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Paradox of determinism.
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2018-08-02 at 9:46 AM UTCCaptain Falcon, in your initial post, why does K need to predict buying the wrong ticket at all? If he can predict the lottery numbers before buying a ticket, why does he predict himself buying the wrong ticket and then need to "change the future". Surely he would have predicted the lottery numbers before buying the wrong ticket, so if he sees himself buying the wrong ticket there's a reason for that. The only thing absurd here is you creating a scenario in which a person with perfect predictive power makes an incorrect prediction that forces a choice to be made using free-will. That is the basis of your scenario - a man who can predict the lottery numbers predicting himself buying the wrong ticket and then making a new prediction where he buys a different lottery ticket. It's a myopic view of determinism and the absurdity is imposed entirely by you.
If K knows what he's going to do, he's going to do that whether he likes it or not. He doesn't have a choice. There is nothing absurd about that. You're introducing absurdity in the form of free-will; presupposing free-will, in fact, to create absurdity where there isn't any. If K predicts DX, he's going to do DX whether he likes it at the time or not. Events will transpire in such a way that when the time comes to buy the ticket, he will buy the losing ticket. He might even have a good reason for it that will justify his "choice" within the illusion of free-will. -
2018-08-02 at 9:49 AM UTCThe illusion of free-will is a vestigial result of memetic evolution. The universe operates fine without free-will.
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2018-08-02 at 9:49 AM UTCYes, I see. I hope that being a paradox will render excessive debating moot.
Though, I hope your thread flourishes and entertains. -
2018-08-02 at 10:09 AM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Free will plays absolutely nowhere into this.
He has to make a choice to buy a different ticket to create the future "DY" - that is free-will. In a deterministic universe, he predicts DX, which is actually just D, and DX is the outcome because he never had a choice to "buy a different ticket" to create "DY". There's no absurdity in the deterministic scenario. Absurdity is only introduced once we suppose that he has the freedom to invalidate his own predictions. He doesn't. No paradox. -
2018-08-02 at 10:13 AM UTC
Originally posted by HTS Captain Falcon, in your initial post, why does K need to predict buying the wrong ticket at all? If he can predict the lottery numbers before buying a ticket, why does he predict himself buying the wrong ticket and then need to "change the future". Surely he would have predicted the lottery numbers before buying the wrong ticket, so if he sees himself buying the wrong ticket there's a reason for that. The only thing absurd here is you creating a scenario in which a person with perfect predictive power makes an incorrect prediction that forces a choice to be made using free-will. That is the basis of your scenario - a man who can predict the lottery numbers predicting himself buying the wrong ticket and then making a new prediction where he buys a different lottery ticket. It's a myopic view of determinism and the absurdity is imposed entirely by you.
If K knows what he's going to do, he's going to do that whether he likes it or not. He doesn't have a choice. There is nothing absurd about that. You're introducing absurdity in the form of free-will; presupposing free-will, in fact, to create absurdity where there isn't any. If K predicts DX, he's going to do DX whether he likes it at the time or not. Events will transpire in such a way that when the time comes to buy the ticket, he will buy the losing ticket. He might even have a good reason for it that will justify his "choice" within the illusion of free-will.
Because it is a conceivable action that leads to an absurd/contradictory/inconceivable conclusion and rules out the idea that the premise can be true. I dont know what part of this you dont understand. This is just your sub-Obbetimal understanding of the basic subject, not a problem with the argunent. -
2018-08-02 at 10:17 AM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Because it is a conceivable action that leads to an absurd/contradictory/inconceivable conclusion and rules out the idea that the premise can be true. I dont know what part of this you dont understand. This is just your sub-Obbetimal understanding of the basic subject, not a problem with the argunent.
It's a conceivable action to YOU, because you believe in free-will and are imbuing K with the free-will to change the future he predicts with D. K predicts DX, DX happens. There is no DY. Only D. What was will be, what will be was. -
2018-08-02 at 10:25 AM UTCIs my understanding "obbetimal" yet?
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2018-08-02 at 10:30 AM UTC
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2018-08-02 at 10:51 AM UTC
Originally posted by Captain 3. One could predict all future events by knowledge of all prior events.
4. A being K with knowledge of all prior events determining his future actions could predict his own future.
This ability shall be referred to as D. Let us call a predicted future X.
With knowledge of X, K sees he will purchase a lottery ticket with number X(a), but will see on TV that the winning lottery ticket will be Y(a).
K buys the winning ticket Y(a) and induces an alternate future based on his knowledge of X. Let us call these informed alternative futures Y.
You can predict all future events, but without direct omniscience of all things going on in the present, said predictions will not be accurate.
