This assumes a lot about time. It assumes it exists in any real way, that it is linear, that it isn’t spontaneous in nature, and that it occurs as we perceive it to among other things. It assumes that future events occur independent and yet resulting from past events- and it also assumes the two don’t occur simultaneously or persistently. That’s assuming what I just “read” even exists at all- or that anything could be anchored to a “point” in time beyond the idea of time as a way to sort information so that we can perceive it at all.
Technically if you had perfect information about everything that has ever happened ever you could calculate out everything that will ever happen. That is, however, impossible with our current technology.
In theory. It’s a fun idea that can (and has) been explored in sci fi and speculation. There are some holes though. You need more than just information- you need a model. You’d need a complete understanding of physics, and how the very universe itself operates at a fundamental level. You’d need not just to know everything which has happened- but also to know what COULD happen. Since any event that occurs which hasn’t occurred in your previous data, or is unaccounted for, would invalidate your model as perfect. Even at that you could likely only predict probability of possible outcomes and not certainty- and that ignores things like chaos theory, any theories of a sentient force manipulating things, or of a consciousness to the universe itself. It also ignore the possibility of things existing outside our universe, and assumes again that a “traditional,” linear model of time and understanding of cause>effect are correct.
That's why I said perfect information. It's a term used often in games. A good example is chess. All information about the world is available. The location of everything that exists, the possible things that could happen at any given time, and the direct outcome of that occurrence. With the idea of perfect information IRL you'd have infinitely more variables and much more complex variable interactions.
Specifically you said perfect information about events that had occurred. I understood that to mean the events themselves and the chains of their outcomes- not the events as well as their underlying mechanics. For instance- in chess, “perfect information” doesn’t necessarily imply a complete understanding of the quantum physics beneath the world the game occurs in, not the bio chemical processes of thought and consciousness- just that information directly relating to the game. So to be more specific if I understand- you meant: “if one has knowledge of every event on every level of reality to have ever occurred- as well as the fundamental processes which relate to those events, and anything tangentially related to aforementioned information.” Or in short- if one were omnipotent over all events in the past- one could predict the future?
The thing is in the world the game takes place there is no quantum mechanics. There is no physics or anything else. It's made entirely of colored squares and colored pieces that are controlled by the fundamental scientific laws of its universe (the rules of the game) and the chaos of the will of the player
@guest_ after reading a few of your posts, you seem to always have interesting opinions, eloquent wording, intelligent basis, and you're starting to make me wonder if you're even human
Even if you had perfect information up until now, you still wouldn't be able to predict the future. You can't account for the complexity and irrationality of human nature. At some point someone is going to Leroy Jenkins your shit.
If you had 100% perfect information of all things that existed in the universe current and pastincluding all the universal and conditional scientific laws (including perfect information on the psychology of every living thing) you would have perfect understanding of what caused everything to do with people and what makes them have any trait at all including propensity to "Leroy Jenkins" and be able to predict (based on all things surrounding that specific person's entire life including all factors related to conception, early development, and personality function) if someone's actions far before they do them. Perfect information means just that. Perfect information. That means being able to trace the butterfly effect of literally anything and everything ever at all no exceptions all the way back to the beginning of the universe and then do the reverse of that after all of those calculations have been finished to predict everything.
Still wouldn't work. You'll never recover the information from a black hole. Also.. storing all that information would require a machine that would have to be larger than the universe itself. I can't find the exact explanation I'm trying to get across, but this is pretty close:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound
The basic point is.. it takes more than one bit to process and express one bit of information.
If we keep it hypothetical- it’s still unknown wether it works. The ability to predict future events with certainty relies on the assumption that no true randomness exists. It relies on an assumption that all effects have a chain of causality that could be traced. It becomes a phillospolhical question of wether there is such a thing as free will or destiny. It assumes that by observing or predicting events we don’t alter them. Beyond these and other predestination paradoxes, it also assumes therebarent multiple simulataious realities or “timelines” or that all these things don’t occupy a single moment. So the theory is possible, but we don’t understand enough about the universe to say for certain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound
The basic point is.. it takes more than one bit to process and express one bit of information.