Is the future set in stone?

[Ehrenpanzer]

Religious people believe in free will.

Science believes your future is determined, fate if you will.

Not really. Most major religions believe that their idea of god has a plan for your life/the world... which they make really funny sputtering sounds when you ask them to explain why criminals should be punished then

[Kathandira]

So consider the following. If you had the opportunity to see into your own future and you saw something you didn't like. Is it possible for you to then change that future? Bear in mind that if you saw already know it happened then that future is set in stone. If it wasn't a guarantee then you would not have seen it happen in the future.

Sure. If I saw into the future, and saw that something terrible happens to me in 10 years from now. I can simply commit suicide and change that outcome.

[schwarzkopf]

Given the OPs criteria, he clearly described a paradox. He literally tells us to bear in mind that it's a linear timeline, and that seeing something happen in the future means you can't change it. He then asks us if it's possible to change it, contradicting his own criteria. It's a paradox.

I gave a real world example of where it isn't a paradox.

A paradox is when you take current information, and act on it in the past.

Taking future information, and acting on it in the present (something we do on a daily basis) is not. Of course, if you look at the possible information you can get from the future (based on your light cones etc) - you will probably find anything what would have been a paradox isn't allowed anyway.

[the game]

As fun as time travel and future-sight is in theoretical discussion as pointless it is to ask any real questions about it since it isn't possible. Time travel will never be possible (I am talking about that "Back to the Future" kind of time travel) neither to the past nor to the future. You will never be able to see your future and you will be able to travel to your past. If someone would like to disagree, please proof me wrong?

That's why this is a theoretical discussion. Also time travel is possible. We're traveling into the future every day.

[schwarzkopf]

Sure. If I saw into the future, and saw that something terrible happens to me in 10 years from now. I can simply commit suicide and change that outcome.

Indeed, and how would that be a paradox ?

[Deleted]

As fun as time travel and future-sight is in theoretical discussion as pointless it is to ask any real questions about it since it isn't possible. Time travel will never be possible (I am talking about that "Back to the Future" kind of time travel) neither to the past nor to the future. You will never be able to see your future and you will be able to travel to your past. If someone would like to disagree, please proof me wrong?

People can already see into the future to some extent. If you're saying "people will never get better at it" that seems ridiculous, if you're saying "no I'm setting the goalposts for success so that they are impossible to achieve" then congratulations.

[Deleted]

Sure. If I saw into the future, and saw that something terrible happens to me in 10 years from now. I can simply commit suicide and change that outcome.

This literally happens to people IRL all the time.

[Kathandira]

It isn't a paradox if you believe in the steady state hypothesis of time.

However, we are working within the parameters that you have seen the outcome. So if you change things and modify that outcome, then it can be assumed that that was also part of the plan. Which is the paradox.

You have two choices, change it, or leave it be. The element of choice means that the future is not set in stone. However if you also believe that seeing the future, and which ever choice you make, you were destined to make that choice anyway, means that the future is set in stone.

The fact that there are conflicting points of view on it, means it is a paradox as there is no certainty in knowing which was true.

[Shadowferal]

Reminded of the Winter Soldier and Zola's algorithm: The 21st century is a digital book. Zola told HYDRA how to read it. Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, emails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores! Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future.

[Osmeric]

Quantum mechanics says there's inherent randomness in how the universe we see evolves, so the future cannot be set in stone.

QM is deterministic when you look at the wave function as a whole, but applied to the entire universe that wave function would describe a multitude of different versions of the universe we can observe, so that determinism doesn't give you want you seem to want here.

[Independent voter]

I don't think that's true especially for religion if God has a plan that pretty much means your future is already written and there is no free will.

Science I believe says we don't know if the future is determined depending on which theory you adhere to the answer will be different.

It's why you can commit sin, you have free will.

[Kathandira]

I don't think that's true especially for religion if God has a plan that pretty much means your future is already written and there is no free will.

Which is silly. Because that means there are people who were destined to go to hell from the day they were born.

[schwarzkopf]

However, we are working within the parameters that you have seen the outcome. So if you change things and modify that outcome, then it can be assumed that that was also part of the plan. Which is the paradox.

I've already given a real world example where it isn't a paradox.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't care about your example.

That's fine - but why are you discussing the topic if you don't care for it ?

[Macaquerie]

Which is silly. Because that means there are people who were destined to go to hell from the day they were born.

This is exactly what many Christian sects believe, and really goes a long way in explaining their behavior.

[LMuhlen]

The future would be set in stone, but what you see may not be it. You see the future you would have if you hadn't seen the future, then make changes based on that, and arrive at the real future. The real future was always there, but you didn't see it.

If you could see the real future, it would be the one where you have already seen it and reacted accordingly. It would be a vision that wouldn't promote any changes already considered in it.

If you think "vision of future leads me to A, so I'll change to get to B", then
"vision of future leads me to B so I'll change to get to A", or whatever that puts you in a loop, defining a paradox, then the issue is that your hability to see the future is not real.

[Kathandira]

I've already given a real world example where it isn't a paradox.

Your example and mine jive real well, but it is a different point of view in the end.

For me, I have a really hard time conforming to the view that anything is set in stone. There are way too many variables for my mind to agree that each minute detail was all part of the plan.

It feels like a time travel show. Where someone changed something in the past and it effects the future in some way. The ripple effect of changing an event that happened at minimum 20 years ago would have reverberations through out the world.

If my life was set in stone, as well as everyone else's lives, that means all of our fates are intertwined. Which means it is not only my absence of choice, but everyone else's as well.

With that, why should I be concerned with the repercussions of my actions? We could all go out and kill thousands people. If that was our fate, then so be it.

[Adam Jensen]

Then it may not be technically set in stone.

If the multiverse theory is true, then it is set in stone because every permutation of the future will happen somewhere.

[schwarzkopf]

Your example and mine jive real well, but it is a different point of view in the end.

For me, I have a really hard time conforming to the view that anything is set in stone. There are way too many variables for my mind to agree that each minute detail was all part of the plan.

I think you have to realise that something can be set in stone, but still be too complex to understand for us, or to ever be understood due to Heisenberg.

For example - I could write a computer program that had an entirely predictable outcome, for example - two bots playing a WoW Duel. But you would have no way of determining the outcome.

In addition - just because you have looked into the future and 'changed' your plans, doesn't mean that doing so wasn't always set in stone.

[Kathandira]

I think you have to realise that something can be set in stone, but still be too complex to understand for us, or to ever be understood due to Heisenberg.

This is exactly what I am admitting to. Like the concept of infinity. The human brain has a real hard time resolving infinity because we are so set on everything having a beginning and an end. Something that has always been, and will always be it just too complicated to truly understand for us.

The intricacies of 7 billion people's lives all being predetermined, and intertwined is way too complicated to wrap one's head around.

[Video Games]

1) Grab the Monado.
2) Really feel it.
3) Change the future.
4) ???
5) Profit.

A vision! AI SEE ET