Do we want to know what will happen next? (Venue B:Starbucks)

THE VENUE: Starbucks

It's autumn so we will meet indoors for the next few months

When we meet indoors, we run the same event in two locations: Caffè Nero and Starbucks, so as to provide capacity for as many people who would like to attend, without overwhelming any one venue. Thus, there will be two events published, and you can choose which one to attend. Please don't sign up for both. This event is for the Starbucks location.

We meet upstairs at Starbucks. An organiser will be present from 10.45. We are not charged for use of the space so it would be good if everyone bought at least one drink.

An attendee limit has been set so as not to overwhelm the venue.

Etiquette
Our discussions are friendly and open. We are a discussion group, not a for-and-against debating society. But it helps if we try to stay on topic. And we should not talk over others, interrupt them, or try to dominate the conversation.

There is often a waiting list for places, so please cancel your attendance as soon as possible if you subsequently find you can't come.

WhatsApp groups
We have two WhatsApp groups. One is to notify events, including extra events such as meeting for a meal or a drink during the week which we don't normally put on the Meetup site. The other is for open discussion of whatever topics occur to people. If you would like to join either or both groups, please send a note of the phone number you would like to use to Richard Baron on: website.audible238@passmail.net. (This is an alias that can be discarded if it attracts spam, hence the odd words.)

THE TOPIC: Do we want to know what will happen next?

Thank you to Richard for this week's topic.

Sometimes the future is reasonably predictable. In Britain, the average temperature in January will be lower than in July. Sometimes we can predict confidently if we assume certain conditions that are quite likely to be fulfilled: if the weather stays within a reasonably broad range and there are no diseases, crops will grow well. But sometimes we can have no confidence that important conditions will be fulfilled: if consumers like this new product, it will be profitable, but we have little idea of whether consumers will like it. And sometimes we cannot even formulate conditions that are independent of the prediction: "if people are keen to buy shares, the stock market index will go up" is no more helpful as a guide to action than "maybe the index will go up".

A power of foresight looks as though it would be very useful. We could take the right precautions against the effects of forthcoming adverse weather or crop diseases. We could make the right new products, increasing consumer satisfaction and the happiness of the population. We could take the right bets on the stock market, or on horses. We might even arrange our personal relationships to make our lives and the lives of others more satisfactory overall. But would a power to foresee really be such a good thing?

For the weather and new products, it looks as though it would be. We have put a lot of effort into forecasting, and the overall effect on human happiness is very likely to have been positive.

For the stock market and horses, a power of foresight would be of immense value to a few people who possessed it so long as other people did not. But if everybody had the power, nobody would make any great profits.

Now suppose that we all had the power of foresight in relation to all aspects of life. We might avoid some big blunders, but there would be risks.

We might not do all sorts of exciting and rewarding things because we paid too much attention to the foreseen downsides and not enough to the foreseen benefits.

Knowing how someone else would react to given circumstances would approach knowing what they were thinking. And sometimes we really don't want to know that. "He would insult me if we happened to meet at a party" implies "He does not like me", and ignorance of that might have been bliss.

Creativity might be greatly diminished. If we know what is going to happen, working out the best thing to do becomes like answering a carefully stated examination question. It is when we are caught out by the entirely unexpected that we can really shine.

Finally, would anything close to perfect foresight even be possible? Two obstacles are these:

We cannot know what the next scientific discoveries will be, and therefore cannot know how significant they will be.

Prediction would need to include predicting what people will do. But once people can foresee what will happen, and know that others can predict what they will do, they will change their conduct. In this way, foresight tends to work against its own accuracy.

We hope you will be there on Sunday, but have no idea whether you will be.