Dear Aaron,

Read your essay. The foreknowledge machine is an interesting concept. I'm not sure if I got it right, though.

If I got the gist, I think your claim is that a foreknowledge machine will only show future events that would not be/are not changed by the observer. Or anyone or anything. And that if a 'successful' result of an event is not shown, that is, no clear result is shown, it should not be attempted. Is this the case? This seems to imply that many future events can only be observed at most once. Indeed, that many (most? almost all?) future events cannot be observed at all with such a machine. Unless perhaps there is only one foreknowledge machine, and its results are not shared.

Like to know if I got this right. Thanks.

OH, yes. Thanks for your observation, and your helpful scale. I am not down-voting either.

Charles

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for stopping by and conversing with me. I first want to say that I really meant obvious lack of integrity. While self-interest and obvious lack of integrity are two different things, I think maybe putting "obvious lack of integrity" on everyone's page might have been a bit too much. However, whenever a person tolerates an obvious lack of integrity, it is at the service of self-interest gone mad. That's why I used one to imply the other.

I have no problem with self-interest. Every time I stop my bicycle to avoid a car, I am exercising self-interest, so we are in total agreement about your excellent statement: "If we cannot harness self interest as a species, we will by no means be able to 'steer humanity'."

Now, in my opinion, self-interest is best served by giving each article the rating it deserves, not by trashing articles without reading them which happen to have high ratings at a given time. (A practice which is known by more than one of us to have happened here.) I'm sure that you're not saying such behavior is a productive way for human beings to act.

Now, you giving me a low rating for the considered reason you did would naturally go along with giving it the appropriate low rating number you believed it deserves, in your opinion, which I trust is the procedure you followed. In which case, you did nothing unethical and at the same time you did what you believe, so I applaud it.

Now, as far as the practicality of my idea is concerned, I wonder how many people would consider the idea of cell phones to be practical in 1879? Only approximately 110 years later, cell phones were starting to become a widespread phoneomenon (yes, that is a real typo, but it was so funny I decided to leave it), and look at where they are today. Practicality is not a good measure of the usefulness of an idea if one allows themselves to think in terms of decades or centuries of progressive surprising developments.

I have to give a reply I've given many times before. Foreknowledge machines do not forecast or predict anything. They see the future as it will happen, or if they encounter an interference viewing scenario they give only vague information or fail to operate. So, foreknowledge machines cannot be described as prediction machines to any extent, even though a person could be wildly successful by using one claim that they have made predictions. However, a person who uses a foreknowledge machine and then claims to make predictions about what he has seen would be lying: They have not predicted anything, because the foreknowledge machine has not predicted anything. When a person receives viewer foreknowledge and knows that it is viewer foreknowledge within a complete theory of foreknowledge machines and sufficient experience with the machines themselves, they would know they have seen the future for exactly what it will be.

Here's a parallel: Can you claim to predict something you have just seen in a telescope? That would be an absurd word to use. You can predict that your friend with good eyesight will also see a distant fixed object when she looks in a telescope locked to a tripod, but once having seen it, to express that you "predict" the thing itself is wrong. I do use the term "predictively useful" in my paper, but if I ever use it again it will be only used with the following qualification: A foreknowledge machine would certainly be predictively useful, but it would not predict anything.

I never knew how important it would be to clarify this distinction until interacting with everyone here on FQXi, and I really am thankful for all the important feedback.

I have your paper on my spreadsheet to read now. Thanks for your message, responding to it was enjoyable and it has produced a statement that is likely to be very informative to anyone who might read it. All the best to you!

Aaron

Hi Aaron,

As I promised in my Essay page, I have read your nice Essay. Here are my comments/questions:

1) "Displaying for its operator every possible future, but could not show which one will occur" is similar to the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics. This should be the Bohr's point of view, while the Cassandra machines should represent Einstein's point of view. I think you suggest a third, intermediate point of view. Something like "a deterministic quantum mechanics".

2) I like your statement that "One must realize that we are still at a very early stage of science and technology". In science we need both humility and optimism.

