# Humans Spend Half Their Mental Lives in the Future by Martin Seligman > "Humans spend between 25% and 50% of our mental life prospecting the future." > **— Martin Seligman**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* ## Sources and Context - **Full authored response and quotation context:** [Do Machines Do?](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26100) — Edge's 2015 annual-question response by Martin Seligman; the linked page contains the complete response and quoted passage. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Were Never Going to Make It|We Were Never Going to Make It]] - **Article:** [[articles/Christopher Nolan's Odyssey at the Threshold of Machine Succession|Christopher Nolan's Odyssey at the Threshold of Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration Will Not Be Human]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Machine Intelligence Continuum|Machine Intelligence Continuum]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Behavioral Prediction|Behavioral Prediction]] - [[wiki/Counterfactual Self-Simulation|Counterfactual Self-Simulation]] - [[wiki/Cognitive Science|Cognitive Science]] - [[wiki/Probabilistic Futures|Probabilistic Futures]] ## Share on Social Media ``` "Humans spend between 25% and 50% of our mental life prospecting the future." — Martin Seligman, 2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-martin-seligman-humans-spend-half-their-mental ```