Future now

Premonition, precognition, second sight – three labels often applied to the ability to see into the future. This is, infact, one of the most troublesome areas of paranormal research. This is so for two reasons.The first is the sheer volume of supposed cases – everyone, it seems, has hints of the ability some time in their lives. And second, the apparent impossibility of being able to see the future before it happens. The Theories: Many exotic theories have been attempted to explain the ability to see the future. Typical is the ‘bow wave’ effect. Here it is argued that, just as a boat leaves a wake from its bow, so, too, with time, sending ripples of a future event back into the past.Consciousness has often been used to explain premonition. Typical is the idea that we have several states of consciousness, some bigger than others, and witnessing events ahead of the consciousness we already experience.The problem with such theories is not simply the fact that there is no real science to back them up. Unfortunately, experience of being human places immense stumbling blocks upon accepting the ability as credible.

Problems, problems everywhere: The first major stumbling block to accepting an ability to see into the future is ‘free will.’ It is self-evident that we seem to have it. But free will can only be true if the future is an unknown country. If it was mapped out, free will would become an irrelevance.A similar problem arises with the law of causality. Stated simply, a cause must come before an event. If premonition is to be accepted, then it has also to be accepted that knowledge of an event can come before the cause.So it seems, at our present level of knowledge, there is nothing in science or experience that allows us to see into the future. But this is not to deny that ‘premonitions’ occur. It simply suggests that whatever is going on has to be tied to the present.

Laws of chance: We can, perhaps, answer the problem on many different levels. The first is to understand an important point about paranormal phenomena. We have a habit of tying phenomena to the individual. But often an explanation can come from a wider society.Consider, in a country such as the United States, chance dictates that there could be upwards of a million nightmares on a particular night. Of these, it is inevitable that some would hold imagery of, say, a particular type of disaster.If such a disaster happened in the days following such a nightmare, it would be tagged as a premonition, when, in reality, it is nothing more than an inevitability of chance. In a society, such coincidences are bound to happen.