Hi Tommy,

Thank you for reading my article. I enjoyed your entertaining story, and it is clear that you put a great deal of thought into it. Of course, in addition to being a story it is also meant to constitute an objection. As an objection, I will show that it misses the mark. It will be shown that it is not a story about the technology I specify in my article.

First of all, your story discuss the concept of prediction. However, foreknowledge machines do not predict anything (for essential further details about this, see my response to Michael Allan at the top of the page). This is the case insofar as there are only two outcomes possible. Either they show the future exactly as it will happen (i.e., they provide viewer foreknowledge), or, if they encounter an interference viewing scenario, they could provide only ambiguous information (if they would operate at all).

The other place where the story diverges from foreknowledge machine technology is found in the quote, "every single scenario submitted to the Machine was now being returned as not confirmed." No scenarios are submitted to a foreknowledge machine. Instead, a 4-D spacetime coordinate is dialed in as a viewpoint, and a polar coordinate is selected to specify the direction in which to view from that viewpoint. Then, the machine would either provide viewer foreknowledge, or not.

In light of these two clear differences, I think you will see that your story was about a technology other than what I was describing. What you described is very similar to what was depicted in the movie Paycheck, which I think you will enjoy immensely, as I did. However, that film was riddled with inconsistencies. For a much better story, which is perfectly consistent, read Philip K. Dick's short story of the same title--though the two plots barely resemble one another.

Aaron

Hi. No, not really a great deal of thought, I typed it out immediately after reading your essay.

Regarding your objections, the predictions in this little story are not produced by the machine. They are produced by submitters who want to have them verified by the Machine, typically as part of a scenario which may require the verification of multiple predictions. A simple example given in your essay is the prediction that an airplane will arrive at destination according to schedule.

So no, I do not agree that there are "clear differences".

The serious point here is that your proposal for taming the potential risks of the hypothetical Foreknowledge machine is incomplete. If the machine consistently fails to provide foreknowledge about an exhaustive range of desired outcomes, you will know that something undesired will happen, even if you do not try to directly obtain foreknowledge of the undesired outcome.

My little story is about a particularly simple case in which all foreknowledge proves unobtainable beyond a certain date, thus identifying that date as The End, ironically due to a sequence of events caused by the very existence of the Foreknowledge machine. It's written in jest, but it exploits a real hole in your argument.

Hi Georgina,

Thank you for reading my essay. I would like to respond to your second sentence: "The kind of foreknowledge machine that you have said can be made just shows all of the possible outcomes."

There are two things here. The machine you have described is called an Everett machine, a foreknowledge machine is something else entirely. Yes, I do say that an Everett machine is logically possible, but I also say that a foreknowledge machine is logically possible, and that a foreknowledge machine is the only kind of future-viewing machine that would be of tremendous value. The key to the whole article is never losing sight of the definition given for the term "viewer foreknowledge."

I am glad you have indicated that you haven't rated my article yet, because I believe that when you skim it with the above clarifications in mind, you will be able to assess it for what it attempts to express within the 25,000 character limit. (Also of relevance in this context, I am in the process of adding a postscript to my community letter, so you will get that in a few minutes as well.)

Warmly,

Aaron

Hi Tommy,

Please explain this hole you perceive further. Remember, the example about the airplane does not involve a prediction at all. One gains foreknowledge from a FM, not prediction. Prediction is something we do now. After foreknowledge machines are invented, if they are invented, prediction will be a term reserved only for the scientific method or for activities where foreknowledge machines are not used or cannot be used. In a world where foreknowledge machines are in widespread use, meteorologists and seismologists will no longer be necessary, or even useful, in their traditional roles. Their skills could be applied to something useful, and then no more would be trained after they retire. Please re-read my paper with these concepts in mind, and if you continue to see some hole, I would love to hear what you have discovered. This is a helpful process for me, and I thank you.

Aaron

I just wanted to ad this too, in response to a few quotations from your last message:

"Regarding your objections, the predictions in this little story are not produced by the machine."

Yes, I understood that the first time, but no one would need to make a prediction in a world where they know what will happen. All there would be is 4-D viewpoints and whether you can get viewer foreknowledge from that viewpoint.

