reside for you, living in the modern age?
If you focus your eyes on the 'battlefield of observation' that is daily life, the following scenes will emerge👇

• 🛒 Supermarket shelves:
  A product that is always there has disappeared → Signs of changes in logistics or prices

• 🏙️ City scenery:
  New signs, closed shops → Indications showing regional trends and population flow

• 📱 Waves of social media:
  A sense of incongruity with trending words → A precursor to shifts in public opinion or the situation

• 👥 Silence in dialogue:
  Someone who usually talks is choosing their words carefully → Signs of emotional changes or adjustments in relationships

🔍To discover such 'signs' in daily life,
the following two 'eyes' are essential👇

• ✅ The eye that sees 'factors':
  👉 Why did it happen? What is at work?
  👉 Example: Decline in sales → Influence of weather, customer base, day of the week, or advertising?

• ✅ The eye that reads 'context':
  👉 In what background and timing did it occur?
  👉 Example: Social media backlash → The atmosphere of society? A chain reaction in other fields?

💬Your daily life is truly a 'vortex of information.'
However, if you let it flow by as mere 'events,' it will not become a sign.

🌟Yes, turning the incongruities of daily life into 'questions' is nothing less than
the power to read the future—in other words, the 'practice offoresight'.

In the next chapter, to further sharpen this power,
I, Kongming, will teach you the three training methods of 'Observation, Hypothesis, and Dialogue'📚🗣️

🔁Chapter 4 | 3 Approaches to Sharpening Foresight: Observation, Hypothesis, and Dialogue

🔮The 'eye' to see through the future does not reside in a special crystal ball.
It resides in the technique of'inner thinking' that you accumulate day by day.

🎩In the past, I, Kongming, have also foreseen the outcome of a battle without counting the number of soldiers before the fight.
However, that was neither 'intuition' nor a 'miracle'—
it was nothing but the fruit of 'observation,' 'hypothesis,' and 'dialogue,' carefully woven from small daily realizations.

Here, I will teach youthree training methods to increase your 'future sensitivity'👇

🔍① Observation: Giving a 'name' to a sense of incongruity

• You must not leave that feeling of 'something just feels a bit off...' as it is.

• Words you see repeatedly on social media, the rearranging of products on shelves, the subtle changes in a person's expression—

• By giving them words, those vague sensations will be sublimated into 'knowledge.'

📘 Example: 'That person isn't smiling today' → 'Perhaps the sign of reassurance is missing.'

💭② Hypothesis: The power to put the 'what if...' of the future into words

• When you encounter signs of change, let your imagination run: 'If this continues, what will happen?'

• There is no need to guess the correct answer.

• What is important is to mark your own questions on the uncharted map that is the future.🗺️

📘 Example: 'If this technology spreads, the way we work might change like this in ten years.'

🗣️③ Dialogue: Re-editing structures through 'others' perspectives'

• In conversation, you may find yourself realizing that your own hypothesis was just an assumption.

• In particular, dialogue with those of different generations, positions, and values will broaden your 'perspective' and deepen your understanding of 'structure.'
  

📘 Example: 'I hadn't thought of it that way!' → The moment a new map is drawn.

These three powers do not simply stand side by side—
🎯'Notice → Think → Speak → Notice again' they are polished only within this cycle.

🧠 The 'sprouts of unease' sleeping within you are the seeds that will grow the fruit of the future.🌱
Now, how shall we nurture them in our daily lives—

📔 In the next chapter, I will introduce three habit-forming exercises that can be incorporated into life and work, in the style of Kongming.

💼 Chapter 5 | Six Situations Where a Foresight Perspective is Useful

The need for the power to read the future is not limited to the battlefield.⚔️
It quietly breathes in the field of education, within organizations, and in your daily activities.

🎩 If I, Kongming, may say so—

Here, I will introduce to you six situations where foresight is truly utilized🧭
Surely, there will be situations that resonate with your own “ground” as well.

