future

[blike]

Hypothetically, if we could visit the future, would this eliminate free will?

[fafalone]

We haven't really established that free will exists in the first place.

[aman]

Free will would only be violated if we tied people up and sent them into the future against their will. Our past is inviolate

Whether free will exists is a good subject for debate.

Just aman

[blike]

Alright, say you knew EVERYTHING about my life. From the day I was born until now, you knew everything that has happened to me; right down to how many breath's i've taken, what books i've read, what knowledge i've gained, and how I apply it.

 

Now, assume you were somehow able to assimilate this into some sort of computer that would produce a working model of me that would predict my choices, based on past choices, experiences, etc. Now say I was told to "pick a number 1-1000", would the computer be able to predict my choice? If you believe so, then there really is no such thing as free will. Everything I will do could be predicted, and I am not really making my own choices.

 

I think the computer would be able to give a probability wave, but not determine exactly my choice.

[Sayonara]

We can't answer this without establishing (a) what governs free will and (b) how flexible the future is.

[aman]

An artificial intelligence uses a random number generator to pick a number. Through life we have a familiarity with certain numbers and maybe a prejudice toward some. Our decision is not truely random like a computer. We can say no, and not chose a number at all.

I think we evolved to have free will to make choices but the choices can be pretty predictable due to our previous general choices in life that made us who we are.

I'd like to think I am responsible for who I am.

Just aman

[fafalone]

Computer isn't random AT ALL.

[blike]

Stop being dense. Thermal noise random number generators are true random generators.

 

There are others that use random numbers generated by timing successive pairs of radioactive decays detected by a Geiger-Muller tube hooked to a computer. This process is governed by uncertainty in the quantum mechanical laws of nature.

 

kthx.

[fafalone]

Just because we don't know the laws to predict the outcome in a quantum system doesn't mean no such laws exist.

[dudels]

Surely if we can travel into the future our choices have "already been made"?

[Ragnarak]

Originally posted by dudels

Surely if we can travel into the future our choices have "already been made"?

 

parallel universes ahoy

 

Just read a very nice time travel paradox about a person who was their own mother, father, daughter, uncle, etc.

 

If i get time i might type it up later

[aman]

Relative to me there is only one universe but I thought about what Faf said, "Computer isn't random at all" and I have to agree with him now. On a microcosmic level an intelligence of what is going on totally way up to the quark level, could change things by interacting before matter either forms or effects us on our level of perception. The laws may be made or changed in the microcosm.

I feel the laws on this level are fluid. Because we have sentience we can change effect on the microcosmic level. Maybe not just by what we move around or not but but by what we think.

Just aman

[blike]

parallel universes

 

Doesn't that require infinite energy?

[fafalone]

Can you say infinite energy cannot exist?

[dudels]

If a two parallel universe exist, and infinite energy exists between the two; doesn't that imply that that each universe has half-an-infinite amount of energy each?

[Ragnarak]

Originally posted by blike

 

Doesn't that require infinite energy?

 

er does it?

 

been reading a bit about higher dimensions, a bit about parallel universes and black holes but not seen any mention of infinite energy...?

 

tho i admit i know extremely little about super string theory which is what it was mostly based on :/

 

(dudels: infinity/2 = infinity)

[fafalone]

It's going to be a long time before we get this stuff figured out :/

[aman]

It's odd that our great minds can not even visualize infinity.

My mind can go out and see the universe as a speck in the distance. It can grow small and see tiny pieces of quarks as big to me as our universe. It sees an empty universe waiting for a big bang. It can see energy still streaming into our universe on the microcosmic level from somewhere infinitely strange.

There should be plenty of energy for billions of more years to keep the universe existing.

Just aman

[dudels]

Originally posted by Ragnarak

(dudels: infinity/2 = infinity)

 

 

That's sort of the point I was tryitg to put across, and now reading what I wrote I know I did it badly.

 

 

If the universe has a limited amount of energy, then it can be said that parallel universes either can not exist; or can exist but do not require infinite amounts f energy to do so.

[aman]

That makes sense to me dudels about finite energy. It won't effect us but it makes an expanding universe or universes finite due to observable entropy.

We do seem to have one observable infinity and that would be directions from the big bang. As we leave the vicinity of the big bang we are at a certain angular direction and it changes as we speed away.

It's like looking back through binoculars and if one lens is the reference point, then as you get farther the other lenses angle keeps changing and getting smaller.

If you leave the universe and see it as a dot with binoculars there is still a different angle between the lenses relative to the big bang and it gets smaller the farther you go.

Just aman

[JoeDaWolf]

Originally posted by fafalone

Can you say infinite energy cannot exist?

 

If infinite energy existed, then nothing else could. Infinity, by definition, is conceptually the bgigest number. The universe would have to be infinitly large, with energy filling every dimension, and every space availible, (Along with being present for every fraction of every second.)

 

If infinte energy existed, we wouldn't be around to debate its existence

 

~Wolf

[MindOfChaos]

If infinite energy existed' date=' then nothing else could. Infinity, by definition, is conceptually the bgigest number. The universe would have to be infinitly large, with energy filling every dimension, and every space availible, (Along with being present for every fraction of every second.)

 

If infinte energy existed, we wouldn't be around to debate its existence

 

~Wolf[/quote']

 

What if infinity was in another universe? Does it mean it doesn't exist just because it is not in this universe. Even though i don't see how it could exist im just wondering if other universes could existist and potentally have infinte energy.

 

 

On the note about predicting a persons future. I don't think we could predict a persons future because of the imense amount of information we would have to process to do so. We would have to know every single possible thought your mind could posses every single event you mite experince we would have to predict the exact atmospheric conditions for the future. We would have to know what every single other person that existed in the world would think in any certain event. I could go on for a while. I think that even if we knew all these varables we still could not predict a persons life because there maybe certain binary situations where some one decides yes instead of the predicted no.

 

^^hope that made sense