MAC2322

Even accounting for quantum mechanical effects like superposition and stuff, the fact remains that only a tiny, tiny amount of the volume taken up by an atom is comprised of matter. I don't know why people are raising issue with this, I thought it was a pretty straightforward observation.

Pre-post EDIT: After reading through the previous pages of this thread, I can see that this is something you guys have already been over and how hilariously retarded it is that I brought it up when I did. Carry on, then.

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crazysam23_Atax

I wonder what Poe would've thought of "them wonderboxes" (computers)...

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RedDeath9

You are missing something, because the computer would have taken into account that you know you're being tested. I'll warn you, though - Once you accept determinism, you'll feel kinda shitty for a couple of days. I know I did, at least. It's a slightly dehumanizing feeling. I mean, we still have some form of "free will," but compared to what we're inclined to think, it's more like an illusion. You just have to learn to be happy with that illusion.

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MadClownDisease

Assuming it does know you entirely and the situation entirely (as mentioned above, also assuming it factors in that you know it's predicting, if you do), then aye there's no real reason it couldn't predict perfectly everything you'd do.

You do still have the power to eat it or not, just the computer knows which power you will exercise. You're still as "free" as you were before, just someone is also predicting what you're doing too.

You're still acting on your own dispositions and reasoning, it doesn't take anything away from who or what you are that given all knowledge of who you are someone could predict that. They're still predicting what you are doing.

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ArtyArnaud

Randomness is a pretty supid ****ing word to call your failures lazy ape.

ArtyArnaud

name of the piece?

jrcsgtpeppers

I don't feel like a super computer could predict that.

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jrcsgtpeppers

You would have to fall backwards into the future to learn predictions because everything has already hapoened but you can't possibly know the answer without time travel. Everything is a chance, a probability.

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MadClownDisease

...wat?

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Guodlca

But is it possible for the computer to say the correct future out loud? If it said I'm going to eat it, I wouldn't. It's a paradox then. Doesn't that mean that at least I can't ever know for myself what I am going to do, only a supercomputer? If I was told I'm about to do something, I wouldn't do it, but the computer would still know how I would react to being told this prediction and therefore the computer can know, I can't.

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RedMist

Even randomness can be quantified.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictability

MadClownDisease

Aye I see what you mean, so if it says "you will eat it" you think "well **** you, I won't do it!" and it's wrong, and vice versa if it says you won't.

I guess plausibly it could be good enough to predict your reaction to what it says you will do, but yeah you're right that wouldn't really avoid the problem. I guess the problem is the prediction will need to factor into the result, but the result would change the prediction.

That doesn't really change the problem of free will or determinism though, I guess. It merely says expressing predictions can be self-defeating. It could still accurately predict what you'd do, it just possibly couldn't tell you truthfully what it is.

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Guodlca

What about weather then? If I, as a living human being am, in fact, only a very complex unit of organic matter with only an illusion of free will, when actually my deeds can be predicted, could we predict weather for a year on?
If I, not containing anything supernatural, can not hear the prediction for it to be true, why wouldn't weather react to us doing it? For example, the breath of someone saying this prediction, the wind of someone's fingers that would be created when typing that forecast on the computer...
Could the original forecast itself have predicted this breath and wind and of course the reaction of all the people on earth to that forecast? Wouldn't we, or the weather man be aware, that the slightest changes in the atmosphere can alter the weather a year on from now? The weather man being aware of this, if the analogy from the cookie is applied, wouldn't the weather man hearing the prediction cause the prediction to be actually false?

How about weather forecast for unpopulated planets? Do humans really make a difference?

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MadClownDisease

The act of making a prediction can the results, but it needn't always been in the same way as the example of telling someone what they're going to do.

The act of predicting, assuming it causally affects the outcome (which as you say, is pretty much certain in that the effects of our actions can be a lot wider ranging that we might think), can still be included within the prediction. Even in predicting making a decision, a supercomputer might know that telling you you will meet someone might actually case you to meet them. It needn't always contradict its truth to give a prediction, just it sometimes can do.

The act of predicting can either be insignificant enough causally (due to distance or simply being very minor) to not affect the prediction, or could actually bring about the prediction. Of course, to say it is in principle predictable doesn't mean anyone or anything in practice ever could collect all the data and know the laws well enough to do it, especially on a global scale, or that they would have to actually perform the action of making that prediction for it to be true.


In any case, the most important fact really is that in principle if all facts about your personality and a particular situation were known, it could in principle be known exactly what you'd do.

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Guodlca

Yeah, I guess this has to be taken more theoretically than trying to apply it to an actual example.

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captaincrunk

randomness doesn't exist

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jrcsgtpeppers

The future has already happened. But a near infinite amount of futures exist in parallel worlds. The future is actually being projected backwards towards the past. We just experience it the way we do. You would have to travel into the past ie the future to predict the past future. There's no way of knowing exactly. Quantum says its only a possibility.

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MrDo0m

I don't really believe in random.. I believe it's just a matter of perspective, but what appears "random" is really such a complex order that we can't perceive its order. Of course you could also say that everything is chaos, and what appears to have order is just an illusion. I also believe fate and free will exist simultaneously, in a paradoxical way.