The Beginning!

[æτhεr φ]

If I were to cause a collision of two high-speed particles in glass sphere, and had a high-tech camera that could record or snap a shot of the sphere a split-second before it smashed into pieces, wouldn't I be able to predict exactly where the particles would end up? If not a collision then a explosion. If this is the case, then it would be the same with the Big Bang, if I was to go back in time and place a sphere over the point where it happened, I could then predict where the particles/matter would end up? So everything that is happening now was already predicted from point 1?

[Mr Skeptic]

What you seem to be suggesting is called Determinism. It is generally accepted that this view is false due to quantum mechanics containing true randomness. In any case, to predict the universe you would have to model the entire universe, and you can't do that with a computer contained within the universe since your computer would have to model itself.

[ydoaPs]

What you seem to be suggesting is called Determinism. It is generally accepted that this view is false due to quantum mechanics containing true randomness. In any case, to predict the universe you would have to model the entire universe, and you can't do that with a computer contained within the universe since your computer would have to model itself.

You're overstating things a bit here. Our universe is neither deterministic nor indeterministic; we have a fuzzy determinism. 'Zoom out' pretty much any at all, and the fuzzyness goes away.