Time paradox

I thought of this when discussing free will and Omnipotent gods over in Spirituality, but now I have a science question.

Suppose someone knows the future. The can thus change the present based on this knowledge. This however results in backwards time travel of information. This creates a time paradox as the future is then changed.

Now, since the past and future are not so easily distinguished in physics and relativity etc, why does knowing the past not cause the same paradox?
Does it mean that information can only flow in one direction through time? If so, is this a direct result of the Second Law of thermodynamics?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Now, since the past and future are not so easily distinguished in physics and relativity etc, why does knowing the past not cause the same paradox?

But we do change the future depending on our knwledge about the past.
It's called acting on experience. And that is not a paradox.

There are (at least) two ways to see time.
(1) Everything in everytime does already exist. We just travel through time.
(2) There are no past nor future. The past is gone and the future will be. We cannot do anything about our past, but we can change the future in our now.

(1) imply that is no free will. (2) implies that we do have a free will.
Or the opposite: If we have a free will then (2) is the correct alternative. If we don't, I'm sorry to say, the (1) is the correct one.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
But we do change the future depending on our knwledge about the past.
It's called acting on experience. And that is not a paradox.

There are (at least) two ways to see time.
(1) Everything in everytime does already exist. We just travel through time.
(2) There are no past nor future. The past is gone and the future will be. We cannot do anything abo ...[text shortened]... en (2) is the correct alternative. If we don't, I'm sorry to say, the (1) is the correct one.

So you figure if you come into your house and find your daughter about to be raped and you have a gun and you then have the choice to shoot the bastard or just hold him for the cops and you choose the latter, you didn't do that because of free will? If most people came into that situation a lot of them would shoot with no hesitation so which one is acting on free will or are they both programmed to do what they, in retrospect, did?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I thought of this when discussing free will and Omnipotent gods over in Spirituality, but now I have a science question.

Suppose someone knows the future. The can thus change the present based on this knowledge. This however results in backwards time travel of information. This creates a time paradox as the future is then changed.

Now, since the pas ...[text shortened]... one direction through time? If so, is this a direct result of the Second Law of thermodynamics?

From a information theory perspective, there is no information travelling back in time. The information about the future must be available today for someone to act on it.

To think about it, think of entropy as the number of possible states of nature in the future given all the information available in the universe.

So if someone knows the future with certainty (no uncertainty or randomness), then there is only one possible state of nature and we are at maximum entropy. But at no interval of time do the possible states of nature increase (given all the info in the universe).

Originally posted by sonhouse
So you figure if you come into your house and find your daughter about to be raped and you have a gun and you then have the choice to shoot the bastard or just hold him for the cops and you choose the latter, you didn't do that because of free will? If most people came into that situation a lot of them would shoot with no hesitation so which one is acting on free will or are they both programmed to do what they, in retrospect, did?

I really do religously believe in the free will. Therefore I don't believe that the future is set already. The future does not exist until we enter it.

This is my opinion, but I cannot prove it, I cannot ever reason to make it the most 'logical' choice. That's why I call it my religous belief.

If I doesn't have any free will, exactly like the characters in a movie, every frame is there already. We can see a bad man breaks in in the Fabian recidence to rape his daughter. We can see the Fabian tries to find the gun, takes it and then shoots the rapist. We can see the same sceen one time after the other, and the exactly the same thing happen, ovre and over again. The poor fellow Fabian cannot do anything about it, he just plays along. The scene is set, the outcome is set. The poor one cannot do anything about it.

But what would the movie-Fabian feel his situation? He doesn't know what's in the next frame, he cannot jump out of the film and se what will happen a few yards ahead in the film. He cannot stop and read the manuscript to prepare himspelf and hinder the rape of his daughter. He just play along. Whatever decision he makes, it feels for him that it is really his decision. But we know, the spectators, that he takes the same decision every time we watch the film. He cannot change anything. Ever time we watch the moveie we know that if only he enters his home just five minutes earlier he can prevent the rape, and the only one living his life unhappy is the rapist. Fabian himself along with his daughter are saved from future problems with the justice.

But my religious belive is that I live my life for myself. Noone has written a manuscript for my life, that I follow to the letter, unwillingly. I decide for myself. I have the free will to change the future to the better. Or worse, if I decide so.

This last sentence I write on my free will. Or perhaps it's an illusion that it's really free will. Perhaps the Great Manuscript Writer has thought up this already,only for me to follow. But it feels like I decide to write this sentence.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
I really do religously believe in the free will. Therefore I don't believe that the future is set already. The future does not exist until we enter it.

This is my opinion, but I cannot prove it, I cannot ever reason to make it the most 'logical' choice. That's why I call it my religous belief.

If I doesn't have any free will, exactly like the charac ...[text shortened]... this already,only for me to follow. But it feels like I decide to write this sentence.

Why am I getting a feeling of Deja vu?

Originally posted by FabianFnas
I really do religously believe in the free will. Therefore I don't believe that the future is set already. The future does not exist until we enter it.

It is actually a very difficult subject to wrap ones mind around. If we look at past events, then from our perspective the future is 'already set' for those events. If we take it that there is only one future, then we only have one future, regardless of what it actually is.
I think the key to free will is in causation ie if the future is solely a result of either causation from past events plus some random input, then we have free will (regardless of whether or not somebody 'knows' what that future is).
I think the real problem most people have is admitting that we are creature of the universe. I have had endless discussions on this topic with knightmeister, and it is never easy.
Ask your self this question: who makes your decisions?
If it is you, then who are you and how do you make decisions.
I believe that we are essentially machines and our decisions are all a result of calculations, memories, inputs, and a certain amount of randomness.
Knightmeister did not like this idea and tried very hard to get away from it, but everywhere your run, you find the same problem. If you have a 'soul' that makes these decisions, then how does it operate?
Knightmeister went further and tried tried to give ultimate credit to God - especially for all good decisions. He was rather unclear about who made the bad decisions. But the question still remains - how does God make decisions?

