Questions Too Like the Lightning raised for me, part two

[asakiyume]

Part one is here. The question for part two is Will a Powerful Enough Computer Result in Unerring Predictions?

Annnnnd ... The answer is NO. No, it's not possible to amass enough information to make unerring predictions. It's like the problem of Glinda's record book in the Oz series. Glinda's record book was supposed to list everything that ever happened anywhere in the world, the problem being that to capture every single thing, you'd need a book the size of the universe (that's not even going into the recursive problems of describing the updating going on in the book). Data-based predictions have an added problem, because they assume you understand cause and effect. I'd argue that humanity's propensity for seeing relationships and patterns means that we're actually quite bad at correctly assigning cause and effect--if it's even possible. I sometimes wonder if beyond certain basic physical rules cause and effect might not be illusion. Meaning-creating illusion, but illusion all the same. BUT NOW I'VE SAID TOO MUCH.

Nevertheless, the notion that enough data will let you predict the future is a premise that has evergreen appeal for SF writers. You may remember it from such classics as the Foundation trilogy or The Minority Report. Tangentially, I think it's interesting that these days stories tend to support the premise that your fate is never fixed, whereas in lots of old stories, the opposite is true--like in ancient Greek stories, for example. If there's a prophecy, it will come true.

Comments

[sovay]

Glinda's record book was supposed to list everything that ever happened anywhere in the world, the problem being that to capture every single thing, you'd need a book the size of the universe (that's not even going into the recursive problems of describing the updating going on in the book).

That's actually one of the objections to the currently technocratic-popular theory that we live in a computer simulation of a universe instead of the real thing. You want to render convincing detail down to the subatomic level? You'll need a universe-sized computer. Which for some reason people want to believe is out there. I think they like this theory because it is exactly like the idea of God creating a small self-contained world just for the benefit or trial of humanity, only it's scientific, which makes it better. Creationism with circuits. (I also suspect it is a way of not having to care about the world, because hey, it's just pixels, it's not a real planet, it's not real deaths. There are no consequences. It just feels real. Like the branches of Christianity which insist that the only real world is the world to come, so who cares what damage you do in this life so long as your soul is secured? I realize none of this was the point of your original post, but I really hate this belief and the people who espouse it, both the religious and the technocratic versions. We've got one world. It's not use once and then destroy.)

[asakiyume]

I'm with you one hundred percent, I don't like any version of this-life-is-an-illusion/this-world-is-an-illusion.

This life is the life we're given, and every speck and mote in it is precious.

[amaebi]

...and there's too much pretending that other beings aren't religious, as it is.

[gale_storm]

Absolutely. Anyone who adheres to a strict, narrow line of belief would be so much better off in a simulation, particularly one saved to old tech that easily gets lost... Oh, right, we have to listen to them, so... feh.

[asakiyume]

eep! let's not lose anyone.

[amaebi]

Oh, shoot! I meant that other beings aren't real!

Now I'll have to contemplate the meaning of what actually went from my fingers to the page. :)

[gale_storm]

Maybe your fingers were working on their own! :-O

[amaebi]

My friend the Shootin' Pastor doesn't believe in chance, which puts paid another problem....

[asakiyume]

SF stories that play with this theme do bring up the question of free will sometimes, but they're dealing with it at one mirror-reflection remove, because instead of just asking If there's an omniscient God, can we have free will, they're asking, Is it possible to have a technology [or some kind of naturally occurring something-or-other] that makes it possible to know the future unerringly. I think they fall down at that stage, because I don't think such a simulacrum is possible. So then they're asking the free-will question in a spurious way.

All that is probably different from what the pastor is talking about when he says chance; he's probably talking about how you understand what happens to you--but of course I'm just guessing. He sounds like a fascinating guy.

[amaebi]

Ah, SP means, "I'm a self-made man! Everyone's state is the result of their choices! Nothing is imposed on anyone!"

He's fairly consistent about this, too, in that he thinks his chronic pain is a divine sending and Means Something.

[asakiyume]

I remember your mentioning about the chronic pain, yeah.

[mallorys_camera]

I actually studied economics as an undergraduate because U.C. Berkeley didn't offer a degree in psychohistory.

I dunno. Seems to me that the prediction itself is a piece of data that no predictive system could ever account for, you know? Too recursive. It would initiate some sort of do loop quirk in the programming.

[asakiyume]

YES. This is another reason why it wouldn't work.

[st_martin_a]

This reminds me of the question of whether artificial intelligence can get to the stage where it has freewill...
I used to think the idea was ridiculous but I'm more open to the possibility of late...

[asakiyume]

I have no problem conceptually with artificial intelligence becoming self-aware and obtaining free will. That seems to me a different type of question--but now that I think about it more, I can see how people could equate the two questions--the sort of thinking that leads to "and we will become like gods/we will become gods"

I guess I think that if there's some way in which creation achieves the kind of godhead we're talking about, then it's no longer in the future-predicting business.