Can we change our future?

[peterrobin]

Say for example, I had a very complicated computer, that calculates everything that has happened and will happen from the moment of the big bang to my life and beyond to just say for arguments sake, the end of the universe.

If I look up my own life on the computer to see what will happen, and it tells me I'm going to get run over by a bus next month, is there anything I can do to avoid that happening?

I'm thinking not, but not being a philosopher I was wondering if there are any other opinions on the matter. And would a machine like this be possible in theory?

I don't know why everybody is going for the quantum red herring, a perfect prophesying machine might be theoretically possible from a technical point of view, if, say, time could be observed like a dimension.

But a perfect prophesying machine is impossible for the very reason you say.

Since a perfect prophesying machine would include the existence of itself in it's prediction, you would be looking at yourself being run over by a bus in full knowledge of what was about to happen!

If you looked at it in the morning and viewed your complete day then either you could do differently (in which case the machine would be wrong) or you would find yourself irresistibly following the pattern predicted even if you tried not to. In which case what caused those actions?

 

[stan1980]

I personally find personal experience more compelling. While I value science greatly, I am nevertheless not a scientistic person, and I find that there are philosophical reasons to think that freewill is at least plausible. Here is an article that might interest you.

I sort of agree. I mean, freewill, from personal experience seems like a given, as I feel I'm in control of my actions and make my own choices. The problem is, I feel I'm not being consistent if I say "free will exists because I know it does", because that is exactly what I accuse and criticise the religious types of doing when they say the same thing about God. I hate being inconsistent.

Probably doesn't make much sense, but if I accept freewill exists which by instincts, if not logic, I do, then I have to accept there is a much bigger chance than I might give credit to that a deity exists.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Probably doesn't make much sense, but if I accept freewill exists which by instincts, if not logic, I do, then I have to accept there is a much bigger chance than I might give credit to that a deity exists.

It's not instinct. It's introspective observation. And it's not equivalent to saying that you know God exists through introspection, since you are still focusing on your own mind, and not trying to implicate the mind of some unknown entity. I don't think it is quite the epistemological disaster that you suggest.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[quatona]

Say for example, I had a very complicated computer, that calculates everything that has happened and will happen from the moment of the big bang to my life and beyond to just say for arguments sake, the end of the universe.

If I look up my own life on the computer to see what will happen, and it tells me I'm going to get run over by a bus next month, is there anything I can do to avoid that happening?

If you can the computer´s calculations were obviously wrong.

 

[UnafraidOne]

This is the thing, even getting the computer to predict the effect of its own prediction on me, no matter what it tells me, I can stay one step ahead, and avoid whatever it is telling me my destiny is. This to me, suggests I have an element of free will, correct me if I've gone wrong somewhere.

But if the computer did predict the effect of its own prediction on you - and determinism is real - then the destiny it is showing you is the destiny wherein you had already seen that destiny - attempted to avoid it - and still it happened (or did nothing to avoid it - and it happened).