@ Luke Maciak:
You’re easily roused to anger. :O

Ian Wardell wrote:

This article is nonsense from start to finish.

Normally, I’d be really interested in reading an alternate take on the subject, and maybe I could have learned something from your post, but you are being a dick in your opening sentence, so I don’t give a shit. Now scoot child, adults are having a discussion here. Go type type some slurs on an image board or whatever else internet tough guys do these days.

This article is nonsense from start to finish. In no shape or form is either precognition or free will incompatible with the notion that the future exists and we just come across it. Read my blog entry:

http://ian-wardell.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/free-will-and-notion-of-coul d-have.html

You have no idea what you are looking at.

One of the problems with seeing the future is that the mind will try to make sense of it using current knowledge. I once dreamed my bed was broken. A couple of days later there was a dissembled bed like mine thrown out in the alley. My mind, having no other reference, suggested the precognated broken bed was the same one I was asleep in.

Another example: I had recurring dreams of a woman whose birthday is on the 3rd of September, so I began paying attention to events around that date. I even did a web search for anything interesting and found an earthquake prediction for the California coast. Instead, on that day, there was an earthquake in New Zealand – but on the 4th of September relative to New Zealanders. If this was indeed a precognitive instance, it was revealed to me using my reference of time and not the time reference of the people who experienced the earthquake directly.

I personally see free will as an illusion. The future event has to exist prior to it being seen. I also believe the more influence a person has over the future, the less free will they will have to change it. The question becomes: Does the precog ‘see’ the future because it already exists, or does the precog create the future by ‘seeing’ it? Does the precog, in a sense, throw out a node and then is drawn toward it, thus creating a local-effect determinstic universe? Or does the event node pre-exist with free will gaps in between so that the details do not matter?

I would like to meet other people who have experienced procognition and compare notes.

@ Luke Maciak:

I guess my point is that you could have that ability to a superpower degree and it would appear as precognition. Very like the mentats from Dune.

What you can also have is a sensing of the ‘fluctuations’ of the universe, like the bug in the corner of the swimming pool. This would allow the mentat to bring in knowledge they have no right to be aware of. Further enhancing their precog ability.

In a Ken Macleod book (you’d love them btw) there is a android on the run who produces a full 3d render of her environment by capturing shadows and reflections in every shop window, hub cap and piece of tin foil and extrapolating what happens inbetween. This meant she could ‘see’ behind her and round corners etc.

Since a precog is generally fallible and generally cannot direct what they see, don’t the resultant behaviours become identical?

@ James Heaver:

Can we call this precognition though? To me what you describing sounds more like simple deductive reasoning. I observe the facts and make an educated guess as to what may happen.

Have you read Frank Herbert’s Dune? What you describing here is very similar to a Mentat rather than true precog. Dune has both.

Mentats like Thufir Hawat are trained logicians – living computer replacements. They are adepts at analyzing data and making educated predictions. You feed your mentat accurate statistics and intelligence and he can predict with high degree of probability the next move of your enemy. The only problem is that a mentat cannot predict something he does not know or that can’t be inferred from their data. Their predictions can be wrecked by random events.

Paul Atredies and Guild Navigators on the other hand are true precogs. They get high on Melange spice and actually see the future – often many years or even centuries. Their visions are not based on data, analysis or deduction – they are actual glimpses of the future events.

@ Travis McCrea:

Actually that’s easy to explain – if you are picking up a phone to call someone, it is usually for a reason. Something happened and you want to talk about that person. You are both responding to the same stimuli. :)

Btw, how many times have you ever picked up the phone to call someone to find out that that person is on the line, or you pick up the phone and it rings and its them.

You watched Minority Report the other day too? :P

I feel that precognition only sexists up until the point that you know of your future. Though there could be an argument that your future is always laid out, and even if you tap into a way to find out the future and you change your path, what you tapped into was not actually the future but an illusion of it, and the real future is set out on a different path… and you changed the “future” because you were supposed to change it.

I believe that you can view the chain of events that will transpire based on current actions. However, since you know what will happen that action has broken the following events.

Now, this model of precognition is open to everyone, but like 3D gaming years ago, you could emulate a 3D card, but its not going to be much fun unless you’re born with a Voodoo card .

This post might be a bit confused, I’ve not eaten yet. And Im just throwing this out there. Also, Im being spam blocked, hence splitting up my post. :(