The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre writes about why the future is inherently unpredictable in his book After Virtue. It's in the context of social sciences but

The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre writes about why the future is inherently unpredictable in his book After Virtue. It's in the context of social sciences but it applies just as well here. There's a decent summary here[0] [0]: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/doclib/20120203_aftervirtuechaptersummary.pdf http://www.thenewatlantis.com/doclib/20120203_aftervirtuecha... > MacIntyre argues that "there are four sources of systematic unpredictability in human affairs" which preclude social science from being like natural science (93). The first is radical conceptual innovation, which can be explained in retrospect, but inherently can only be predicted when the innovation has already occurred. MacIntyre notes that this also means that the future of scientific innovation cannot be predicted, invoking the Church-Turing thesis as further proof. The second source is the fact that "the unpredictability of certain of his own future actions by each agent individually" implies the unpredictability of that agent by any other agent, and hence an aggregate unpredictability to the social world (95). The third source "arises from the game-theoretic character of social life" (97). Social life in fact embodies multiple games, players, and transactions and thus cannot be studied as a single instance, reducing the predictive power of game theory. The fourth source is "pure contingency", the way in which "trivial contingencies can powerfully influence the outcome of great events", such as the length of Cleopatra's nose, or Napoleon's cold at Waterloo (99-0).