Precognition

What Is Precognition?

The term precognition means "prior knowledge" and is used to refer to any form of knowledge about future events that cannot be explained by normal means. Examples of precognition can be as basic as a feeling - "something bad's going to happen" - or a detailed vision of future events. Such visions can be clear and straightforward or as cryptic and ambiguous as the prophecies of Nostradamus.

Where precognition is taking place at an emotional level of gut feeling, it is sometimes referred to as "presentiment".

Premonitions and prophecy are common in history and folklore. On a small scale most of us have probably experienced them ourselves - knowing what someone is about to say or thinking about a friend moments before they phone.

There are three main problems with establishing the validity of precognition. The first is that very often what appears to be some form of ESP may in fact simply be subconscious intuition. It can be difficult to tell them apart. For instance, there are a lot of non-verbal cues that could give us an idea of what someone is about to say or do, especially if we know them well.

The situation is made worse by the fact that many premonitions and predictions are vague. Was an event really predicted, or was the prediction vague enough to have referred to any number of possible events? It's easy to make a vague prediction appear right after the fact.

The third major problem is statistical. Many, many instances of precognition occur every day - most are false and never reported. How many times have we "felt" that we shouldn't fly today, or that this will be our lucky week to buy a lotto ticket? Most of the time these premonitions come to nothing. Yet on the rare occasion one proves right and we tell the media about it, that particular premonition becomes big news.

Parapsychology researchers attempt to devise experiments to avoid these problems. The most well-known involves Zener cards. A deck is shuffled and the psychic attempts to predict the order in which they will be dealt. In such an experiment no-one knows the order of the cards so there can be no subconscious cues, the outcomes are specifically defined and the results can be analysed statistically.

Philosophy and Physics

If precognition does exist, it poses great philosophical questions and challenges much of our world view. Does it mean that the future is fixed? Is the prophecy definite or simply a likely possibility? Can we change the predicted future or will our actions simply bring it to pass? Such questions have formed the basis of much science fiction.

It's interesting to note that precognition might not actually be in conflict with the laws of nature. Many of the fundamental equations of the universe are "time reversible" - time could equally well run backwards as forwards. Why should we not remember the future? Our perception of time as being one-way is itself the oddity, a phenomenom known as the "arrow of time".

External Links:
The Arrow of Time