Using a human as an example of a being is pointless, because it conjures an image of a being that is inherently unable to take in more than a finite amount of information from the world immediately surrounding him.
The only example worth plugging in to this theory is a God or some unknown entity capable of omniscience.
Oh. Then I read the last two paragraphs. Oh well -
2018-08-02 at 12:34 PM UTC
Originally posted by HTS He has to make a choice to buy a different ticket to create the future "DY" - that is free-will. In a deterministic universe, he predicts DX, which is actually just D, and DX is the outcome because he never had a choice to "buy a different ticket" to create "DY". There's no absurdity in the deterministic scenario. Absurdity is only introduced once we suppose that he has the freedom to invalidate his own predictions. He doesn't. No paradox.
No. You can replace K with Robo-K, a robot with component A, that perfectly calculates the future (including the direct output state of B), and component B, which uses some pre coded algorithm that changes the predicted outcome of A to create its output. No free will is required. I am using the word "choose" to keep the example simple. Free will has no relevance here. -
2018-08-02 at 12:42 PM UTC
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2018-08-03 at 5:37 AM UTCSimple, either the course of events chages to something else the instant you find out what happens or anything you do to do something different doesn't work or only causes it to happen.
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2018-08-03 at 6:06 AM UTC
Originally posted by Captain We started with by assuming a premise (physical determinism) is true, and reached a self contradictory (logically inconceivable or absurd) conclusion. That is the literal definition of a paradox. You are not attacking my argument whatsoever, but rather seem to have a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of a syllogistic argument. Either the premise is therefore untrue or the conclusion was approached through invalid logic. You have to either concede the premise is untrue or show the invalidity of the intermediate logic.
You also had another assumption that one can act on foreknowledge and "change the future" which is where your paradox comes from, not the notion of physical determinism alone.
To defend determinism one only has to say "it's not naturally possible to change the winner of a lottery by having foreknowledge of the winning numbers", and so your scenario could never happen. -
2018-08-03 at 6:07 AM UTCAlso can we please stop using the single letter gay pseudo-math talk? It's not helpful at all.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2018-08-03 at 6:07 AM UTCSPIRIT SPOOPS
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2018-08-03 at 6:11 AM UTCin b4 this thread starts getting pruned when ppl say some sensible TRUTHS against the grain5
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2018-08-03 at 6:36 AM UTCI'd like to hear from Sideshow Obbe.
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2018-08-03 at 6:50 AM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny You also had another assumption that one can act on foreknowledge and "change the future" which is where your paradox comes from, not the notion of physical determinism alone.
It's not an assumption, it is a conceivable action, you have to tell me why it is inconceivable. I already demonstrated how it was conceivable.
Let me boil it down even further.
A computer QED is made of 3 components
The LCD, which displays a zero by default
The UNG generates a perfect prediction of what number will be displayed on the LCD after QED runs.
The NMD takes this number, adds +1 and outputs it on a display
This is simply a matter of the UNG's function being antecedent to the NMD's. I dont see any conceivability problem here. If we assume that the NMD's function is possible, then there is a paradox. Thats why we assume the NMD's function is not possible. We can expand this very easily to fit some kind of universal state number or whatever.To defend determinism one only has to say "it's not naturally possible to change the winner of a lottery by having foreknowledge of the winning numbers", and so your scenario could never happen.
Why is it not possible? What is the conceivability problem here? But you can address the above example if it makes it more clear. -
2018-08-03 at 6:53 AM UTCYou boys usin all kinda fancy words
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2018-08-03 at 7:13 AM UTC
Originally posted by Captain It's not an assumption, it is a conceivable action, you have to tell me why it is inconceivable. I already demonstrated how it was conceivable.
Let me boil it down even further.
A computer QED is made of 3 components
The LCD, which displays a zero by default
The UNG generates a perfect prediction of what number will be displayed on the LCD after QED runs.
The NMD takes this number, adds +1 and outputs it on a display
This is simply a matter of the UNG's function being antecedent to the NMD's. I dont see any conceivability problem here. If we assume that the NMD's function is possible, then there is a paradox. Thats why we assume the NMD's function is not possible. We can expand this very easily to fit some kind of universal state number or whatever.
Why is it not possible? What is the conceivability problem here? But you can address the above example if it makes it more clear.
The computer crashes because it can't both predict the number on the screen and add 1 to that number before displaying it, because the output is itself + 1. It just keeps adding 1s until the machine breaks. This isn't a problem with determinism, this is a problem with your machine. The result that the computer crashes because of its paradoxical parameters is deterministic. -_-