3) Don't you think that it is, in a certain sense, a full circle that a case wherein an individual or group helps to bring certain future outcomes to fruition, based upon what has been learned in viewer foreknowledge?

4) What is the difference between "unmistakable viewer foreknowledge" and "effectively unmistakable viewer foreknowledge"?

5) What is called "second-time-around fallacy" in philosophy is called "chronology protection conjecture" in physics.

6) When Kurt Gödel have shown that closed timelike curves could in principle exist in general relativity, Einstein claimed that "such a potential existence gives me shivers running down my spine"

7) On one hand, the idea that the future will steer humanity looks intriguing. On the other and, don't you think that removing the element of surprise could mean that life will become bore? See also point 3).

In any case, your Essay enjoyed me a lot. Thus, I give you an high score.

Best luck in the contest.

Cheers, Ch.

    Aaron,

    I've returned as promised now the buttons at the top seems to be working again. I agree all scores are too low due to the rule breaching 1's flying about. I've refused to join 'tit for tat' and derived a cunning plan which I've suggested to Brendan; anyone giving a 1 (or poss any very low score) where clearly not warranted has it removed and applied to their own essay! That may eradicate the dishonest practice completely.

    Anyway, your own fair and well deserved score is now applied.

    Best wishes.

    Peter

    If you're not using your machine full time may I borrow or hire it for a day?

    Dear AAron,

    In my last article that I wrote for COSMOLOGY (it is still under peer review) I created a "time-machine" that is in fact an "Eternal Now Hopper" so it could also be used as a time machine.

    I quote you the text just for fun:

    quote

    5. Time-Travel Becomes "ETERNAL -NOW- MOMENT HOPPING"

    The splitting in the original Many Worlds I interpretation goes only forward in time, not backwards. In our conception it IS possible that our consciousness "activates" Eternal Now Moments from other time/life-lines (or from parallel available universes) . Should this mean that time travel is possible ? Yes but...should we call this phenomenon time-travel ?

    What we are understanding as time-travel in this causal time/life line always leads to the well-known paradoxes like killing your grand-father. (What a mentality !!!) These paradoxes however are no longer problematic when we apply the perception of Total Simultaneity. Then time-travel in the past and/or the future would become ENM-Hopping, and the so called "physical" time/life-line (in our memory) continues normally. Our consciousness is able not only to hop from one ENM to another but also line up these ENM's and in this way creating for itself the best possible past and future, Real Free Will resides in TS.

    The extension of our Free Will lies in the extension of our consciousness and so in a closer contact with our NCC in order to realize more choices in the ENM availabilities. We think that the a future coupling of the quantum-computer and our brain will be an opening.

    In the article "Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules..." 16 Prof. Nick E. Mavromatos, proposed that :

    "For the first time there is concrete evidence for quantum entanglement over relatively large distances in living matter at ambient temperature, which suggests a rather non-trivial role of quantum physics in path optimization for energy and information transport" :

    (http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/329/1/012026) (14) ,

    It becomes clear that quantum entanglement and decoherence time, which are for the construction and the operational qualities of quantum computers the main issues, these qualities are are already available in our own brains inside the Cell Microtubules (MT).

    (decoherence = The particles that make up a computer interact with surroundings, so that information is spreading out, which means: this effect is spoiling quantum computations, (to decohere = lose their quantum properties)).

    Regarding the "macroscopic" aspect : Recent experiments on atoms in salt crystals have shown that an amount of 1020 atoms formed a hugely entangled state. Vlatko Vedral in "Living in a Quantum World" (Scientific American , June 2011) and "Progress Article Quantifying entanglement in Macroscopic Systems" (June 2008 Nature 453, 1004-1007 : http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7198/full/nature07124.html .(21). Quantum Bit Storage is advancing not only in the macroscopic way but now also scientists have succeeded to retrieve coherent information for extended times (39 minutes) at room-temperature. See Kamyar Saeedi et al in "Room-Temperature Quantum Bit Storage Exceeding 39 Minutes Using Ionized Donors in Silicon-28" http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6160/830 (22)

    Our brains are RWA (Ready Willing and Able) to perform quantum states that when brought in coherence with a quantum computer. This will enable us to realize "ENM-Hopping".

