Thread: Advantages and disadvantages of being able to predict the future at will?

Some people believe that their dreams can predict the future. i was curious what do you think the advantages and disadvantages would be of predicting the future at will? i.e. just enter a lucid dream do some sort of ritual/procedure and boom your whole day laid out for you?

I can only see one big disadvantage: knowing what's gonna happen without any possibility to change it, might as well discover life as you live life.

Originally Posted by Zoth

I can only see one big disadvantage: knowing what's gonna happen without any possibility to change it, might as well discover life as you live life.

The Dune series of books by Frank Herbert covers this topic extensively. Absolute prescience is a curse -- to never be delighted or surprised by anything, ever...!

I got such dreams and OBEs... disadvantage is, I didn't know, and I will not know that I saw future till it will really happen. I have a few visions that may happen in future, and a few that I thought could happen, but didn't happen. I think I sometimes see possible futures, and maybe parallel universes.

Question is, is it possible to reach such level of prediction that I could change predicted future? Or- did I change something and therefore some visions of future didn't come true? I don't see turning points, therefore it is hard to steer line of events.

Originally Posted by Psionik

disadvantage is, I didn't know, and I will not know that I saw future till it will really happen.

This right here.

I get little snippits of things that will happen in due time. They range from 4 weeks to 2 months. I can never remember them until they actually happen.

Also, being able to see ahead of what's to come could be considered a curse. If fate is a real thing (I believe in it, but others may not), then we are powerless to stop its course of events set in motion for us - there's nothing you can do to stop it from happening.

I have read and heard many accounts, some firsthand, of precognitive dreams, "gut feelings", and visions of the future. It seems like sometimes the future event is inevitable. Other times it seems like it is not. My last girlfriend before my wife was a witch. (My wife is a witch, too, guess I like witches.) Anyway, one time my ex had a dream about a blue truck on the freeway riding up on her and almost hitting her. She told me about it when she woke up. Then, she went to work, and saw the truck on the road that was in her dream. She quickly changed lanes, then passed the truck. Right after she passed the truck, one of the truck's tires blew out. This is an instance where a precognitive dream showed a possible timeline that was avoided. I have read other accounts where people dream of their own death, and their death is exactly like the dream.
I was talking about deja-vu with my cousin while we were bodyboarding in Waikiki last week. He said he dreamt about the conversation we were having in the water years ago when he was a kid, and these deja-vu experiences seem always to be him remembering a dream he had, a precognitive dream about the exact moment he is in in the present. He said the deja-vu always seems to happen at a kind of pivotal time in his life.

I think that being able to 'predict the future at will' would be sort of like being able to satisfy your desires at will. There are a lot of implied assumptions about the relationship between your mind and events, and hidden contradictions that have to be resolved before it even makes sense. Once you've worked through all that I think it's not a problem anymore. Your experience of reality, and your heart and will is so radically transformed that the original thought about 'knowing the future' doesn't really apply in your world anymore.

"Predicting the future at will." What a funny statement!

Do you believe we have free will?

Do you believe in destiny?

Is everything that happens inevitable?

If the future is destined to happen in a certain way, and free will does not exist, can you will to do anything?

Precognition seems to me to know/see/view a possible future timeline, which can be altered by free will.

The advantages of being able to predict the future at will: it would allow you to make more informed decisions, help others, and prevent catastrophic events.

The disadvantages of being able to predict the future at will: seeing something knowing you are powerless to change it or changing something and it ends up worse.

Originally Posted by Kixerus

The advantages of being able to predict the future at will: it would allow you to make more informed decisions, help others, and prevent catastrophic events.

How is this possible? if you can change the future, then you can't predict it. And if you say maybe you can see one possible future, then you're not predicting it: you may even know what future you will make come true depending on your action, but you won't know what action you will take, so you won't be able to predict which future will be the true future, so you wouldn't be able to actually predict the future

I believe events are leading normally in one direction... but there are points of turning. points that has to happen otherwise timeline will change. I believe there are only potential futures. Infinite amounts of them. And that potential futures have different probabilities of them turning real.
Fate is blind... only because we are blind and therefore we can't choose. Therefore it seems like our future is inevitable. It is not. It is only mater of seeing. Some outcomes are very probable, but some are less, or improbable. I was able to chose less probable outcome... maybe. There is a question- would future I chose happen if I don't chose it, but chose other? Is my choosing of my free will or is my will clouded and affected by something higher? Hard question.

It is possible that there are infinite timelines surrounding our own timeline, futures we do not live because we changed a line with some changes. But that doesn't mean that my alternative self can't live in them.

Originally Posted by intuitionlink2

Some people believe that their dreams can predict the future. i was curious what do you think the advantages and disadvantages would be of predicting the future at will? i.e. just enter a lucid dream do some sort of ritual/procedure and boom your whole day laid out for you?

I can actually tell the future through my dreams, but they have a slight problem. They always have a mystical creature in it... or an anime character. Like recently, I had a dream about going to the UN (which in school we are going there in April) and stumbling into a conference room which had all the character from Hetalia in it. My boyfriend/best guy friend (Theo his name is not.), one of my guy friends (who is friend's with my boyfriend and is the boyfriend of one of my friends who was also in my dream((his name is gonna be...... James, not real))), and two of my friends (who are girls, the first girls the girlfriend of my boyfriend and I's friend ((Let's call her- wait I'm going to use her YouTube name, Crazy_Crafter)). The second one is one of my best girl friends((I'm gonna call her... Katie... Not her real name))... who also likes Hetalia!). Theo was (in my dream) the personification of Brazil. I was the personification of London. Crazy_Crafter was the personification of Berlin. Katie was the personification of Rome. And, James was the personification of Paris. My dreams are messed up.