Guessing that you are referring to the movie, "back" means "return to" in the movie. The character is accidentally sent into the past in a time travelling car. Then he wants to return to where came from in the future. Hence "back to the future" - "return to the future".

In the abstract of the paper that you linked to, the authors say that in 1957, Festinger thought that "cognitive consistency as a basic need" would become one of the core areas of cognitive dissonance research. However, he was wrong. Other researchers at the time decided to focus on "dissonance-related changes in attitudes". So, Festinger made an incorrect prediction about the future of his field. However, now, 63 years later, researchers are becoming interested in a basic need for cognitive consistency once again. In 2020, we are returning to the future that Festinger imagined in 1957, but which people at his time rejected.

No, but people who speak Quechua and several other South American languages DO see the future as behind them. You can read about it here: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/feb/24/4 Chinese sees time on two dimensions: some expressions see the future as forward, but other expressions (like "xiatian") see the future as DOWN. In English, we always think of the future as forward, and we never think of it as down.

Haha, nice point. But that's the way it is. Most probably, it originates from the movie with the same title, where a boy travels in time into the past and and tries to go back into the future.