Aaron, I love a good logic puzzle, and I love the way you constructed this one -- separating the possible from the actual.

What stands out for me, is that any possible future viewer machine rules out quantum entanglement and collapse of the wave function as real physical phenomena. For if Everett viewing can never be actual, information at the boundary of branching events exists always in the unactualized future.

Which only leaves the classically based future viewer hinted in your reference: "We shall embody this viewpoint in a principle of self-consistency, which states that the only solutions to the laws of physics that can occur locally in the real Universe are those which are globally self-consistent. This principle allows one to build a local solution to the equations of physics only if that local solution can be extended to be part of a (not necessarily unique) global solution... (Friedman, et al., 1990)."

Indeed, I think quantum computing models that exploit quantum discord approach this global threshold, finding a unique solution from the slightest coherence of a very noisy system. The noise may actually force a unique solution, suggesting cooperating quantum particles rather than random motion. I have long thought about the results of the single-photon-at-a-time experiment you reference, in this context. Most theorists are still trying to save entanglement; I do not think they will succeed.

In the same classical way, I suggest that cooperating least elements of any system exploit the local-global identity, such that system-wide, future and past states exist everywhere parallel. So I guess I prefer that, as Antoine de Saint-Exupery put it, "(Our) task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it."

Great piece -- high score from me!

Best,

Tom

To All,

Thank you FQXi and everyone here for such an amazing forum for new ideas to help our struggling world. More specifically I want to thank all the wonderful thinkers I've interacted with here, who have given me so much to think about and who have helped me refine and clarify my work. A special thanks also goes out to whoever thought of this year's fascinating and important topic.

This has been an unforgettable experience, for which I will forever be grateful.

Sincerely,

Aaron

A new solution to "Fermi's paradox":

In very concept, a technology capable of allowing future events to be viewed and analyzed beforehand (in contexts where doing so is logically possible) would automatically ensure peace and cooperation among all interacting groups who possess it, even among civilizations from distant star systems who have just met for the first time. Some of the reasons for this have been explained in "Removing the Element of Surprise," and have implicitly been much more deeply explicated in the earlier and longer work, Understanding Future-Viewing Machines and Time Travel.

In these writings, after the most basic imagined kind of future-viewing machine has been shown to be in violation of logical possibility, and after another kind (which is at least logically possible) has been shown to be useless for revealing outcomes, a third kind of future-viewing machine which is both logically possible and which would be of enormous utility is described. This third kind of future-viewing machine is referred to as a foreknowledge machine.

One of the most critical insights to relate about the use of foreknowledge machines is that they would tend to strongly amplify beneficial world outcomes, while all feasibly preventable negative world outcomes would be virtually eliminated. Do not misunderstand what this means: While the utilization of foreknowledge machines would factor strongly into the development of future outcomes, the future would by no means have been changed through their use. Instead, the future that would emerge would necessarily emerge in the context of their use, from the very start.

What kind of future would we all agree to create together, if we knew everything about that future beforehand? Answering this question allows one to realize the kind of relationship with the future that foreknowledge machines would bring about. This is because, in the context of a civilization which uses foreknowledge machines, in cases where definite information about the future is received, such examples of viewer foreknowledge (a term defined in either work) can only pertain to a future they are inspired to produce or accept. If the future they see would have been feasible for them to diverge from, they would produce or accept it because it (or the future they know it will lead to) is desirable to them. (Any future that is simply not feasible for them to prevent, will have to accepted by default.)

The chief variables which contribute to what would be seen involve who has access to viewer foreknowledge before a given event, and who acts in accord with that knowledge prior to its occurrence, either knowingly (based upon it) or unknowingly (through command structures or subtler social influences). Of course, the most cohesive and powerfully beneficial results would occur if an entire civilization became united in mind and purpose through universal access to key aspects of viewer foreknowledge.

It should be clear that, if foreknowledge machines are indeed physically possible (and there are ample reasons for believing that they are), the above points sufficiently illustrate why civilizations everywhere who eventually develop them will choose to incorporate their use into every aspect of their conduct.

This constellation of concepts leads to a new solution to "Fermi's paradox." Any civilization who uses foreknowledge machines would likely choose to not make their existence known to (at least the whole of) another civilization which has yet to (at least secretly) adopt foreknowledge machine technology. In other words, future-sighted civilizations would choose to essentially remain hidden from future-blind civilizations. This measure would not be taken out of fear, but due to compassion. Were a future-sighted civilization to reveal themselves to a future-blind civilization, this would invite the possibility of conflict. However, note that conflict is both undesirable and easily avoidable.

With reflection, it gradually becomes apparent that mutual future-sightedness (at least on some level) is the only context that a future-sighted civilization would deem appropriate for revealing themselves to a new civilization. Also, they would certainly not want to rob a future-blind civilization of the formative experience of discovering future-sightedness for themselves. So, in general, future-sighted civilizations would naturally choose to stay hidden from any future-blind civilizations they might discover.

Now, a newly future-sighted civilization (as we may soon become) would, in the course of its grand transformation, quickly find itself in a wonderful position. Soon after gaining future-sightedness, they would come to know, well ahead of time, when first contact would subsequently happen, and this foreknowledge would give them time to prepare mentally. After their momentous achievement, every future-sighted civilization who has learned of their transition would be eager to joyously meet, congratulate, and welcome their long-lost relatives into the larger community.

With all of these considerations in mind, it seems that graduating from the future-blind stage could very well be a universally understood prerequisite to first contact for civilizations everywhere. In addition to all the other benefits future-sightedness offers, the eventual development of foreknowledge machine technology might also, in fact, be the only way for us to end our cosmic loneliness.