posted on Feb, 25 2009 @ 09:21 AM
Okay, folks. Here's the truth, whether you like it or not: It is impossible to predict the future with any accuracy because the act of prediction,
according to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, affects the object under observation, thus making it impossible to exactly measure the location of
any individual particle. How does particle physics creep into this? Everything we observe is observed through the disturbance of photons, the
wavelike particles of light through which we observe reality. However, the observer - or the observer's equipment - absorbs a certain percentage of
the photons being emitted by any object. Hence, it is impossible to predict with certainty the exact location of any particle. On a deeper level,
prediction is quite impossible because the particles that make up all matter are constantly in random motion themselves, unless they are at absolute
zero temperature and, sometimes, not even then. (Photons move through the zero point and therefore,since they collide with each other in transit,
still have some random motion.) How does this affect attempts at prognostication? If the particles of matter that make up everything around us are
uncertain, how can anyone predict anything with absolute certainty.
On another, more pragmatic level, there are two phenomena at work here that make such predictions either useless or impossible. The feedback
phenomenon works through positive feedback to increase the apparent validty of an observation. The more people who believe a thing, the more true it
appears to be. Feedback is fairly innocuous because it mere,ly increases the amplitude of an observation. On the other hand, self-fulfillment
scares the # out of me. Self-fulfillment is the process by which people, in large groups, tend to behave in ways that make adverse predictions happen
while simultaneously acting in ways that make positive predictions less likely to happen.
Pay attention here. When we react to negative predictions, we tend to do things that will make those things happen. Example are pandemic. The
current mortgage crisis wasn't caused by the sub-prime mortgage mess. On the contrary, it was the tightening of mortgage rules, and the
discontinuation of aggressive mortgage programs that reduced the number of potential home buyers and THAT's the actual cause of the collapse of the
real estate bubble. So, by moving to change regulations that appeared to be creating a problem, we created the problem we were trying to prevent.
(Note to Congress. Everyone who did not study physics should resign immediately. Physics lies behind everything.)
However, when positive predictions are floated through an intellectual environment, the net effect is that people relax. Good news tends to put
people to sleep so that they don't do the things that are necessary to make those predictions happen. Here's a case in point. A prediction that
disasters won't happen causes people to cease preparing for disaster and, hence are unprepared when disasters occur. This is why theories of
attraction and the power of positive thinking don't really work. The only appear to work for those who are successful. We ignore the failures,
blaming the victims for not doing it right.
This reminds me of the hoo-ha around the Bible Code, which ridiculously asserted that all future events were predicted in the Hebrew Torah. The
problem with this fantasy is that we can't recognise any future event in the predictions because we don't know what is going to happen and you have
to know what is going to happen in order to find the predictions in the Torah. In other words, prediction is ex post facto only.
In sum, what happens with these systems is that the credulous see verification when some predictions prove true, ignoring the fact that the systems
actually predicted EVERYTHING at one time or another. That's not forecasting. It's superstition.