Originally posted by twhitehead
It is actually a very difficult subject to wrap ones mind around. If we look at past events, then from our perspective the future is 'already set' for those events. If we take it that there is only one future, then we only have one future, regardless of what it actually is.
I think the key to free will is in causation ie if the future is solely a result who made the bad decisions. But the question still remains - how does God make decisions?

Builders use plumb lines and levels while building so they can line up what
they are building properly. Not doing so would be the ruin of all their efforts.
I like knightmeister give God credit for all the good in my life as well, I see
my failures and my successes due to God, sometimes it is difficult to say
when one is failing or succeeding without a clear means to plumb or level
one's life. Look at Mark 8:36, while one may gain the whole world yet does
to at the cost of his or her soul it would be a tragic loss not a grand
success, without God's perspective on life we are left to make it up as we
go or have someone else do it for us.
Kelly


Just realized where this was posted...choices and how they are being
judged as well as God's and man's ability to choose was what I was
replying too, not attempting to bring religion into this forum. Sorry

Originally posted by KellyJay
I like knightmeister give God credit for all the good in my life as well, I see
my failures and my successes due to God, sometimes it is difficult to say
when one is failing or succeeding without a clear means to plumb or level
one's life.

The issue though is, for any given decision you make, who or what is the actual cause.
Are you saying God makes all your decisions for you? Or only the good ones? Do you therefore deny the existence of free will, or do you have another understanding of what free will entails?

Just realized where this was posted...choices and how they are being
judged as well as God's and man's ability to choose was what I was
replying too, not attempting to bring religion into this forum. Sorry
Actually I see no problem bringing God into it so long as it is merely a discussion about causation and free will etc. We can assume for the sake of argument that God exists and leave aside any religious reasons you may have for your beliefs regarding free will. I am more interested in whether it solves the basic problems, and exactly who / what it ultimately assigns the causation of decisions to.

Originally posted by twhitehead
The issue though is, for any given decision you make, who or what is the actual cause.
Are you saying God makes all your decisions for you? Or only the good ones? Do you therefore deny the existence of free will, or do you have another understanding of what free will entails?

[b]Just realized where this was posted...choices and how they are being
jud he basic problems, and exactly who / what it ultimately assigns the causation of decisions to.

[/b]I'm saying I make my choices, but God may light the way.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I'm saying I make my choices, but God may light the way.
Kelly

That makes sense. Knightmeister however seemed to be claiming that God should take all credit and that he personally took no real part in the decision. He similarly claimed that God made my decisions for me too.
So what do you believe is the methodology of your decision making? Is it a result of your memories, your intelligence (the way your brain is wired) and some random input?
Or do you put it all down to some 'soul' concept that is essentially separate from the body (and the physical universe)?
Or is it a combination of the above?

Originally posted by twhitehead
It is actually a very difficult subject to wrap ones mind around. If we look at past events, then from our perspective the future is 'already set' for those events. If we take it that there is only one future, then we only have one future, regardless of what it actually is.
I think the key to free will is in causation ie if the future is solely a result ...[text shortened]... who made the bad decisions. But the question still remains - how does God make decisions?

I said that I belive religiously that I have my free will. Emphacize 'religiously'. Because I cannot implement any science into it.

I don't believe in the religious concept of the existance of a 'soul'. I see that my personal I is the sould. Therefore my 'self' and my 'soul' are the same thing, not religoous about it. But the religious 'soul'? Nah.

I find the idea of that the future is already set is faulty. And therefore the invention of a time-machine is impossible. And furthermore - we have a free will.

Then it is a very interesting discussion about what is 'free will', what is the very definition of 'free will'. And can this matter be anything else as hypothetical or speculative? No I don't think so. I don't even think that science can attribute anything in the matter. Just ideas, opinions, nothing more.

This I write of my own free will. If not, these words is the result of some unknown cause.

Please don't bring god into this. Certainly not the christian god, who knows nothing about this matter. Because, scientifically speaking, he doesn't exist.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
This I write of my own free will. If not, these words is the result of some unknown cause.

But since your free will seems to be an unknown, we are left with only one possibility: you wrote it due to some unknown cause. There is of course another possibility: it wasn't caused. I believe that the vast majority of events in the universe not only have no known cause, but might well be uncaused.

Originally posted by twhitehead
But since your free will seems to be an unknown, we are left with only one possibility: you wrote it due to some unknown cause. There is of course another possibility: it wasn't caused. I believe that the vast majority of events in the universe not only have no known cause, but might well be uncaused.

No, the cause is not known. Only that. Nothing else.

If I flip a coin, it is not known if it will be a head. That doesn't say it will be a tail. It is still unknown.

This too I wrote of my own free will. If not, please give me the reason why you think otherwise. And also state if this is of free will or not.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
I really do religously believe in the free will. Therefore I don't believe that the future is set already. The future does not exist until we enter it.

This is my opinion, but I cannot prove it, I cannot ever reason to make it the most 'logical' choice. That's why I call it my religous belief.

If I doesn't have any free will, exactly like the charac ...[text shortened]... this already,only for me to follow. But it feels like I decide to write this sentence.

There are the two possibilities; free will OR not free will

A. IF there is no free will then life is TOTALLY meaningless

B. IF there is free will then life is just PROBABLY meaningless

I'm an optimist [ 😉 ] so I'm opting for B