Predicting the Future: Can We Do It? and If Not, Why Not?

Book excerpt: Yogi Berra, the American baseball legend, stated famously that it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. We all try to predict what will occur in our lives. We routinely orchestrate events in the present in an attempt to influence what wed like to see happen in the future. But despite our best efforts, everything doesnt always go according to plan. The question is why? In Predicting the Future: Can We Do It? And If Not, Why Not?, author Dr. Gerard G. Nahum offers a comprehensive answer to this question. He provides a framework of explanation as to why we find ourselves in the situations we do concerning our ability (or inability) to predict and influence the future. Nahum illustrates why the predicaments we encounter often have much more to do with the fundamental physical constraints of the universe that we live in rather than anything man-made. Predicting the Future: Can We Do It? And If Not, Why Not? is intellectually rigorous in its approach and conveys a simple message: the information we can access, the knowledge we gain as a result, and the understandings we develop as a consequence are what we use to make decisions about the way we believe the future is most likely to unfold. This, in turn, informs our perspectives, which impacts our choices, and ultimately influences the actions we take.