"They are produced by submitters who want to have them verified by the Machine, typically as part of a scenario which may require the verification of multiple predictions. A simple example given in your essay is the prediction that an airplane will arrive at destination according to schedule."

I never wrote that anyone would *predict* that an airplane would arrive safely. Instead, some operator who works for the airlines would look to see if a given flight *will arrive safely,* and if they are unable to see that it will arrive safely, they cancel the flight. No one would have to predict anything anymore, so no one would submit anything to the machine to verify.

Oops, I'm typing too fast... In the last message I meant "add this too," but I guess Freud would say that I am, after all, somewhat in the business of advertising for foreknowledge machines.

Thank you, Torsten! I'm glad you liked it so much. I look forward to your further thoughts. I have now put your article in my spreadsheet, to read and rate. Have a great weekend.

Aaron

Very interesting essay, Aaron. I think your ideas are valuable, although I have my doubts about the feasibility and value of a foreknowledge machine. A few thoughts:

1) I don't think a Cassandra machine is possible either, but I don't think you demonstrate this logically. Your thought experiment seems to me to assume that the machine that executes the program on the basis of the Cassandra machines input cannot go wrong. But I don't think you can assume that any physical machine is perfect.

2) I didn't understand your explanation of why we see/remember the past but not the future. I don't think the speed of light is the issue, since the laws of physics seem to be CPT-invariant (essentially, should run the same forward as backward).

3) I would add, however, that we probably can't have foreknowledge of events--like a wave of radiation from a gamma-ray burst--traveling toward us at light speed.

4) Even if foreknowledge machines are logically possible, they may not be physically possible. The obstacles may not be philosophical, but physical. And even if there is some way to observe the future from the present, we may lose a lot of resolution at any distance through time.

5) I found the idea that foreknowledge machines would end war intriguing. You are right that countries that go to war generally (but not always) do so because they disagree about what the outcome will be. But it seems to me--perhaps I have misunderstood what you are trying to say here--that outcomes that depend on the human use of information about the future are precisely the kind that a foreknowledge machine couldn't foresee.

6) Even if a foreknowledge machine were possible, I would be very surprised if this was something we could develop in 20 or 30 years.

7) I agree that better predictive technology would be valuable. But machines that are occasionally wrong are still extremely useful if their error rates are low. We don't necessarily need theoretically perfect foresight.

In any case, I enjoyed reading your essay. I'm rating it now. Good luck in the contest!

Best,

Robert

    Aaron, I think Tommy's saying we could discover the time of a future catastrophy, or one that's merely apparent. Suppose the machine shows all flights landing safely (as you say), but only till 9:13 p.m. tomorrow. Thereafter it returns no view for any flight in the world, nor any other class of future outcome. Naturally we infer a global catastrophy tomorrow night. That inference might be wrong, but it frightens people and causes them to act in dangerous ways, perhaps with catastrophic consequences. Hence the diagnosis, "Killed by self-fulfilling prophecy". - Mike

    Hi Mike,

    I see what you are saying, and it does serve to make sense of what Tommy was suggesting with his story. However, this kind of behavior is not in the repertoire of a FM. The technology would not operate haphazardly. It would either give viewer foreknowledge (i.e., definite and correct information), or there would be an interference viewing scenario (IVS).

    Now, if one were to ask what would happen if an impenetrable IVS were to confront all FMs that try to see what will happen at and beyond a certain future date, by definition, this would mean that there is no way for any FM to give any instance of definite information about such future events that could possibly also be correct. Meanwhile, FM operators who don't share or act on what they see, by definition, will always get viewer foreknowledge of every future event (apart from their own actions, for obvious reasons).

    So, in order to sustain such an idea, one must devise some kind of unerring constraint which makes the revelation of definite and correct information about future worldwide outcomes impossible. At each juncture, if there is any possibility whatsoever of a match between the sharing of a given instance of viewer foreknowledge and the event it foretells, then such a day will never occur. Since, with worldwide events, there is so much "play" between a given viewing instance and the future 4-D coordinates that operators will attempt to view, any insurmountable constraints of such a nature would be fleeting at best. They may occur in some isolated circumstances, though I don't know of any, but such a state simply could not occur across the board for all future events beyond a certain date--unless everything was dependent upon a huge event that also happened to be perfectly obscured by a worldwide IVS.

