Probability or Possibility
There is a semiotic slip present in utopian studies when speaking about the future. Concerning time and temporality of ‘the future’, the words probable and possible are employed interchangeably to announce potential futures or a lack thereof. This interchangeability of terminology leads to much disorientation in its corresponding critiques, concepts and projections. Is a probable future better than a possible one or vice versa? Is a probable future the same as a possible future? Why? When speaking of possible futures, is it simply possible or is there a dimension of equal possibility that is also at play? One finds oneself confused in the terrain of the already opaque future.
A distinction needs to be marked out, or at least begin to be marked out with signifiers that is the construction of theory and practice can be lucid, alive and negotiated upon in the generation of future-oriented and utopian work. Drawing from Lacan's understanding of signifiers, this movement engages primarily with the work of Ruud van der Helm (2006) and Ernest Bloch (1995) to discern the distinctions between probability and possibility for utopian work. Lacan sees a characterisation of a single condition when inscribed in a system as a signifier. This signifier takes on its meaning in its difference from other elements in the system (Lacan, 2006).
Probability is a philosophical-mathematical notion that something has more chances to exist than not exist (Helm, 2006). With calculated relative frequencies, uncertain circumstances can be “successfully described through chance mechanisms” and quantifiable claims situated on an “experienced-based intuition of what is likely to happen” (Helm, 2006). Therefore, probable utopias can be seen as ones that rank futures according to most likely to least likely than other futures based on the concepts of chance and likeliness. Helm (2006) sees any future, whether probable or improbable, as by default a possible future.
Possibility is a philosophical-ontological notion that Ernst Bloch (1995) sees four different forms of (1) "Things can also be otherwise” – entirely everything is possible and there is no impossibility that can be thought of. (2) “Possibility of being otherwise” – through facticity, or as Helm (2006) puts it, “factually epistemological possibility”: only possibilities that can be established in factual reality remain even if they don’t come with complete knowledge. (3) ‘‘Possibility according to the object” – possibility is not generated by human beings’ epistemological abilities but through the active or passive potentiality of the object and the object-world that is found in its structures. Here, either the object evolves towards its primordial potential without any intervention (active) or the object is intervened upon to unlock its potential. (4) ‘‘Objective real possibility’’ – possibility in the object-world is both have been and still unclosed, or in other words, possibility is both being and becoming. It is a determined reality that human beings are products of, with no absolution. Possible utopias here negotiate reality through what can exist and what cannot and is potentially realisable. It is impacted by reality as seen through historicity and temporality and hence can be subjected to challenges for “absolute reasons (violation of established laws) or for contingent reasons (lack of realism)” (Helm, 2006). The tension between determinism and indeterminism is engaged in future-making or utopia-making. This engagement asks if our meaning-making and horizon acquisition are foreclosed or if it is a project of disclosure. If it leans towards the latter, is there room for a discursive possibility?
Having established initial meanings for probable and possible, it can be seen that the systematic and semantic meanings of possible and probable intermingle not only just in everyday language but also in a much deeper sense where their meanings are associated in dialogue. They both attempt to reach a certain “core of promise” (Helm, 2006) in utopian thinking. If everything one does is a promise, it needs to be asked, what is the question of promise? What are its expectations and delivery? Is the mandate of the promise of utopias towards a virgin future? Sartre (2007) asserts the remaining fact is that there is a future to be fashioned, a virgin one that awaits whilst the present one is forsaken. This assertion posits that the formation of the future happens now, leading to the consequence of an ever-generative virgin future to be continually cultivated, “as long as it possesses still unclosed possibilities, in the shapes of new shoots and new spaces of development” (Bloch, 1995). This cultivation however has the potential to turn into rape, not just with sinister motivations, but by probability itself. Appadurai (2013), sees the “avalanche of statistical projections…domina[ting] our life”. The appearance of utopia no longer imitates an aesthetic one where appearance is a meaning toward the pre-appearance of what is still unclosed (Bloch, 1995), but imitates statistical data. Appadurai sees this notion as the future being held hostage by the staging of fact through data, through the thing that is very likely to happen.
Given this potential, are there possible futures that are not exhausted or defined by probable futures? How should deterministic futures hold tension with an indeterministic one? Possibility emphasises human agency to yield a different future-making, taking on the position that future-making is seen as one that is constructed by humans. This in itself is problematic as it assumes all humans are reconciled with the ability to aspire. The capacity to aspire is not evenly distributed. It is tightly wound within class lines, within the probable, assuming a known trajectory. The matter of non-matter of aspiration teases out a present inclination toward a core promise of the temporally and probably blurred possible. Possibility is the site of contention to secure which ‘real’ futures get made.
One cannot get caught up in anticipatory reactions to potential imaginaries, but respond with an exercise of possibility, of horizoning at the edge of knowledge. This takes a careful consideration of the position from which one develops utopian preparation. One’s subjectivity stemming from the probable or the possible would signify the precision of what can exist and not exist, and reshape early rejections, or the permissible ‘absurd’ possibilities in the already absurd world that one exists in. The orientation of the preparatory work and the work itself is not enough. In her analysis of the experimental egalitarian society in the French commune for a universal society, Kirstin Ross (2015) stated, “Actions produce dreams and ideas, “not the reverse”. One needs to act, to leap into the uncertainty, the fear, and the hope of utopias without any temporal visibility. One needs to leap into the nothing. As Silverstein’s poem, Diving Board ends, “you've been up there since half past five/ doin’ everything…but DIVE” (2020).