In this work, we show that predictive feasibility depends on three observable properties of the signal: the presence of structural behavior the consistency of that structure across observations and the predictability of the signal itself Across widely used benchmark datasets (IMS, C-MAPSS) and independent vibration data, we show that signals can be: predictable but not informative structurally active but inconsistent or consistent and suitable for prediction These cases reveal two fundamental failure modes: inconsistent structure, where patterns do not generalize non-informative signals, where prediction is possible but meaningless This leads to a key conclusion: Predictability is not equivalent to predictive usefulness. The results suggest that the primary limitation in predictive systems is not the model, but the signal itself.
Jos Aben (Tue,) studied this question.