Ironclad Prediction Is That Most Predictions Will Sink

It is my contention, often expressed here, that no one can foresee the future.

By no one I mean just that--no one.

Hundreds of so-called seers or psychics make a living--some very good ones--pretending to foresee the future. They prosper, of course, because of the gullibility of many Americans, perhaps most. They are frauds, every one.

Consider that if one person--just one--could actually and consistently foresee the future, he or she could put horse racing out of business. And if anyone could indeed foresee the outcome of horse races he or she would be betting stacks, on the nose, in every race.

For some years now I have been counter-predicting the predictions of our most self-promoting seers, as published in the supermarket tabloids. If one of them predicted, for example, that Elizabeth Taylor would marry Prince Rainier, I would predict that she wouldn’t. So far, I have never been wrong, though predicting that Elizabeth Taylor wouldn’t marry someone is rather risky.

Of course many people make accurate predictions. Some predict the outcome of football games. Some predict the upsurge of certain stocks. Some predict rain. Of course meteorology is a science, and it may be possible to predict rain with some accuracy. In no other field that I can think of, however, is anyone able to predict the future with consistency.

In response to one of my essays on this subject, Gary L. Hardcastle of the department of philosophy, UC San Diego, writes to say that in claiming that “the future cannot be foreseen” I am in good company.

In a scholarly letter Hardcastle says: “Specifically, you’re in the company of David Hume, the 18th-Century Scottish philosopher. Hume is credited with posing what has come to be known as ‘The Problem of Induction,’ or, naturally, ‘Hume’s Problem.’ Straightforwardly, that problem has been to justify our inferences about the future--i.e., inferences drawn on the basis of what’s been observed up to and including the present.

“Suppose, for example, we gather up a bunch of fist-sized hunks of iron and lug them to the beach. Standing waist-deep in the water we drop them, all but one. Each but the last, which we haven’t dropped, sinks to the bottom. What can we say about the last hunk of iron?”

You and I know that the last hunk will also drop to the bottom, like the others. But in philosophy it isn’t that simple.

Hardcastle continued: “But what, Hume asked, justifies that purported knowledge? One might say that it’s justified because all the other pieces of iron sank, but (obviously) this begs the question.

“A more sophisticated move would be to recognize the general form of the inference--induction--and claim that that inference form is legitimate because it has, in the past, provided correct predictions. This too begs the question, though, which applies to the validity of induction as well as to sinking pieces of iron.”

Though Hume himself despaired of solving his problem, he did state it in these terms:

“Let the course of things be allowed hitherto ever so regular: that alone, without some new argument or inference, proves not that, for the future, it will continue so. In vain do you pretend to have learned the nature of bodies from your past experience. Their secret nature, and consequently, all their effects and influence, may change, without any change in their sensible qualities. This happens sometimes, and with regard to some objects. Why may it not happen always, and with regard to all objects? What logic, what process of argument secures you against this supposition? My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. But you mistake the purpose of my question. As an agent, I am quite satisfied in the point, but as a philosopher, who has some share of curiosity, I will not say skepticism, I want to learn the foundation of this inference.”

I will not pretend to understand fully that passage, or the problem in general. Not as a philosopher, but as an objective observer, I feel quite sure of myself in predicting that the last hunk of iron will act exactly as its predecessors did. It will fall to the bottom.

I can think of no possible change in circumstances--a sudden shift of current, a fish, a miracle--that will keep that hunk of iron from falling straight to the bottom. But life offers few contingencies as certain as that one.

All Hume was saying, it seems to me, is that an object’s past behavior is no certain guarantee of its future behavior.

In general, I’d say that’s a pretty good rule. If you drop 10 iron balls from the leaning tower of Pisa, you are going to get 10 identical results. That’s as far into the future as I can see.