Expert: Philip A. Stahl - 7/9/2009

Question
Does science believe in intuition and predictions.

Can a person foresee or predict ones future in a way that is explainable in science?

We know that time is considered as the fourth dimension after three dimensions of space.
So, can it be true that whatever has to happen in time till infinity has always existed i.e that all the future events that have to happen in future have already been fixed(destined to take place) or have already happened and we just travel through time to reach all events as we do in space by reaching from one place to another travelling in a specific direction.

If this is possible, don't you think some people who claim to foresee the future events can actually see them or feel them by a process which can be explained by the science.

What do you say about Nastradoomus

Answer
Hello,

Science is firmly committed to predictions, since their confirmation is ultimately what validates a theory (say that is tested against another theory). So, predictions are part and parcel of the scientific method.

"Intuition" while it may play a role in formulating a theory, is not taken to be part of the normal scientific method in any formal way.

While there have been apparent anecdotal reports of people who have claimed to "foresee" their own futures, or events in the lives of others, none of these have been formally validated in a rigorous scientific examination. Hence, remain in the realm of speculation.

Your concept of time is somewhat similar to what Minkowski originally conceived, time as a kind of "highway" on which all events are fixed and which we encounter in a kind of linear way. However, other aspects of formal physics - especially statistical mechanics - argue strongly against this conception.

Perhaps, one of the best is the "arrow of time" (using the 2nd law of thermodynamics) which defines events can happen only one way. That is, in terms of increasing entropy or disorder showing the direction of *future* time, or events.

For example, an automobile burns petrol in its tank and CO2, CO, other chemicals come off in the combustion process. This defines the arrow of time. The reason is that it is impossible to take the CO2 etc. and re-connvert back to gasoline! Thus, the diffuse gases represent the future state, the liquid petrol the past.

No one has shown how to realistically alter this arrow of time to make it different from what we observe.

As for "seeing events" in the future - there have been some scientific efforts to document such precognition, but nothing that has bene confirmed. (Some of the earliest attempts were mae by Targ and Puthoff at the Stanford Research Institute).

As for Nostradamus, he seems to have been an interesting person, but there is nothing forecast in any of his quatrains that has been proven or shown to have come true ...to the satisfaction of all.