    It is difficult in the extreme to devise such a scenario. If you, Tommy, or anyone else can come up with such a scenario for a worldwide outcome, I will be grateful for a new puzzle to work on. If you would like to delve into this and many other topics further, I invite you to consider my inexpensive Kindle offering on Amazon.

    Now, if you both are making the point that this idea would make people ultra-reliant upon their FMs, to the extent that they would really freak out if something went wrong with all the FMs in the world, I agree. However, FMs would have to be as reliable as telescopes, microscopes, and eyes for them to ever be adopted in the first place. I'm sure people would freak out if everyone's eyes suddenly no longer worked someday, but no one would consider such a scenario--ceteris paribus--to be realistic in the slightest. I argue that we are dealing with the same kind of thing here.

    Thank you for your stimulating comments, I really appreciate the help that you and everyone else in this forum has been providing. Have a nice weekend.

    Aaron

    Hi Aaron,

    That's quite an interesting analysis. I think I couldn't help but take your foreknowledge machines as a metaphor for the scientific project. In this way its an interesting analysis. In particular a Cassandra machine illustrates the concept of how as we know more, we can appear less and less able to cheat fate because our predictions are inevitable, and at they same time they grow in number.

    It almost made me think that at least in its use as a metaphor, a foreknowlege machine implies the viewer as an active participant, rather than a separate observer. That is, in viewing the future in enough detail, they are able to trace some of the events back to their own decisions (or decisions of others that they might influence). In this sense it doesn't disempower us as often depicted in scifi/fantasy, but instead links the future to our own actions, giving us the control to shape our own destiny. That's not to imply that our choices are somehow removed or separate from causality, but merely that our choices are a powerful part of causal reality that shapes our fate.

    Perhaps science and foreknowledge machines are different then, in that science can never wholely predict an event that in turn relies on the choice we make, if that choice relies on our observation of the event. In other words, a discrete future prediction is inherently paradoxical, but a probabilistic one that refers to our choices is not only possible but desirable!

    Your essay was certainly different, and certainly thought provoking. Thanks!

    Maybe I'm not thinking clearly (I began by claiming that foreknowledge is impossible, and now I'm claiming it pretty much exists already) but here are my thoughts on: A) observer's built-in time viewers; B) fossils, future fossils and the form of foreknowledge; C) will as close-foreknowledge machine; and D) myth as eternity viewer.

    A. There's a "present viewer" built into the observer that's generally obligatory. Most other viewers (past, present and future) are viewable only through it. It's also error prone. I'm not sure this is helpful, but maybe we could say that the problem Tommy is pointing to (May 9, if actually a problem) is caused by these in-built errors being amplified by the foreknowledge machine.

    The observer also has built-in past viewers and future viewers, these being the only other ones that are accessible directly, i.e. without intermediation of the built-in present viewer. All are likewise error prone.

    B. A fossil is a past viewer, a kind of back-knowledge machine. Switching to foreknowledge then, what might a "future fossil" look like?

    For me, this was a fruitful question.

    C. The human will (or "practical reason" as Kant calls it) seems very close to a foreknowledge machine. Its accuracy is variable, but often high and under one's control. With effort, one can usually increase the accuracy to whatever is needed. When my tea cup is empty, I often activate my will to obtain a "view" of a cup refilled. Soon after, an actual refilled cup materializes. It materializes surely enough that I'd gain nothing by moving to the certainty of a foreknowledge machine. For most purposes (here echoing Robert, May 10, no. 7), the close-foreknowledge machine of the will seems adequate.

    Interestingly, it can have any range in time.

    D. I think of myth as a fusion of back-knowledge and foreknowledge, a kind of Janus-faced time viewer of unlimited range. The thesis of my own essay is that it's possible to construct a myth of near-perfect accuracy in its further reaches (very close to foreknowledge there), and that it's also necessary.

    I've some related thoughts on backward time travel (it too seems to be happening already), which I hope to share after I re-read the essay. But judging by how often I think about it, it's already the most interesting of the essays I've read. - Mike

    Dear Aaron,

    I wrote a comment here, but for some reason it went to nirvana. I'm writing again, but now in short.

