Prescience
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Prescience is the ability to predict the future through vision. Throughout history a number of cultures have believed that oracles have possessed this ability. It is one of a number of alleged psychic phenomena studied by parapsychology. Although there is no scientific evidence for prescience, this has not prevented a huge number of people in the modern world from believing in astrology and visiting fortune tellers.
Prescience is an important concept in many fictional universes. Works of fiction featuring prescience as a central theme generally tend to be some form of fantasy literature, but one very notable exception is the science fictional Dune universe, created by Frank Herbert.
Herbert treats prescience not simply as seeing the future, but rather as the ability to see all possibilities the future may hold, in a manner similar to those theorised about in the field of quantum physics. With each moment the stream of possibilities changes, or rather, some possibilities can change and some cannot change. The prescient person is aware of all quantum possibilities but finds that he himself is locked into a sequence of absolute probabilities; that his course of action is impossible to resist because the quantum nature of his own brain, once known to himself, creates a positive feedback loop wherein he loses his free will by realising that he never in fact had any to begin with. Herbert's prescient characters see the “Golden Path” that if followed will lead to mankind’s eternal continuance, while any other course will ultimately lead to man’s inevitable long-term extinction through entropy. As such, the prescient characters, by virtue of being locked into their own destinies, lock others into those destinies as well merely by interacting with them. Much of Herbert’s Dune saga is thus given to exploring the consequences of a society ruled by individuals who possess genuine prescience, and developing quite realistic hypotheses about the effects of the quantum nature of determinism on the process of social evolution. Herbert concludes that the existence of prescience would be a curse to those who possessed it, but a blessing to all others as it would ensure the long-term survival of mankind without the negative side-effects which may accompany not having any control over one's fate.
In Greek mythology, Cassandra, the legendary daughter of King Priam of Troy and Hecuba, was given prescience by Apollo, who later added a condition. Though Cassandra would always speak the truth, no one would ever believe her.
In the television program Charmed, the demon Zankou was described as possessing prescience, an ability to perceive the world around him in other ways, including knowledge and understanding of various areas of the present. Wyatt Halliwell's future incarnation also seemed to possess this advanced sensing power.