    Figure 4 : the Construction of an ENM-Hopper/Time-machine

    When we are regarding the quantum computer as proposed before with 1,000 qubits, we see that in organizing such a "machine" we have to be able to control the "decoherence". May be we solve this decoherence problem by using the "technique" that the Microtubules are applying inside our brains or we can realize the 103 dimensional solution (see page 9) which is direct contact with TS, and needs only ONE particle . If we could arrange one of those experiments , the next step would be to create an entanglement between the "cells" of the Quantum-computer and the Microtubules of our brains. The 10300 answers residing in the Quantum Computer would then direct be "available" for our Brain. We saw already that we did even need not to put it "on", it is like entanglement an immediate process without "processing time".

    By combining the same kind of technique as our microtubules are using; namely Ca2 ions, and applying for example the the technique to entangle salt crystals or maybe Ca2 ions in a quantum computer, we would be able to establish an entanglement between these Ca2 ions in the brain and in the computer . Of course there are still a lot of problems to be resolved. The salt crystals were reaching entanglement in using a specific magnetic field, so the brain and the quantum device should be both in the same magnetic field, a field wich has not to damage the brain.

    Once we should have realized this "unification" with the quantum computer we as human beings would have direct available the 10300 answers that are "availabilities" in the quantum computer. These are the same kind of availabilities as those in Total Simultaneity, so the path would be open to "access" them in the way that our non-causal consciousness is achieving this.

    This means that we could HOP to other Eternal Now Moments, also those who seem to be in the past and/or future of our actual time/life-line, we then have extended our Free Will.

    unquote

    If you want I will sent the whole article on your private mail, mine is wilhelmus.d@orange.fr see also my contribution in this contest "STEERING THE FUTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS", as aphilosopher you may like it.

    I like the quote of Shakespeare, I was unaware of this , thank you for that.

    About the rating you are quite right, so I hope that you will find some time to read my essay (link above) and leave a comment that refers to the essay on my thread, I would be obiged if you gave it also a rating in accordance with your appreciation.

    best regerds

    Wilhelmus

    Dear Aaron,

    In responding to your invitation, I've read and rated your essay.

    I think it is interesting and well written. Your idea is valuable but in my view, only theoretically: I don't think that obtaining information from the future is physically feasible. Anyway, who knows?

    Moreover, I think that it is very difficult to predict the effects of such a machine. Who would have access to it? Everybody? How people would react if free will is only an illusion?

    I have also discussed about the double-slit experiment in my essay, from a different perspective.

    Regards,

    Aitor Elorza

    Aaron,

    I managed to read you essay. Fascinating. I fear for the future, particularly now the future of physics. The guilty seem blind to how low they've sunk. It's endemic, almost a pandemic. If your machine can give us the vision to wake thm up it can save humanity! Nicely written. I'm marking it now. I hope you do well.

    Judy

    5) I will have to think about how this works more carefully, since I'm not sure I understand how this would work.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Okay. My ebook on Amazon will help a lot in this effort, it is far more detailed than my FQXi offering.

    6) It will be interesting to see who's right. I agree that in some ways technology develops exponentially--if that's what you're suggesting--but I also think that qualitative advances become exponentially harder to achieve in some areas. Projects that require infrastructure or use high energies can be particularly slow. I am afraid at this point we may not even have controlled fusion in 20 years.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    As always, time will tell.

    7) You seem to be using distinguishing prediction from foreknowledge in a technical way that wasn't clear to me when I first read your essay. But in any case this is where I think I most strongly disagree with you. A viewing technology that is sometimes wrong can still be tremendously useful. It won't be useful--and may even be harmful--in the specific case where it is wrong. But on balance--if the error rate is low and roughly known--it can be very valuable. Consider diagnostic tests. These routinely produce both false negatives and false positives. But if the error rate is low enough they are still an invaluable tool of medicine. Our actual telescopes inevitably distort images, but nevertheless remain useful to us. I doubt that any machine can run without producing errors. We should certainly seek to minimize observational errors. But we can live with some. In fact, I think we have to.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    This is a topic concerning which I sense we are approaching an accord. I very much appreciate your exceptionally clear thoughts and questions.

