On Predicting The Future
Regarding "Prediction", aka Historicism:
"... Karl Popper defined Historicism as "an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their primary aim, and which assumes that this aim is attainable by discovering the 'rhythms' or the 'patterns', the 'laws' or the 'trends' that underlie the evolution of history"
In "The Poverty of Historicism" and elsewhere, Karl Popper argued that this view is the principal theoretical presupposition underpinning most forms of authoritarianism and totalitarianism. He argued that historicism is founded upon mistaken assumptions regarding the nature of scientific law and prediction. Since the growth of human knowledge is a causal factor in the evolution of human history, and since "no society can predict, scientifically, its own future states of knowledge", it follows, he argued, that there can be no predictive science of human history.
For Popper, metaphysical and historical indeterminism go hand in hand. ... "
And Al Einstein sez:
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."
"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives."
"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - This is a somewhat new kind of religion..."
So just try to predict collective consumer imagination ... if you DARE!!!
"Ladies & Gentlemen, Place Your Bets!"
Here's ours.
:-)
