Never before was anticipation more relevant to the life and activity of humankind than it is
today. ¿It is no overstatement to suggest that humanity¿s future will be shaped by its capacity
to anticipate¿.¿ (Research Agenda for the 21st Century National Science Foundation). The
sciences and the humanities can no longer risk explaining away the complexity and interactivity
that lie at the foundation of life and living. The perspective of the world that anticipation
opens justifies the descriptor ¿the post-Cartesian Revolution.¿ If anticipation is a valid
research domain what practical relevance can we await? Indeed anticipation is more than just
the latest catch-word in marketing the apps developed by the digital technology industry. Due
to spectacular advances in the study of the living anticipation can claim a legitimate place
in current investigations and applications in the sciences and the humanities. Biology
genetics medicine as well as politics and cognitive behavioral and social sciences provide
rich evidence of anticipatory processes at work. Readers seeking a foundation for anticipation
will find in these pages recent outcomes pertinent to plant life political anticipation
cognitive science architecture computation. The authors contributing to this volume frame
experimental data in language that can be shared among experts from all fields of endeavor. The
major characteristic is the inference from the richness of data to principles and practical
consequences.