🏫 Educational Setting: Reading the “buds” of immature emotions and curiosity

• A child’s “vague sense of concern” or “inexpressible anxiety” is truly a seed of the future

• As a leader, be sensitive to those small “fluctuations”

🧑‍💼 Management: Listening to the sense of unease hidden behind silence

• Seeing through the sense of unease behind the words “I’m fine”

• Reading the density of the atmosphere and taking the initiative—that is what a true “guide” does

🛍 Product Development: Picking up on latent needs that “have yet to be voiced”

• Unmanifested dissatisfaction and expectations are the “signs” of the market

• The ability to decipher the future residing in a customer’s ambiguous words will be tested

🏘 Community Activities: Sensitivity to perceive voiceless changes

• People moving, shops closing, the elderly gathering……
  These are all “precursors” to social change

• The sprouts of issues reside within casual daily life

📈 Career Design: Reading the future from “structure,” not trends

• Instead of chasing popular professions, dig into the roots of “why” they are popular

• A career should not be drawn as a point, but within the flow of lines, planes, and time

🎓 Career Path/Job Hunting: Choosing based on “connection to the future,” not the illusion of stability

• Try viewing a prospective company through a “hypothesis of the future”: “Where is this organization heading in five years?”

• Your own “themes of interest” and “sense of unease” will become the lamp that illuminates the path you should take

🌟 The power to see through to the future is not a distant ideal.
It has already sprouted in that very moment you happened to pause today.

Picking up on small “signs” and
the attitude of trying to draw the future from them is what constitutesforesightin every situation.

Now, in the next chapter, we finally move to the practical application—
🌿 I will teach you, in the style of Kongming, the “three habit exercises” that will activate the “future sensor” within you, which you can adopt starting tomorrow.
📒three habit exercisesto activate your “future sensor”.

🛠 Chapter 6 | Three Habitual Disciplines to Activate Your “Future Sensor”

Foresight is not a talent bestowed by the heavens.
It is—a skill of the heart that grows quietly through the discipline of habit.

🎩 I, Kongming, also made a point of whisking tea and surrendering myself to the flow of the wind before a battle.
To defeat an unseen enemy, it is most essential to first refine one's own sensitivity and hypothesis-forming ability—
I would like to share this with you here.
📜Three habit methods to polish your future sensor, please give them a try.

📝 One | Incongruity Diary: Giving “words” to your realizations

• ✅ Quietly write down the thing that made you feel “Hmm?” the most that day

• ✅ Try adding your own hypothesis as to why it bothered you

• ✅ For example...
  　“Today, there were fewer people looking at their smartphones on the train.”
  　→ “Could it be that ‘screen fatigue’ is spreading?”

📌 Two | Hypothesis Memo: Muscle training to draw the “future” once a week

• ✅ Impose upon yourself the future question: “What if ~ continues?”

• ✅ Draw a hypothetical space between reality and fantasy

• ✅ For example...
  　“If remote work becomes the norm, how will the population in rural areas shift?”

☕ Three | Future Cafe: Having a place for “future dialogue” once a month

• ✅ Talk with friends, colleagues, or people of different generations about “what will happen from now on?”

• ✅ The topics can be casual. Follow your interests, such as “AI and humans” or “the future of education.”

• ✅ An unexpected remark will likely reveal the “blind spots” in your thinking

🎯 These three disciplines can each be done in just ten minutes a week.
Because the future is something that—sprouts from margins and sensitivity rather than effort—is why.

🎩 Now, I am convinced that you, who have read this far,
have already become a fine “strategist of daily life.”✨

🌿 In the next chapter, while looking back on the journey so far,
let us imagine together how your own “foresight” will open up the future—
🚀📖

🎯 Summary | The future is always hidden within the “now”

──You.
What I am about to tell you concerns thestrategy of wisdomregarding foresight.📜✨

Whether in war, in study, or at the turning points of life,
what determines victory, defeat, or the path taken is not the power of “prediction,” but—
the eye of “observation.”

In other words:

🧠 Foresight is not the “power to predict the future,” but the “power to see the present deeply.”

