{"id":3268,"date":"2026-04-05T16:26:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T14:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/?p=3268"},"modified":"2026-03-29T16:28:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T14:28:27","slug":"on-prediction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/2026\/04\/on-prediction","title":{"rendered":"On prediction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AVON: Let us examine the nature of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/2026\/03\/thinking-about-ancient-rome-again#sibyl\">prediction<\/a>. The human mind is capable of seeing into the short-range future with reasonable accuracy. For example, imagine that you are standing on the edge of a cliff.<\/p>\n<p>BLAKE: As long as you&#8217;re not standing behind me.<\/p>\n<p>AVON: [Pause] There are a number of alternative futures. You could take a pace forward and plunge to your death. The cliff could crumble under your feet with the same result. A gust of wind could carry you over.<\/p>\n<p>BLAKE: All right, all right, yes. But the probability is that I would turn round and walk away again.<\/p>\n<p>AVON: Exactly. You have just made a prediction based on the known facts. A computer works on precisely the same principle.<\/p>\n<p>BLAKE: But all you&#8217;re saying is that prediction is not immutable fact.<\/p>\n<p>AVON: Right. If you hadn&#8217;t gone near the cliff in the first place, you wouldn&#8217;t have had to face any of the inherent dangers.<\/p>\n<p>From: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=d8wLe_eLYuA\">Blakes 7, series 2, epode 1, Redemption<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AVON: Let us examine the nature of prediction. The human mind is capable of seeing into the short-range future with reasonable accuracy. For example, imagine that you are standing on the edge of a cliff. BLAKE: As long as you&#8217;re not standing behind me. AVON: [Pause] There are a number of alternative futures. You could &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/2026\/04\/on-prediction\" class=\"excerpt-read-more read-more\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3268"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3271,"href":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3268\/revisions\/3271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tekstadventure.nl\/branko\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}