The unpredictability of the content of future knowledge is a necessary condition for the unlimited growth of that knowkedge...‏

The future of civilization is unknowable,

because the knowledge that is going to affect it

has yet to be created.  Hence, the possible outcomes 

are not yet known, let alone their probabilities.

The growth of knowledge cannot change that fact.

On the contrary, it contributes strongly to it:

the ability of scientific theories to predict the future

depends on the reach of their explanations,

but no explanation has enough reach

to predict the content of its own successors

-or their effects, or those of other ideas

that have not been thought of.

___

The Beginning of Infinity

David Deutsch

Penguin Books (New York, 2011)

Epistemology: Knowledge about knowledge.