For thousands of years, we humans have tried to predict the future. And for thousands of years, we have failed. Or at least we haven’t done much better than dart-throwing chimpanzees, coin tosses, and random guesses. We never seem to learn, and the victims of failed predictions number in the millions. The disappointed are even more numerous.
To avoid joining the ranks of the failed prophets and their followers, a good place to start is reading this book. Learn how to avoid being fooled, how to spot common holes in predictions, and how to approach modern soothsayers with proper caution.
Failed predictions are everywhere, both in the past and in the present. Predictions are our dreams and our nightmares, and our hopes and fears for the future have a decisive influence on who we are. By peering into the crystal ball, we see ourselves reflected.
For thousands of years, we humans have tried to predict the future. And for thousands of years, we have failed. Or at least we haven’t done much better than dart-throwing chimpanzees, coin tosses, and random guesses. We never seem to learn, and the victims of failed predictions number in the millions. The disappointed are even more numerous.
To avoid joining the ranks of the failed prophets and their followers, a good place to start is reading this book. Learn how to avoid being fooled, how to spot common holes in predictions, and how to approach modern soothsayers with proper caution.
Failed predictions are everywhere, both in the past and in the present. Predictions are our dreams and our nightmares, and our hopes and fears for the future have a decisive influence on who we are. By peering into the crystal ball, we see ourselves reflected.
The difficulty of predicting the future can be illustrated by how improbable even something as apparently fundamental as our own existence really is. Every living person is the lucky winner of a brutal race with billions upon billions of unlucky losers. Congratulations! This titanic but quiet struggle of the sperm’s journey to the egg and the moment of conception rarely gets the attention it deserves, since the man and woman who organize the struggle typically have – let us put it delicately – other things on their minds.
A healthy young man produces millions of sperms per day, and an average ejaculation contains about 500 million of these.[i] As for women, at birth they already possess all the oocytes (egg cells) they will ever have, but many are recycled long before puberty when they are developed into proper eggs. Even the eggs that make it that far will only have a single menstrual cycle to achieve their purpose.[ii]
In order for a certain person (perhaps the author of a book on the difficulties of predicting the future, or the reader of a book on the difficulties of predicting the future) to come into existence, it is necessary for a specific sperm to match with a specific egg. No other sperm or egg will suffice. Every sperm and egg are unique, and would generate a different individual if combined.
(If we wanted to complicate the matter further, it could be pointed out that it is far from certain that genetically identical humans are the same person. Monozygotic twins and clones have the same DNA, but are not the same persons. In other words, it is not even a sure thing that a specific person will come into existence even if a genetically identical individual is born. This raises interesting philosophical questions concerning personhood, individuality, and identity, but here it is of lesser importance.)
A specific egg is only available for fertilization during one menstrual cycle, or a little less than a month on average. Sperms are also recycled after a while. When any of these windows of opportunity have passed, the possibility of a human with a certain set of genes to come into existence disappears forever. At least unless artificial exceptions are created, such as genetic engineering or the freezing of eggs.
But the most obvious obstacle to a person being conceived is, once again, the competition between sperm cells in the same ejaculation. With 500 million competitors, no specific sperm is particularly likely to emerge victorious. Indeed, since most copulations do not lead to pregnancy, often there is no winner at all. Unless we have a strong belief in destiny or great confidence in the swimming ability of a specific sperm, we should very much doubt whether the sperms that resulted in ourselves would be able to repeat their achievements. That is, if they would ever get an opportunity to try.
Fortunately, they don’t. But let us for just a second imagine that this happened. By means of a time machine, we travel back to the moment of our conception, and charge through the door just as our parents . . . no, let us stop there. We can have too much imagination. Evidently. Anyway, aside from metaphysical speculations about the necessity of everything, it is extremely unlikely that a specific sperm would manage to fertilize a specific egg and therefore create a specific person. Just a few seconds’ delay or a micrometer-sized obstacle would be enough to give another sperm a sufficient edge. If we want to err on the side of caution, we might say that a delay of one month is the absolute maximum such a change would have to cause, since the egg would then be removed with the menstrual blood.
Thus, it does not take much to prevent a potential person from being born. But what does all this have to do with predicting the future? The answer is that it demonstrates the instability of every possibility. A second’s difference is all it takes to cause such a drastic change that a person never comes into existence. This reduces our ability to predict the future. It is also a problem that, once it has occurred, increases exponentially. This is for two reasons:
A. When a small change has occurred, that change will in turn influence other things in a chain reaction, which in turn causes other things, causing greater changes that in turn cause even greater changes. If one person is replaced by another, the new person will live their life in a different way than the first would. Other actions, other friends, other jobs, other homes, other lovers, other children, other failures, other triumphs. All of these inevitably lead to yet further changes.
B. Many events affect large numbers of people at the same time. Thanks to modern inventions like television and the internet, this is truer than ever. This change need not be anything dramatic or world-shaking, but it could be something as simple as a funny clip of, say, a cat that likes cardboard boxes. If this clip causes a number of men to postpone their marital duties by just a few seconds, this will give other sperms an advantage in the struggle for life.
Therefore, the problem with making predictions is not always that it is difficult to influence the future but, instead, that it is easy to do so. Even a trivial event such as the carboard cat can change which people come or do not come into existence. This causes great instability. And as of yet we haven’t even started discussing the events of truly world-historic significance.
The brutal competition between sperms, and the fact that entirely different people will be conceived depending on the winner, and how easy this competition is to influence (but not control) has dramatic results. That result is that even a very small event is sufficient to – given time – change the entire population of the earth for other individuals. This is the lottery of life.
Let us now look at a number of such apparently trivial events that occurred in the year 1914. Most of these are everyday events such as misunderstandings and a driver taking a wrong turn. Such things occur all the time. But in this case, these small events threw the entire world into chaos. If just one of these events had gone differently, no person born since that date – or at least about nine months afterward – would have come into existence.
Time travel and the influence of past events in determining our future have always been fascinating topics in science-fiction circles. When I started reading The Future of Yesterday, I was reminded of the mind-bending series, Dark on Netflix, which garnered critical acclaim. In the book, writer, Jakob Sjölander Johansson starts with an oft-debated premise. He ponders if world historical and political events would be different if Archduke Ferdinand's assassination in 1914 was prevented. The writer tells us, "This book deals with humankind's attempts to predict the future. Or, more precisely, our failures to do so." Chaos, complexity, chance, or even complacency or complicity, can impact the future, just as they impact the present.
Even a split-second change in an event can have consequences that change the future. However, can we predict them if we know the past and understand the future? Future predictions are rooted in the present and there is a matrix or model in which predictions fit. We may speculate at best because many factors need to line up for accurate predictions. True prediction, if there is anything like it, is a "trade-off between two extremes: precisely wrong and vaguely right." Predictions are not guesswork, hopes, or overboard prophecies but need to have a "grain of truth" embedded in the vastness of the present. They are a reflection of everything that humanity stands for in the present, through its glorious history.
If you are looking to answer the questions - What is predictability? Or, Is there any value in the science of predictability? Then, this book has scholarly value and food for thought. It brings in a practical approach by including case studies and observations. The book begins with briefings of what we can accept to read. This gives it a text-bookish feel, which may be alluring to students or researchers. The subject is handled with detailed research and explanation. Some material may seem repetitive; better said in fewer words. Overall, this is a good handbook with consolidated material on the subject and will be valuable to all interested in it.