Ordinarily one predicts by imagining the present and then running the visualization forward in time.
On the contrary, imagining the present and running the visualisation forwards is a very bad method of making predictions. You can only do it successfully for very simple systems, such as the planets orbiting the sun, and it doesn’t work very well even for that (replacing “imagining” by “measuring” and “running the visualization forward in time” by “numerically solving Newton’s laws by iterating through time”). It does not work at all for any control system, because its actions of the moment depend not only on the goal, but also on the current situation.
For example:
Last Friday there was announced a meet-up of OB people for Saturday. Several announced on OB that they would be there. I predict that the meeting took place, and that most of those who said they would be there were. If the meeting did happen, presumably everyone who went made a similar prediction, and set out expecting to meet the others.
Did anyone who made such a prediction do so by imagining the present and working forwards? I cannot see how such a thing could be done. You might not know—I certainly do not—where each of them would have been beforehand, what means of transportation they had available, and so on. I have no information to base such an imagining on. Those who went might be more well-informed about each other, but not to the extent of carrying out the computation. What I do know is the goals that were expressed, and on that basis alone I can predict that most of those goals were accomplished. I predict the result, while predicting none of the actions that caused the result, and imagining no trajectory linking the RSVPs to Saturday evening.
On the contrary, imagining the present and running the visualisation forwards is a very bad method of making predictions. You can only do it successfully for very simple systems, such as the planets orbiting the sun, and it doesn’t work very well even for that (replacing “imagining” by “measuring” and “running the visualization forward in time” by “numerically solving Newton’s laws by iterating through time”). It does not work at all for any control system, because its actions of the moment depend not only on the goal, but also on the current situation.
For example:
Last Friday there was announced a meet-up of OB people for Saturday. Several announced on OB that they would be there. I predict that the meeting took place, and that most of those who said they would be there were. If the meeting did happen, presumably everyone who went made a similar prediction, and set out expecting to meet the others.
Did anyone who made such a prediction do so by imagining the present and working forwards? I cannot see how such a thing could be done. You might not know—I certainly do not—where each of them would have been beforehand, what means of transportation they had available, and so on. I have no information to base such an imagining on. Those who went might be more well-informed about each other, but not to the extent of carrying out the computation. What I do know is the goals that were expressed, and on that basis alone I can predict that most of those goals were accomplished. I predict the result, while predicting none of the actions that caused the result, and imagining no trajectory linking the RSVPs to Saturday evening.