The necessity of vast generalization to live with lots of complexity, globalized information. This has obscured the specific connections between things, so that specifics are disregarded for the generalized. Indeed, vast systems discount particular specific instances as anecdotal, as anomalous. But it is not at the level of the general that men are most comfortable, but at the specific, the anecdotal.
My predictions of the future begin with specific observations in areas I have developed a refined expertise in. They began with a practical base, with observations on the road of other drivers, predicting what they would do next based upon cues taken quickly from their driving. I could see things from my truck before they were going to happen. I could move to lanes that would avoid the potential danger of accident.
But there is another higher order of prediction, based on cues that are not as easily observable. In trucking I found I would sometimes FEEL as though I needed to change lanes or to stay in a particular lane. Then some miles ahead something would be moving slowly in that lane, or some danger would present itself. What had I seen to predict this? What was the nature of this feeling?
The second question I have a better sense of answering. The feeling comes as a kind of voice. Not an internal voice like talking to myself, and this is why I call it a feeling, though it is perhaps better called a felt voice.
Consciousness is the seeing of oneself in the world. It is an ability and a perspective but is often misused. Unfortunately, it has been cited as an accessway to truth and to knowledge when coupled with a language influenced by writing (written, non-pictographic language changed spoken language). The conscious person is best realized in abstract talk, unrelated to the natural world.
What would be the use of consciousness? Perhaps as a fail safe for when emotions overrun and blind and inhibit or misguide action in the world. Consciousness then would be a way to clear up obstacles to a return to enlightened non-thinking in the world. Consciousness as a way to stop oneself from making excessive emotional judgements.
But consciousness explored as a pathway to deeper truth is person/individual making and world destroying.
In predicting the future I cannot do it when consciously trying to do it. When I insert myself through thinking I make false predictions.
There is more revealed to the unconscious than to conscious thought. The feeling that you are being watched and you turn and see that you are being watched comes from the same place as the seeing of the future.
Perhaps "prediction" is the wrong word to describe what is happening. One feels the future. A seeing brought about through unconscious feeling. To let the conscious self and person and individual go is to allow a knowing of the world impossible through (self) conscious, logical thought based upon the technology of (abstract / non-pictographic) written words.
The technologies humans have more recently created encourage consciousness, encourage the privileging of personhood and individuality. These technologies further the distance between humans and the natural world (the other animals). The path of what humans call "progress" is towards the technological enhancing of individual consciousness.