James Drogan

There are a number of things that have occurred recently that prompt this musing.  No need, I think, to enumerate them.

My good friend, Answers.com, defines prescience as " Knowledge of actions or events before they occur; foresight."  There is an implication, as you can see, of time here.

Does time matter in the definition of prescience?  Was Nostradamus, who died in 1566, prescient?  Is the person who forecasts the NYSE opening average this coming Monday prescient?  What about the plethora of political pundits?  Or the guy who declared "Mission Accomplished."

Well, I don't know.  I'm confused.  It seems to me that prescience has some sort of associated time limitation.

The short vertical line is the limitation.  To the left of the line you are prescient, to the right you are not prescient.  Who decides where the line is placed?

Then there is the question of who declares prescience.   A committee?  The person who desires the adjective? 

If the star represents that about which one is prescient, does it have to have certain characteristics?  If the "that" is an event, does the event need to have a certain size?  Or a certain type of impact? 

What is prescience anyway?

Perhaps the word is too confusing to worry about.