TO KNOW the future is to have greater control over it. That is, a person seeing what the future holds can make necessary adjustments now for later benefits.

As a common example, consider the weather. Former United States president Lyndon Johnson stated that if weather forecasting were accurate for only five days in advance, it would save his country six billion dollars a year. Of course, early weather warnings would also preserve countless lives.

For example, many factors govern the weather, such as heat, wind, terrain, and so forth. Even if all or most of the factors are known, it is extremely difficult to interpret them to know how the different laws will interact to create a certain future weather pattern. So, weather forecasters, no matter how expert, are often wrong.