AES11 - The Precognition Paradox

Some days ago, during online school, we talked a little about how fun it would be if we could see the future. We could, for example, use it to know game strategies beforehand or see the answers for a test. But then, I thought; if we took different steps to avoid what we saw, then our futures would be different. Therefore, what we saw was not the future. Then all that would be a paradox.

That is a problem with knowing the future. We mostly think it would be a wonderful advantage, but if we change the future according to how we saw events unfold, our precognition before would be false. It is quite hard to wrap your head around time and the future and things like that.

Ever since we talked about that, I kept on thinking about precognition. It is something very hard to believe, mostly because we can’t get much proof for predicting the future.

A famous example is Nostradamus, a French astrologer. Many of his rhyming writings are thought to predict the future. The interpretations, however, are subject to controversy. It is said that he predicted famous events like 9/11, the rise of Hitler, the moon landing and much more. However, his predictions are often very vague, and you can’t really make head and tail of them. Lots of people suggest some involvement of the Barnum Effect in the supposed predictions. The Barnum effect was named after P.T. Barnum, a showman. The Barnum Effect is the tendency to accept unproved theories, making use of its vagueness.

I personally think it isn’t wise to know our futures. It just gives us a sense of dread, knowing we can’t prevent bad things from happening. It’s like a strategy used in horror movies—it’s scarier to expect something horrible to happen than to be oblivious and have it jump at you. Anyway, the future is meant to be the future. All we can do is stay in the present.