The easiest definition is the etymology, being "pre/cognition" or "before/thought/knowing", to think about something before it happens or is known.
One of my interests since I was very young is the paranormal and at one point, I read an interesting treatment of various psychic abilities, including precognition, using the following scenario:
A woman had a precognitive flash that a ceiling fan was going to fall on her baby in his crib, in the living room. She ran in and scooped him up and seconds later, the fan fell.
The researchers, after some unfathomable discussion I can't recall, nor if it made sense, asked the reader, "Now, did she predict what would happen, or did she unconsciously CAUSE the fan to fall, by dreaming up this image in her head, and then create the situation with her psychokinetic ability, though not intentionally?" While I say, yeah, I guess that's possible, I can't imagine, if we have abilities at all, WHY that would be something that would be possible, that easily.
But it does still leave a slight avenue for poltergeist cases, which I think may indeed have a relation to perception/PK angles.
But precognition - I'm just not sure. I think a lot of people "remember" predicting things, that they didn't, and I think Deja Vu happens a LOT and people mix it up too (I've read it is basically the same neuron firing more than once rapidly)...
I think precognition really goes deeper into the heart of existence and physics and cosmology and how time works - are things predestined, is every second uncertain and "new", or could it be calculated and predicted if we had the needed variables? Can the human mind somehow gather these and process that problem?
I just find that SO hard to buy, but... the only other obvious explanation is there may be a "flow" of some kind, and someone can get "in God's channel", to paraphrase Donnie Darko, to sort of have an understanding of the direction things are coming from and going. I like it as an unusual idea, and it's kinda my own pet choice, but at the same time, it is equally untenable, really.
This is the hard part of precognition. Is it just a pre-thought, seeing something that will most likely happen just before it happens. Is it something you know will happen anyway.
Or is it something more sometimes. I feel it is possible to feel something coming.
Sometimes this feeling extends beyond the immediate moment. What if that same sense has an extra ability to detect a near probable strain of reality beyond the immediate?
As far as things being predestined (fate), I find this hard to believe when I consider children with cancer.
At times I get a feeling of something that is going to happen before it does. This is defined as precognition. I wonder though how this kind of thing happens sometimes. Being that I have no interest in the near future events at these times. Often they are beyond the current event and happen after some time.
Edited: Oliron on 3rd Apr, 2010 - 6:53am