Can people predict the future?

No one can predict the exact future. But everybody can predict the future to some extent, because the brain is a natural estimator.

The brain holds a model of the present existing world.
The brain estimates the future model state by 2 major methods:

Linear estimation

This method claims that every change that we grasp, will keep changing in the same rate. Here are several examples:

• When share price in the stoke market went up 1$ today, we will predict that tomorrow it will go up 1$ again.
• When we see a car that pass by at speed of 30MPH, we can predict that it will keep moving at the same speed.
• When we see a car that accelerates at 1MPH/sec, we can predict that it will keep on accelerating at the same rate.

Cyclic estimation

This method estimates cyclic events for future predictions.

For example:

• The sun will shine tomorrow morning, since it happened in the past billion years.
• I will not go to work at Saturday.
• It will be warm at August.

All this is usually true for the short term, but for the long term we can be sure that these predictions might fail.

 

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See also

• Is mind reading possible?
• Is astrology real or fake?
• Do black cats bring bad luck?
• What is magic?
• Who was clever Hans?
• What is the placebo effect?