why it is impossible to see the future - Writers Forum

tristiano · 07-01-2008, 08:28 AM

i think too much. during my boredom over my past weeks in another country i have thought about time travel, love, afterlife, etc. heres my thoughts on seeing into the future.

it is possible to see the future in chess, or at least all possible outcomes. computers do this when they play chess (the good ones). pieces can only move in certain ways, we know where all the pieces are, we know the limits. you can predict the future or possible future in chess because of two things: we know all the rules to the game, this is vital. also, we are on the outside looking in.

we do not know all the rules to the universe, our most well known laws of physics do not apply on things very very small and very very big. we still do not understand gravity, and we do not know why the big bang happened (if you believe in that kind of thing)

if you didn't know the rules to chess, you could predict moves could you?

also, more importantly, with chess we are on the outside looking in (assume two computers are duking it out, no human players). if we somehow knew all the rules to the computer and could predict its next move, that would be one thing, but if say knight number two knows that he is about to get taken by that bishop, the next move could immediately change, therefore making our original foresight wrong if we share it with anyone with sufficient power to change the outcome that we originally predicted.

now lets say there is a machine that simulates the universe. lets name him travis the black box. now travis knows all the rules that go on in the universe, he has complete understanding of how everything works. he is a very powerful computer and he can replicate all these rules in his magical CPU to find out what will happen. he takes inventory of everything in the universe, and lets the simulation run 100 years in 1 second. now we know what will happen in a hundred years, right? so as soon as we know that, the inventory of the universe he originally took has changed, and due to the butterfly effect... his prediction could be completely wrong. we could run up and stop the president from getting assassinated therefore changing the next hundred years of existence dramatically and eventually causing it to rain donuts.

so the only way to predict the future, is for travis here to figure it out and not tell anybody until it has already happened.

hope that made sense.
now, lets talk about time together.

The Hack · 07-01-2008, 09:04 AM

Impossible you say? Try telling that to the Tralfamadore.

And no Chess computer can do anything even remotely close to seeing into the future. They take guesses based on the current board position, coupled with historical patterns and accepted theory of tactics. That is like saying a weather man sees into the future when he sees a low pressure zone coming and makes a guess as to what that means for the weather four days from now.

Intel · 07-01-2008, 09:09 AM

We can never experience the future because life is always now.

seigfried007 · 07-01-2008, 09:12 AM

Actually, scientists did prove that we see into the future--precisely 1/10 of a second into it because our brains needed to counter the lag that occurs between light falling n the retina and the brain interpreting said information. If we couldn't see the future, audio wouldn't match visual

tristiano · 07-01-2008, 09:17 AM

actually, the chess game was quite a bad example because it is played by humans, and i was too lazy to fix it. a computer that solves rubix cubes, you can guess it's future if you know how it works exactly.

Malone · 07-01-2008, 03:49 PM

Those games are restricted by extensive sets of rules that life doesn't have and are much more basic in nature.

If you buy into the multiverse theory from physics (which is currently the most popular belief outside of an intelligent creator), then there are infinite universes playing out with every possible choice by everything in the universe having its own universe. So if that's true, I guess you could predict the future by saying Israel will go to war with Iran, and you'd be right because in one universe that would happen. Similarly, Israel will not go to war with Iran would also be a true vision of one future.

AA · 07-01-2008, 04:47 PM

Alright, I had a question about multiverse, I heard A PROFESSIONAL on a radio show talking about multiverse and he was explaining it to the audience and his explanation was contrary to what I had thought of it as.

He was saying "well, in one universe, I'm the host and you're the guest, and in one universe, a purple cow is the host and we're both guests". As I understood it, mulitverse would only include actual possibilities. Something like a purple cow hosting a radio show has to be completely impossible, I think.

The other problem I have with multiverse is the idea that in one universe everyone on earth would, let's say, completely undress and simultaneously kill themselves without a real reason. It just seems unlikely/illogical, but so many people I know believe in it.

mi is happy · 07-01-2008, 04:53 PM

Tomorrow is an other day
--Gone With the Wind

Malone · 07-01-2008, 04:55 PM

You have to take it back to the beginning of earth and factor in how many different paths evolution could have taken. Perhaps purple cows ended up being talk show hosts in one. Obviously that's a stretch, but it's all just theory so there's really nothing but speculation at this point. It's just the theory that fits right now.

AA · 07-01-2008, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malone

You have to take it back to the beginning of earth and factor in how many different paths evolution could have taken. Perhaps purple cows ended up being talk show hosts in one. Obviously that's a stretch, but it's all just theory so there's really nothing but speculation at this point. It's just the theory that fits right now.

Well, it makes me uncomfortable. I can't explain why, it just does. If it's true, it just feels like free-will and free-thought is a facade. Like we're all just fulfilling some pre-destined sequence of actions. It's creepy.

mi is happy · 07-01-2008, 05:01 PM

Yep. We could have came from pigs instead of monkeys. Pigs' make-up is close to our own. It's just the popular theory of the moment.

lin · 07-01-2008, 05:26 PM

Because the future is invisible. They're going to figure out how to do that in the future.

seigfried007 · 07-01-2008, 05:30 PM

The way I've always heard it is that all possible outcomes are represented--but possible outcomes still depend on natural logic.

tristiano · 07-01-2008, 06:05 PM

there is no such thing as random, there is only one possible outcome, but finding it out would immediately change it, and theoretically the future should have been predicted with a different started point, changing the outcome, changing what the person finds out, changing yet again the original starting point.

basically, if you find out the future, it will cause a never ending loop and we are all fucked.

Malone · 07-01-2008, 07:28 PM

Everything is random. Chaos.