ThirstyFish

Can you predict what this cat did next?

Prophecy is difficult business. First, there is the big issue of self-fulfilling prophecies - events that only happen because they were predicted. Or more generally, as the Thomas theorem suggest, "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences". But, what happens when we fail to interpret, or willfully ignore a situation? Obviously that also has future consequences, but could they be favorable, not only adverse? Prophecies, i.e, human prophecies we call predictions, are ultimately just best guesses that we dress up in statistics. If there is the slightest chance that any small mistake or any omission in our predictions may have serious adverse consequences, could it simply be better not to attempt to guess some things at all? And, when is "no map" better than a bad map? Not easy questions to answer. Wu wei, the concept of flow in Taoism might give us some hints.

The mathematically inclined can check out the 68-95-99.7 rule, tail risk and fat-tailed distribution.