• ✅ Notice small feelings of unease

• ✅ Form a hypothesis there

• ✅ Refine your thinking through dialogue with others

This trinity of thinking activities
becomes theinvisible reinsthat bridge the way to the future.🌉

🪶 I, Kongming, think that—
“Signs” are not about looking up at the distant sky and wishing for something.
Rather, it is similar toquietly clearing your mind to the direction of the wind blowing at your feet.🌬️

🧭 The “techniques for dialoguing with the future” mentioned in this article consist of the following four pillars:👇

• 🔍 Observation: Giving words to feelings of unease

• 💭 Hypothesis: The power to imagine the future by saying “What if...”

• 🗣️ Dialogue: Exchanging perspectives and restructuring

• 🛠️ Habit: Polishing your future sensor by repeating questions

🌱 And—you, too, are astrategist of the futurestanding on the “quiet battlefield” of daily life.

Please, in the days to come,
do not overlook small feelings of unease, and walk forward with questions.

That is, 🌟the quietest and wisest strategy for creating the future.

🎩 That is all from Kongming.
In the next chapter, the "Afterword," I will share the thoughts behind why I chose this strategy.
I would be grateful if you could read it to the end. ☕✨

✍️ Afterword | A way of life that listens to the signs

The future feels like something "far away," doesn't it? 🛸
But in reality, it might be much closer,
quietly sending us hints in our daily lives. 🌱

In this "Science of Thought" series,
🧠 I continue a "playful study" of thinking about things in a fun, yet slightly deeper way.

• ✅ Trying to formulate your own questions

• ✅ Borrowing hints from science, philosophy, and history

• ✅ Connecting to daily life to "change your perspective a little"

This series was born from the feeling that
maybe such "playful thinking" should be more a part of our daily lives. 😊

The reason I chose "foresight" as the theme this time is because of these thoughts: 👇

• ✅ In an era where society and technology change rapidly, the power of "hypotheses" is more important than "correct answers"

• ✅ Rather than "knowing the future," we are called to "notice the future"

• ✅ And because I wanted to believe in the "power of sensitivity and questioning" that everyone possesses

Since the strategist "Zhuge Liang Kongming" came to mind when I thought of "foresight," I developed this piece in his tone. How was it?

By the way, this column was written in co-creation with 🧠 generative AI (ChatGPT). Kongming's tone was also decided through dialogues with the AI like the following.

• Tell me about Zhuge Liang

• What kind of atmosphere and demeanor does Zhuge Liang have as a person, and given his personality, what kind of tone would he likely use?

• What would be an appropriate way for him to address "you"?

How we face the "sign" that is AI.
I believe that is also a "question of foresight" for each and every one of us.

📚 In 'The Science of Thought,' I would like to continue discovering 'disciplines that do not yet have a name' together with you.
If this column has provided even a small hint to breathe some fresh air into your thinking or daily life—

If this column has provided even a small hint to breathe some fresh air into your thinking or daily life—
—

✨ It would be a great encouragement if you could support me with a 'Like' or 'Follow' 🌸

Let's meet again next time for another fun and slightly deep journey of learning 🚶‍♂️📖
See you then 👋🌈

Profile | Kazuomi Matsunaga

🧭Thinking Navigator

Biography:Graduated from Kyushu University, Faculty of Engineering (Materials Science) ⇒ Engineer at a metal materials manufacturer in the Chukyo region (Production Engineering) ⇒ Advertising sales for a local free paper in Nagasaki Prefecture ⇒ University staff member (← Currently here). A person in their 50s living in Nagasaki Prefecture. Both children have left home for college, and I live with my wife. I am a writer who enjoys playing with thoughts daily at the intersection of 'questions' and 'curiosity.' Recently, I have been writing about my own unique perspectives on themes such as education, stories, psychology, AI, and design, centered on the serial column 'The Science of Thought.' I am exploring 'free design of knowledge' that goes beyond existing frameworks. My motto is 'Imagination opens up the world.'
In my professional life, while working in university and education-related fields, I value carefully observing 'the moment when someone starts to like something' and 'the scenes where questions sprout.'
🧭 I would be happy if I could deliver articles that leave you with a 'new perspective' after reading them.
📮 Impressions and messages of support are always welcome!