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In a linear conception of time, the 'future' is the portion of the time line that has yet to occur, i.e. the place in space-time where lie all events that still will or may occur. In this sense the future is opposed to the past (the set of moments and events that have already occurred) and the present (the set of events that are occurring now).
The future has always had a special place in philosophy and, in general, in the human mind. The future holds such a place because human beings want a forecast of events that will occur. The evolution of the human brain is in great part an evolution in cognitive abilities necessary to forecast the future, i.e. abstract imagination, logic and induction. Imagination permits us to “see” (i.e. predict) a plausible model of a given situation without ''observing'' it, therefore, allowing one to assess risks. Logical reasoning allows one to predict consequences of actions and situations and therefore gives useful information about future events. Induction permits the association of a cause with consequences, a fundamental notion for every forecast of the future.
Despite these cognitive instruments for the comprehension of future, the stochastic nature of many natural and social processes has made complete forecasting the future impossible. Despite this, it has been a long-sought aim of many people and cultures throughout the ages.
Figures claiming to see into the future, such as prophets and diviners, have enjoyed great consideration and even social importance in many past and present communities. Whole pseudo-sciences, such as astrology and cheiromancy, were constructed with the aim of forecasting the future. Much of physical science too can be read as an attempt to make quantitative and objective predictions about events.
Science tells us the minimum amount of time that can be measured is called Planck Time. This is around 10^-43 seconds ^[1]. Below that length of time there cannot be said to have a future or past.
The Future also forms a prominent subject for religion. Religions often offer prophecies about life after death and also about the end of the world.
The subjects and methods of ''futures studies'' include possible, probable, and desirable variations or alternative transformations of the present, both social and “natural” (i.e. independent of human impact).
Regarding the existential status of the future, there are multiple hypotheses. Aristotle, for example, having been asked ‘will there be a sea-battle tomorrow?’ is said to have responded ‘either there will or there won’t be a sea-battle tomorrow’: the implication is that statements about the content of future events may be understood as neither true nor false. Thus, it is important to understand that when we speak in terms of the reality of events, there are strong arguments to be made for the idea that the kind of reality being referred to in discussions of the future is conceptually different from that referred to in discussions of the present (not to mention the past). In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant predicates some of his arguments about causality on the notion that two events which do not occur simultaneously cannot both be being perceived at any instant in time. It is possible, however, that our conception of the ‘instant’ is inconsistent in a manner analogous to that in which it is impossible to take a derivative in calculus over an interval of size zero (a ‘point’); rather, derivatives are measured over intervals said to be ''approaching'' zero. If this is the case, then our identification of what we commonly call an instant is actually the perception of the passage of a very small amount of time, an amount perhaps infinitesimal or no smaller than one unit of Planck Time, in which case, instead of perceiving non-simultaneous events being ‘impossible,’ it is rather unavoidable, and what we call 'present' is actually the experience of transition from past to future. But even if the notion of ‘instant’ is inconsistent it may still be possible to formulate accurate statements, such as Kant’s, about what its nature would be according to its definition if it were a coherent concept.
It is possible, and normative for ‘everyday’ discourse, to assume, even though it may never be either true or false to speak about future events in terms of what they contain or will contain, that there will be future events. On the other hand, however, since the future is precisely that about which it is always impossible to speak apodeictic truths, it is possible to argue that the very existence of some future at all following the present we always perceive is hypothetical or problematic on the grounds that, since no idea about the content of the future is epistemologically true (although it is both reasonable and pragmatically important to refine the science of prediction), neither can it be said that the form of the future is an idea which corresponds to a reality (hypothetical or problematic existence being associated with non-existence). It could be claimed that there can be such a thing as a form necessarily devoid of content, but it may be essential to the concept of form that it cannot be understood outside of the form-content binary. Opposed to these notions, however, are not only religious messianisms but what contemporary literary theory or critical theory has come to refer to as a secular messianism of the ‘à venir’ (‘to-come’): this notion holds that ethical behavior is an unconditional imperative, that if ‘truths’ are defined as corresponding to ‘objective reality’ then objective reality is understood not in terms of what exists but what set of epistemes conditions efficient ethical behavior, and that one of the epistemes in that set is the idea that the future as a space where events happen has not only the character of being existent but that of an intrinsic potential for improvement of the quality of life (alongside a palpable risk of devolution which must not be ignored).
It is also significant that the future is generally understood, insofar as we form rational conceptions of what it may contain, primarily in terms of the past. At the same time, the structure of the future is fundamentally different from that of the past, so a thoroughly accurate understanding of what the future holds must take into account the possibility of a radical and unimaginable difference between the future and the past.

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References

See also

★ Futures studies

References

1. http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae281.cfm