    You raise a vital point above, that if a future-viewing machine were to show an incorrect future, the result could be harmful. This is very true and important. Now, if viewer foreknowledge is to be a category of foreknowledge at all, it must be distinguished by being definite and 100% correct. This is because, a future viewer does not generate any kind of prediction or approximation, it provides a direct image. Now, whatever a future viewer may image is 100% whatever it happens to be (in its own time). So, how could an image of that thing depict something else, even something which only differs from the original by 1%?

    Here we come to an issue that will serve to clarify. Viewer foreknowledge of an event could be repeatedly received from all angles, and from very close up. One should be able to count the number of pores on someone's nose in viewer foreknowledge--its resolution could even potentially be extended much more. How could such a kind of technology sometimes be wrong? If viewer foreknowledge were ever wrong, then it would have to be systematically wrong. However, how could it be systematically wrong, if it is just a direct image that can be tremendously zoomed in according to the operator's whim?

    You mention diagnostic tests. Yet, I think you now see that what I am proposing is not a test of the future: viewer foreknowledge is full access to the future, as many times as one wishes to see, and with enough detail to satisfy anyone that it is genuine. Yes, it may be a fantasy, but this is the kind of technology I have in mind.

    As before, Robert, thanks for your insights and questions. I'd like to know how your thoughts are evolving on these topics when you find the time. All the best!

    Aaron

    Dear Aaron,

    Your name came to limelight by your invitation on my wall. I have replied your comments on rating issue wrote about. Since you will revisit the essay it is needless to paste it here again! Please kindly read it.

    About your essay, I can see that you have a concept. And I do commend you for that instinct. I have also rated you!

    I want you to read mine STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND ECOSYSTEM See the link here http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2020

    I anticipate your comments and rating as well.

    Wishing you the best in this competition.

    Regards

    Gbenga

    Hi Christian,

    Glad you enjoyed my work. I look forward to reading yours soon.

    Thanks for putting your questions and comments in a numbered list, so here I go point by point:

    1) "Displaying for its operator every possible future, but could not show which one will occur" is similar to the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics. This should be the Bohr's point of view, while the Cassandra machines should represent Einstein's point of view. I think you suggest a third, intermediate point of view. Something like "a deterministic quantum mechanics".

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    That's a cool observation. Yes, some kind of deterministic quantum mechanics is indeed the most attractive kind of interpretation of quantum mechanics in my opinion. My favorite paper about quantum interpretation is called "Quantum mechanics of measurement" by N.J. Cerf and C. Adami (1997). I've gotten something new and valuable every time I've read it, but I would probably need a Ph.D. in physics to be able to understand all of it.

    2) I like your statement that "One must realize that we are still at a very early stage of science and technology". In science we need both humility and optimism.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Yes, I'm glad you like it. Every generation seems to fancy themselves as somehow finally being at the pinnacle of progress, and every generation which believes such a thing is wrong.

    3) Don't you think that it is, in a certain sense, a full circle that a case wherein an individual or group helps to bring certain future outcomes to fruition, based upon what has been learned in viewer foreknowledge?

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Yes, that's the (self-consistent) nature of it.

    4) What is the difference between "unmistakable viewer foreknowledge" and "effectively unmistakable viewer foreknowledge"?

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Glad you asked. Technical note six offers a number of methods that FM operators might use to confirm instances of viewer foreknowledge, as such. So, "effectively unmistakable viewer foreknowledge" simply refers to viewer foreknowledge that can only be recognized as such after these techniques are used. Since, it is unmistakable in the end, I thought a good term would be effectively unmistakable. This term of convenience would not have been necessary if there was no length restriction for the essay--in that case, technical note six would have been part of the text.