    I find your essay interesting. There are 2 intertwined issues, I think: outcomes and decisions, which generate an information overload that place limits on practicability. However, your essay interests me more in the foundational side, and I will be rating it based on that solely. I think that removing time travel from your essay would bring it a better rating, but I will not place weight on the latter on my rating, but more on the idea of foreknowledge machines.

    Best,

    Christine

    Aaron,

    It is difficult to find time to read over 150 essays carefully. I read yours in response to your comment on my essay page about the Community Rating system. While I would like to read your essay through more carefully before final rating, I understand that your essay focuses on the possibility of a foreknowledge machine, essentially a simulator that runs faster than real-time, so that we may accurately predict the future. Further, you make an interesting argument that people would behave better if they knew what the results of their actions might be. While I agree that more accurate information is generally better, people often do not behave rationally, even in the presence of reliable predictions. For example, the evidence of anthropomorphic global warming follows from extensive computer simulations of the global climate system. These simulations are scientifically well established, but the long-term implications are widely either denied, ignored, or put aside for future generations to deal with. In my own essay "Just Too Many People: Towards a Sustainable Future Earth", I argue that the key problem facing humanity (and giving rise to a variety of climate and resource problems) is that the global population is already unsustainably large, and must be reduced going forward. This is not a popular argument (as perhaps reflected in the relatively low Community Rating), but the facts speak for themselves.

    Alan Kadin

      Okay...time travel. As a devout quantumologist, I must conclude that traveling to the future as a way of predicting the future from the present is necessarily futile. QM tells us that there are a very large number of possible futures, but we only ever know one future. Your future viewer would only see one of those futures or would see a superposition of all of the them and therefore also not be very helpful.

      As you can see, there is no problem with causality since a future viewer would not provide any better information than the physics we already have and so the changes that you cause are already in one of the possible futures anyway.

      • [deleted]

      • Post #36

      Aaron,

      Yes, I see where I have muddled the Everett machine and the later Foreknowledge machine. How does a Foreknowledge future viewer differ from for example a climate model, which will make predictions with an accuracy dependent upon the completeness of the information supplied and thus also computing power available?

      To be honest I find the explanations difficult to get my head around. I don't understand why undesirable outcomes are not viewed because lots of undesirable things happen. What happens to free will if you have to make the outcome match what you have seen happen? Who then is steering the machine or the human mind? There would be no need to consider why choices were made only that they were made, it seems to me. The advantage of a model is it is only indicative of what might happen under certain circumstances and the circumstances can be altered. Steering to avoid them.

      Hi Robert,

      Thanks for reading my work, I look forward to reading your paper after finals in my technical program have concluded next Friday. Thanks also for giving these wonderful points of critique which provide me with another opportunity to clarify.

      I will go point by point:

      1) I don't think a Cassandra machine is possible either, but I don't think you demonstrate this logically. Your thought experiment seems to me to assume that the machine that executes the program on the basis of the Cassandra machines input cannot go wrong. But I don't think you can assume that any physical machine is perfect.

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

      To take what is strictly necessary for my argument to extremes, all that is required to let it go through is the recognition that it is logically possible for a computer to follow a simple program accurately, and for a robotic arm to accurately move a small weight from one location to another. Of course, there is no question that these feats are logically possible, since they are everyday occurrences. The possibility of a malfunction in either of these systems, then, is irrelevant to the conclusiveness of the argument I offer against the logical possibility of Cassandra machines.

      2) I didn't understand your explanation of why we see/remember the past but not the future. I don't think the speed of light is the issue, since the laws of physics seem to be CPT-invariant (essentially, should run the same forward as backward).

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

      I did not comment on this issue. I said that our eyes see events after they happen, but I made not comment as to why our eyes cannot see the future without some kind of aid like a foreknowledge machine.

      3) I would add, however, that we probably can't have foreknowledge of events--like a wave of radiation from a gamma-ray burst--traveling toward us at light speed.

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

      If you are referring to viewer foreknowledge, why not?

      4) Even if foreknowledge machines are logically possible, they may not be physically possible. The obstacles may not be philosophical, but physical. And even if there is some way to observe the future from the present, we may lose a lot of resolution at any distance through time.

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

      True. As far as losing resolution through time, this is an intriguing concept that I have not delved into. Thank you for that.

