(urth) 5HC : Skinner, Turing and yet more Laplace
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
danldo at gmail.com
Wed Feb 16 10:13:44 PST 2005
> [T]he issue isn't what the demon knows, it's what _you_,
> as the person who has just been given the prediction, are correct in
> believing; the implication being that there's no determinate plan of your
> future actions that you'd be correct in believing if only you knew it.
If I were given a determinate plan of my future actions, the first
thing on the list would be "burn this document." And I would.
Obviously, a lot of this kind of speculation is reflected in
myths and stories about the working-out of prophecies by those
who try to avoid them (Oedipus, the Appointment in Samarra,
etc.) - a great deal of effort has been gone to over the ages to
show that predestination and free will are not inherently
incompatible concepts.
> Thus, even if your actions are in some sense determined by the laws
> of physics, this isn't quite the same as metaphysical determinism,
> where you'd expect there to be a determinate plan of your future
> actions that would remain correct if you knew it. I think.
I guess the question is whether the plan takes into account your
knowledge of the plan.
Suppose I have been given such a plan and, foolishly, read the
first page of it. I would immediately be tempted to do something
other than the first thing it said. If I then returned to the plan,
would it say, "Reading the above, he decides to do something
else?" Would it have changed to show what I actually did do?
Or would it now be an utterly inaccurate plan? Might it self-
destruct?
I agree with what I take to be the point - a detailed foreknowledge
of one's own actions can be self-defeating.
> [1] It's due to an idea for a 'Black Easter' - style short story I keep
> thinking of writing, hampered mostly by my lack of talent, time and the
> unfortunate fact that I've never read 'Black Easter'.
You really should, but preferably in context - if you don't know (and
I am not assuming you don't, just not assuming you _do_ eithe),
it's part of the second volume of a trilogy - a _true_ trilogy, three
thematically linked novels, rather than a three-novel series or a
three-volume novels. The theme is the permissibility of secular
knowledge in the context of the Christian faith. The novels are
1. _Doctor Mirabilis_ - realistic/historical.
2. _Black Easter_ and _The Day After Judgement_ - contemporary
dark fantasies, sometimes published in one volume as _The
Devil's Day_.
3. _A Case of Conscience_ - future SF.
--Dan'l
--
"We're going to sit on Scorsese's head"
-- The Goodfeathers
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