Precognition in a deterministic universe

What you define as evidence others would call anecdotal prejudice.

Now from the etherial to the concrete for a second. I remember when my mom caught me with my hands in my pocket. She said "I knew it." Could that be a case of precognition?

Good point, I watched the Sandra Bullock movie "Premonition" on TV yesterday
SPOILER ALERT******************
She has a "waking dream" that her hub is going to be killed in a car accident, so she tries to prevent it, but unwittingly she herself causes the accident!

Two Twilight Zone episodes also spring to mind on the similar theme that "history cannot be changed", the first is "Cradle of Darkness" where a woman is sent back in time to get a job as nanny in the Hitler family household so that she can kill the newborn baby Hitler and prevent WW2. SPOILER***she kills Hitler but somedody named Adolf Hitler still goes on to start WW2!
Full episode-


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The second is "The Once and Future King" where a guy is accidentally thrown back in time to 1950's America and meets an unknown singer named Elvis Presley. SPOILER*** he accidentally kills Elvis but a singer named Elvis Presley still goes on to become a superstar!
Full episode-

<What you define as evidence others would call anecdotal prejudice.>

Accurate foretelling of non-trivial events. It's anecdotal from your perspective, not my mine

Then you add a mathematical framework to it.

Mathematical framework? Ah-hahahahahahahahaha . . .

We have no reason to believe that any of this is true, just because you say it is. Even if you believe it is true, it is entirely possible that you and your mother have convinced yourselves after the fact.

Yeah. I could be totally deluded. It would however render this discussion quite meaningless.

The interesting question for me is: do you guys view it as indication of psychic abilities, if what I relayed on this thread is true? How strong would you rate my accounts?

Since I know the information to be true, that's all I care about.

If you are trying to convince someone, then "my" perspective is all that really matters. Right?

Would render this discussion meaningless? This "discussion" already is meaningless. You present no evidence at all, just dubious anecdotal accounts. There is no basis upon which to take a claim of precognition seriously.

No, the same is true of any historical event, documented or otherwise. You werent there.

When he came to power Hitler jailed some astrologers, but later he changed his mind and had one of them as his adviser, one possible conversation may have gone like this-
HITLER:- "What do the stars say I should do?"
ASTROLOGER:-"Build tanks, planes and guns and invade every country in sight"
HITLER:- "Is there any risk?"
ASTROLOGER:- "Nah, perish the thought!"

I dont see how astrology and adolf hitler is relevant to the discussion. The purpose of the debate is to evaluate how precognition operates in the universe.

Well, I was once home alone up in my room when I heard the family arrive back from a shopping trip;
I heard their voices in the street outside,
I heard the distinctive sound of our gate being unlatched,
I heard the 'thrum' as the front door key was inserted in the lock,
I heard their footsteps and voices spill into the hall.
But then dead silence!
I went down but they were nowhere to be seen.

Later they arrived back for real, and when I asked if they'd been back earlier and gone out again they replied "Of course not, what are you talking about?"
So I wrote it off as just a fascinating supernatural phenomena, and later I found out that it's fairly common and even has a name- "False Arrival".
So I presume it was a precognition thing in which I might have "time-slipped" and glimpsed the future?

It is by no means clear that precognition does "operate" in the universe, or that it exists at all.

Funny story. This clairvoyant guy held a lecture, and told us, with a straight face, that he wants to be remembered as a saint. I actually coughed, perhaps slightly disparagingly . He did not reflect over us smiling at him, but instead just proceeded in his "speech". I thought for myself,"this dude better do well"

Then he selected me later and just talked about astrophysics, astronomy, and philosophy. Did not need me for anything, simply held a 5-10 min monologue.

Pretty cool.....I would love to know if he ever really was psychic, in a scientific science, of actual genuine cognitive insight. It's impossible to empirically verify, from scannings of his brain. But I would love to know the truth.

<It is by no means clear that precognition does "operate" in the universe, or that it exists at all.>

People here seem to struggle with the notion of conditionals: IF precognition is involved in the examined cases.

IF my account is true ( this I can assure you all is true, but its circular argumentation, since you question my sanity and honesty to begin with).

Precognition, 89, would seem to violate the general principle that nothing is entirely anything while everything is partly something else. At one extreme the subject might be capable of describing the upcoming activity in perfect detail, specifying for instance the exact time of its occurrence and the number and precise position of every object in the process, where at the other he's required only to report only that "Something's going to happen tomorrow"

Thats what I was looking for! Are there logical inconsistencys, even if the precognitions are as (pre)determined as the events described.

Golly 89 I'm glad I was of help--thought I'm not quite sure how

But wouldn't a single instance on your part of a precognition that didn't turn out, completely nullify your supposed ability

I do not accept precognition because my worldview (cultural orientation) which includes a linear notion of time (which I question on philosophical grounds but not in terms of my naive realist everyday perspective) tells me that "the future" has not occured yet. But if we assume that time is our useful illusion and that the entirety of Reality is occuring , or has occured, all at the same "time" then it might make a kind of sense that "the future" is present to be read. This is not precognition (i.e., we do not move to the future ahead of our time, but move the future back to us in the present) but it serves the same purpose.
I do not buy this but it's fun to speculate.

That would be an instance of no actual precognition, but a misstaken belief that it in fact was. An actual experience would in theory be verifiable neurologically. Of course the subject himself would never know for sure which is which, but thats a practical issue, not a theoretical one (no problem for the theory itself)