    5) What is called "second-time-around fallacy" in philosophy is called "chronology protection conjecture" in physics.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Well, there is a definite distinction between the two. From Wikipedia: "The chronology protection conjecture is a conjecture by the physicist Professor Stephen Hawking that the laws of physics are such as to prevent time travel on all but sub-microscopic scales." However, the second-time-around fallacy essentially states that it is a fallacy to imagine that the past can be altered in a do-over initiated by the visit of a time traveler. The second-time-around fallacy is perfectly consistent with widespread use of pastward time travel, because time travel does not involve even the possibility of making changes to the past. That's why, on page 6, I refer to "time travel paradoxes" as a misnomer. They should henceforward be called "past alteration paradoxes," since the paradoxical results that have mistakenly been associated with time travel could only emerge from changes to the past, yet genuine time travel would strictly forbid any changes to the past whatsoever.

    6) When Kurt Gödel have shown that closed timelike curves could in principle exist in general relativity, Einstein claimed that "such a potential existence gives me shivers running down my spine"

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    That seems like an appropriate response to what was, in my opinion, one of the most important scientific developments of the 20th Century.

    7) On one hand, the idea that the future will steer humanity looks intriguing. On the other and, don't you think that removing the element of surprise could mean that life will become bore? See also point 3).

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    When foreknowledge machine technology is well-understood and has long been applied for maximum effect, if such a day ever comes, I really don't think it will be boring to know that one's children will grow up in a world that will be safe all their lives, without war, systematic oppression, corruption, or famine. To my way of thinking, that sounds like the opposite of boring.

    Christian, thanks very much for your comments and questions. We could certainly do this again, if you should find that you have more.

    Warmly,

    Aaron

    Hi Aaron,

    I've given you that rating you deserve. Haven't had time yet to get your book from Amazon. I keep getting lots of ideas which I turn into articles at my page on vixra.org. My computer screen turned pink 6 months ago, and is extremely hard to read now, so I hope your book is available in printed form.

    Regards,

    Rodney

    Dear Feeney,

    You see? I told you you'll be bombarded. Yours is a bold essay.

    What I personally find intriguing (even frustrating) is that without having before set a camera therein we cannot just walk into a room and decide to view say its past 1 hour or 30 minutes etc. Feeney, once we can get a method to zoom in and out of space-time then future and past viewing will become one. In fact I wager that past viewing in this sense will be far more useful because it will revolutionize crime investigation, privacy, etc.

    Now to the practical side, isn't a conservation law actually kind of a natural future knowledge "machine"?

    In other words, to adopt a different "conservation law" (universal constant) is to adopt a different observer/space-time.

    I take this approach , so you can understand that our thesis somehow merge, namely: man will be then the "space-time" i.e. the de facto unit for measuring/predicting space and time.

    I appreciate your statement that: "...not only will viewer foreknowledge eliminate the uncertainty and deception that warfare requires for its existence, it will also gradually eliminate the concept of collective enemies."

    In your own words I'll say, your essay was very good and I learnt a lot!

    Chidi

    Dear Aaron!

    I read your essay. It is well written, and yes theoretically or factually there may be already 'future viewing machines' in operation.

    However, there are some crucial questions worth considering applying such kind of 'machines'.

    1. Everything start there - we all are able to control at least estimate the possible outcomes of our own thoughts, before inventing any kind of technology.

    2. Is there a necessity to establish over us a sophisticated intelligence who controls our thoughts?

    3. As a human can't you enjoy when happening getting some surprise?

    As per my consideration, because every past experience action, event based on thoughts and the thoughts can be changed, so the past unfortunately can't be fixed also the future can't be predicted unambiguously. Everything is tested in a present moment of thinkers' actual focus but based on their individual experiences and controlling or not their own thoughts, and that is what very difficult to predict using only a human mind.

    I offer you some links for your further reading:

    How to time travel

    Rumored Technology

    Paycheck - film

    Fred Allan Wolf - material

    Damien Broderick Living in the future right now

    Kind regards,

    Valeria

    Dear Aaron,

    You have requested me reading your essay, make comment and rate you which I have done, but you promised to reciprocate the same but I am yet to see you do all these. STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND ECOSYSTEM use this direct link http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2020

    Expect you you.

    Wishing you the best as said earlier.

    Regards

    Gbenga