Fate?

[Rye]

ok, this thought occured to me a while ago and i've just remembered it...

..well, if you could build a computer that could track every particle and unit of energy or whatever, and apply all the rules of the universe to the simulation of all the matter/energy, could you predict the entire future?

sounds simple...but could you prove fate with this?

[Captain tycho]

ok, this thought occured to me a while ago and i've just remembered it...

..well, if you could build a computer that could track every particle and unit of energy or whatever, and apply all the rules of the universe to the simulation of all the matter/energy, could you predict the entire future?

sounds simple...but could you prove fate with this?

"Always in motion, the future is".
No.

[Queeb Salaron]

ok, this thought occured to me a while ago and i've just remembered it...

..well, if you could build a computer that could track every particle and unit of energy or whatever, and apply all the rules of the universe to the simulation of all the matter/energy, could you predict the entire future?

sounds simple...but could you prove fate with this?

There's too many factors to consider. I defy you to create a computer that can predict the keys that I will strike next while writing this sentence. You're asking computers to predict things like diction and intent. Not possible, regardless of how much you monitor things.

[Ghost Rider]

That would simplify the universe too much.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

And there's always Heisenberg fucking everything up with his Uncertainty Principle. Remember kiddiez, you can only know position or velocity accurately Try both, and you really screw things up!

[kojikun]

wave functionality and uncertainty make it so that there is a truly random component to the universe that negates pure chaos math / determinism.

for instance theres a very real yet absurdly small possibility that ill reappear on the other side of the universe, and i think the probability is something like 1 chance in (10^100) ^(10^100)^(10^100).

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

ok, this thought occured to me a while ago and i've just remembered it...

..well, if you could build a computer that could track every particle and unit of energy or whatever, and apply all the rules of the universe to the simulation of all the matter/energy, could you predict the entire future?

sounds simple...but could you prove fate with this?

I'm assuming by that, you mean that for every little quanta, string, you know their exact status in all respects (velocity, position, whatever else you need) - thus circumventing, via magic, Heisenburg.

I'm also assuming that you are computing the future using every law. Every law and mathematical equation must be entered correctly, with ZERO tolerance. That computer is probably getting impossibly complex by now

Then it depends on whether the universe is deterministic or not. It might turn out that the probabilities we are seeing now is because we don't have perfect data. Who knows, an adequately complicated set of rules, and perfect knowledge of the state of the universe might just combine so that the probabilities we see really are certainties.

Think about it this way. A dice roll looks pretty random. But in fact, it is a macroscopic object (so quantum influences are minimal.) If you knew all the laws and entered in the correct drop angle, height above ground, the exact conditions on the ground surface it bounces on, the exact properties of the dice ... in principle you can predict where the dice comes up at least ALMOST perfectly (there is a small 1/1E1000000000 chance or so that quantum mechanics would apply to enough of the molecules to affect results, after all)

We'll never be able to see whether that's the case, though. Because our measuring techniques, in principle, already never allow us perfect knowledge of the universe - as Heisenburg said. But this is just a thought exercise, right?

Let's say the universe turns out to be deterministic, and you have perfect laws and perfect input data. In principle, you could then determine precisely what would happen in the next second.

Then it becomes a philosophical question - is our universe made up entirely of coincidences, or fates. It could work either way.

I could just happen to walk north, and you could just happen to walk south on just what happens to the same street, so we meet by accident.

OR

Fate has decreed I walk north, and you would walk south on the same street at the same time, so we were destined to meet.

How can you tell the difference? So even if you build that, it does not necessarily prove fate. Philosophically, anyway.