Virtual History and Temporal Imagination

Lucian Hölscher’s virtual historiography aims to extend the concept of history by complementing the historically actual with the historically possible. In this reading, the historically possible, long neglected by historians, consists of two temporal domains: future pasts and past futures. Future pasts require historians to look backward at the present from an imaginary point in the future. This kind of construction implies prediction and forecasting about what is to come. Past futures, on the other hand, ask historians to inquire how the anticipated future takes shape in the thoughts, plans, and aspirations of individuals, steering their actions and behaviors. The underlying assumption is that comprehending how people in the past envisioned the future is essential to understanding their actions. In both cases, prediction plays a significant role. Future pasts highlight the predictions of historians, whereas past futures focus on the predictions of individuals in the past.

Predictions shape how people perceive reality, affecting what and how they see, hear, and feel. This concept is central to the predictive processing theory in cognitive science, a theory designed to elucidate the mechanisms of human perception.  According to this theory, our brains are in a constant state of anticipation, actively forecasting and preparing for potential future scenarios presented by our environment. It proposes that the brain is fundamentally a prediction-making machine that constantly tries to minimize the difference between its predictions and the actual sensory input it receives. This framework suggests that cognition is largely driven by the brain’s efforts to predict and anticipate future sensory inputs, leading to the notion that perception, action, and cognition are deeply intertwined in a cycle of prediction and correction. Consequently, our expectations about the future impact every aspect of what we do and experience. However, the construction of brains’ predictive models is rooted in the accumulation of our past experiences, which are continuously refined and updated: “What we perceive today is deeply rooted in what we experienced yesterday, and all the days before that. Every aspect of our daily experience comes to us filtered by hidden webs of prediction – the brain’s best expectations rooted in our own past histories.”  When an experience deviates from what our models predict, it generates a prediction error.

These discrepancies are not merely flaws in our perception but play a pivotal role in the learning process, signaling the need for our cognitive models to adapt and evolve.

Taking the theoretical insights of predictive processing into account leads to several implications for Hölscher’s notion of virtual history. Firstly, the concept of “past futures” aligns with the principles of the predictive processing framework by emphasizing the significance of visions, dreams, and images of the future held by people in the past. These visions, as noted by Hölscher, exert influence on people’s behavior, even when they fail to materialize. Secondly, the theory of predictive processing implies that historians’ constructions of future pasts are inherently rooted in their accumulated experiences and knowledge; historians are constrained by the present and the accrued understanding of their time. Therefore, even though future pasts involve looking back at the present from an imaginary future point, this “future” is still anchored in the present. There is no way to escape the ephemeral present. This realization prompts a fundamental question: Why is the temporal limitation of historical narratives and representations considered to be a problem that needs solving? Instead of viewing the present’s ephemeral nature as a constraint on the validity of historical narratives and interpretations that must be overcome, we might, rather, embrace this ephemeral present as an inherent aspect of human experience and historical sense-making.

If we take predictive processing theory seriously, it means that historians, as knowers, despite writing from a point in the present, never encounter their environment a-historically. The present moment, from which historians make sense of the past or envision the future, embodies the past process of living and interacting with their environment; it embodies time, not as a sequence of static snapshots, but as a process and duration. Any perspective on the past or the future is therefore temporally extended because it expresses a process of interaction with the environment. This idea stems from a research area in cognitive science, embodied (enactive) cognition, which suggests that cognitive processes are deeply rooted in the body’s interactions with the world and proposes to view cognition as embodied action. The pioneers of enactivism in embodied cognition, Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, posit cognition as “an enactment of a world and a mind on the basis of a history of the variety of actions that a being in the world performs.”  In this view, cognition depends on the accumulation of past experiences that stem from possessing a body equipped with diverse sensorimotor abilities. These experiences are situated within a larger context that includes biological, psychological, and cultural dimensions.  The brain’s predictions are therefore grounded in embodied experiences, suggesting that our bodily interactions with the world shape our cognitive predictions, perceptions, and actions. Both predictions of the future and representations of the past are malleable: Rather than being a limitation to overcome, this plasticity is a necessary attribute of human cognitive processes, aiding in learning and adapting to changing environments.

My final point addresses the question posed by Hölscher: How could such a virtual history be discursively constructed and conveyed? I suggest that virtual and mixed reality (VR/MR) technologies are particularly well-suited to convey the multilayered temporality of virtual history, its simultaneities, repetitions, and tensions. This is because users can live out representations of real and possible pasts in VR, as well as different possible futures, and reflect on their interconnections. In fact, temporal complexity is frequently incorporated in history-focused VR storyworlds. VR excels at illustrating the intertwining of different time layers, showcasing repetitions and simultaneities – as exemplified by works such as “Here,” “The Changing Same Ep. 1 The Dilemma,” or “The Book of Distance”.  “Here” is an immersive adaptation of the unique graphic novel of the same name by Richard McGuire. It focuses on a specific location rather than individuals as the main character of the story, narrating events that transpired in this place over hundreds of thousands of years. Different temporal frames are blended and juxta-posed in the same immersive space (or the same page in the novel), covering events that happened in this space, from hundreds of millions of years ago, to several centuries, or a decade ago, and what might happen in the future. The storytelling approach leaps back and forth in time, encouraging viewers to look backward from a hypothetical future point. Similarly, “The Changing Same Ep. 1 The Dilemma” combines various temporal frames to narrate a story, allowing viewers to witness the interconnected historical experiences of racial injustice in the United States. It encourages viewers to think how aspects of the past persist in the present, particularly racial oppression. By intertwining the past, present, and future, the VR experience encourages viewers to look back from a future standpoint. It also challenges viewers to consider how history might be reimagined, retold, and remembered, as well as how they could reimagine the future. Finally, “The Book of Distance” stands out for its unique blend of temporal as well as emotional distance and proximity. It seamlessly merges several different temporal dimensions within a single immersive space.

More than just presenting the possibility of different pasts or multiple futures, VR delivers these storyworlds as experiences in which users can actively participate, not just read about. In VR, storytelling becomes story-living.  VR transforms the concept of intertwinement of different temporal dimensions into a tangible and memorable experience that can be story-lived “in the flesh.” Even if it is a virtual experience, it is still an experience that affects a users’ body, memory, and emotions, and can, as a result, shape how users make sense of the past, the future, and themselves in different temporal landscapes.  VR employs the bodily imagination: Just as users can learn to practice public speaking or pilot a plane in VR, they can learn to notice and practice making sense of the past in a way that is not linear or confined to a single temporal dimension. Importantly for virtual history, by supplying direct, personal experiences, it can prepare users to better conceive of the very possibility of multiple past futures and future pasts. In other words, it can provide new experiences that feed into users’ predictive models and shape their perceptions and actions. If history serves to make sense of the past to better understand the present and to inform future actions, then it is fundamental to this endeavor to understand that multiple alternative possibilities existed in the past, exist in the present, and will continue to do so into the future.