      (Continued in next post)

      5) I found the idea that foreknowledge machines would end war intriguing. You are right that countries that go to war generally (but not always) do so because they disagree about what the outcome will be. But it seems to me--perhaps I have misunderstood what you are trying to say here--that outcomes that depend on the human use of information about the future are precisely the kind that a foreknowledge machine couldn't foresee.

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

      The essential point is that all foreknowledge machines which are not in an interference viewing scenario will deliver identical viewer foreknowledge when applied to any given future outcome. This means that all parties who use foreknowledge machines will necessarily work together toward the same outcomes, as these outcomes have been optimized for the parties concerned by the complex quantum process which would make viewer foreknowledge possible. Referring to your last sentence above, one must remember the special case of non-interference which occurs when parties who know about a given future act to bring that very future about.

      6) Even if a foreknowledge machine were possible, I would be very surprised if this was something we could develop in 20 or 30 years.

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

      Okay, you would be surprised. According to my knowledge of current technology (and even what was reported in journals twenty years ago), if foreknowledge machines are possible, I would be surprised if it takes our best and most open-minded engineers longer than that to figure out how to make them.

      7) I agree that better predictive technology would be valuable. But machines that are occasionally wrong are still extremely useful if their error rates are low. We don't necessarily need theoretically perfect foresight.

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

      You may know this, but I have to respond in the following way every time someone describes foreknowledge machines as a predictive technology. Foreknowledge machines don't predict anything. One could base predictions on viewer foreknowledge and they would always be right (that is why they would be "predictively useful," to distinguish them from Everett machines which could not help us know anything about which future will come to pass), but foreknowledge machines themselves aren't involved in prediction at all.

      I am now fully convinced that I need to emphasize this distinction much more clearly, since five or six other people have also arrived at the same (understandable) misconception (which I did not sufficiently guard against, as the possibility of confusion here had not occurred to me).

      Now that that is out of the way, I think you may have been expressing that a future-viewing machine which sometimes delivers a view of the future that is wrong would still be useful. However, when would we trust it and when would we assume that it could be wrong? A predictive technology that is sometimes wrong is fine--that's the nature of prediction--but a viewing technology cannot sometimes be wrong, and be useful. That would be like a telescope which sometimes shows Blackbeard and Captain Ahab walking on the deck of a distant ship, when only Blackbeard is on board. See what I mean?

      I look forward your further thoughts. Your comments have been extremely valuable. Thank you once again, and I am keen to read your essay and continue our productive conversation on the work we are both doing to help our fellow humans and the future of our planet.

      Warm regards,

      Aaron

      Hi Alan,

      Thank you for taking the time to read my offering. I will read yours soon as well. I would like to correct the characterization of foreknowledge machines given in the following excerpt: "your essay focuses on the possibility of a foreknowledge machine, essentially a simulator that runs faster than real-time, so that we may accurately predict the future."

      It is important for me to clarify that this is not an accurate description of what a foreknowledge machine would be, since they would not predict anything. Instead, they allow the operator to actually peer into the future to see exactly what will occur (i.e., viewer foreknowledge), or they will encounter an interference viewing scenario. Seeing the future would be "predictively useful," since with such access one could always formulate predictions that would be 100% correct, but doing so would not itself constitute the reception of a prediction.

      This kind of technology may not be physically possible, but it is logically possible. Please skim the article with these clarifications in mind, and pay particular attention to technical note ten. I see clearly now that I must emphasize in future papers or a book on the subject that foreknowledge machines represent the transcendence of prediction. For additional clarification, please read my conversation with Michael Allan at the top of this page. All the best to you here, and in all things.

      Warmly,

      Aaron

      Dear Aaron,

      Very interesting idea, indeed, of a foreknowledge machine.

      The future-viewing machine you propose is very interesting because it seems to incorporate my definition of science. Let me explain:

      Science is about finding causes of results. When we see a result, science can tell us what the root cause(s)of the result are e.g. the air is heating up because we are adding more carbon dioxide. The reverse, the cause seeding the impact, is not always true e.g. if we add carbon dioxide the only result is not warming.

      Your foreknowledge machine seems to correctly predict the result of an action (cause). Am I understanding your thought correctly?

      What is the implication of the fact that different people will have different foreknowledge? If no foreknowledge exists, will the future-viewing machine show any result?

      - Ajay