Aasimov understood this problem when he wrote the Foundation series and introduced Psychohistory. His solution was to have the principal actors be unaware of the plan ensuring that they would continue upon the course he had set. Keeping in mind that Aasimov's story was Science Fiction, if something similar could be done, then yes, precognition through mathematical models could be a reliable tool to influence the course of human events as long as the principal actors are unaware of the predictions.
This raises an interesting issue. Let’s assume two things for the sake of argument:
1) There is no true randomness, and all physical processes are ultimately predictable assuming sufficient knowledge
2) Human behavior is entirely a product of the physical structure of our bodies (with ‘bodies’ including brains)
If both of these are true, it would mean that, given sufficient knowledge and sufficient computational power (either of which might be impossible in principle), it would be possible to predict people’s behavior even if those people know about the predictions. The effects of them learning about the prediction would be factored in to the original calculation; and it would always predict the behavior that someone would follow through on even if they knew of the prediction.
On the other hand, if you are arguing for precognition as a supernatural ability, then I couldn't say. At a point in my life, I had dabbled in the Tarot. After learning about it and understanding it, I tried it out on some friends. What they told me was how eerily accurate I was. The thing is, my statements weren't actual specific, but Tarot is based on what cards are turned over, so there is that randomness to it.
This is because it’s not difficult to relate something fairly vague directly to your life. We all share the same basic emotions, so it’s easy to make the jump from the tarot reader’s generalised description of an emotionally painful conflict to a specific emotionally painful conflict in your life. Several tests have been done in which participants were given identical descriptions of personality, each having been told it was tailored specifically to them, first (as far as I know) by Bertram Forer in the 40s. This is the paragraph he handed out to his students after getting them to fill in a spurious personality test:
quote:
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.
The average accuracy rating out of 5 was 4.26, despite this being specifically tailored to nobody. The same basic principle works with predicting the future. Fortune tellers rarely, if ever, tell you that our girlfriend’s cheating on you and is going to break up with you next Friday. Instead, they tell you that there is an important change approaching in your life and/or that they see some conflict with someone very close to you — maybe this is already happening* and about to come to a head or it’s just about to happen.
*at which point a fortune teller who is intentionally scamming can look for some sort of recognition and further information from you to work into their prediction as if that’s what they’d seen all along.
Edited by caffeine, : quote tags
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