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prescience/precognition and free-will in SF

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Norm D. Plumber

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Jul 9, 2010, 7:53:53 AM7/9/10
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Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
predestination?

_Dune_Messiah_ (Frank Herbert): Paul Atreides is blinded but remains
able to interact with the world because of his prescience, basically
he knows where things will be and what will happen and uses that
knowledge instead of his eyes. It's been too long since I read this
for me to remember how free-will affected the situation; did he have
any choice in what to do, could his actions affect change or was he
forced to simply play out the script?

Lensman series (Doc Smith): The Arisian power of "visualization"
allows Mentor to accurately predict the specifics of events years in
the future. The visualization power seems to be a sort of
mathematical extrapolation and appears to deny free-will.

_Oracle_ trilogy (Mike Resnick): Penelope Bailey is precognitive, and
as her powers mature she is able to influence the future by taking
actions in the present. It seems pretty clear that she has free-will
and her choices affect the future. It does make her somewhat twitchy,
having to adopt certain postures to cause an event years in the
future. (If her powers matured even more, would she be able to affect
the future by simply thinking specific thoughts, instead of lifting an
arm or moving a teacup?)

_Stranger_In_A_Strange_Land (R.A. Heinlein): I remember some
precognition here but don't recall specific examples, or whether it
implied free-will or predestination.

_Paycheck_ (Phillip K. Dick): A machine allows prevision, free-will
allows the future to be changed.

Was the movie "Push" based on a book? The movie didn't impress me as
being all that well done, but the precognitives seemed able to make
choices that changed the future.

--
pour spelling, bad tuping, and dylsexia; so it goes.

Ilya2

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Jul 9, 2010, 9:00:00 AM7/9/10
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On a related note, this always struck me about Macbeth: since he and
his wife both clearly believed the witches' prophecy (that Macbeth
will become king), why did they have to go to all the trouble they
did? Why didn't they just sit back, relax, and wait for prophecy to
come true, however it happened?

tphile

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Jul 9, 2010, 9:23:21 AM7/9/10
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First because the writer is God and there wouldn't be much of a story
if they didn't.
If it is prophesied that you will win the lottery, you still gotta buy
the ticket.
Until you do it is an unfullfilled prophesy. and it usually doesn't
say which one
or when.
Doesn't Heisenburg conflict with predestination?

tphile

Robert Carnegie

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Jul 9, 2010, 9:42:44 AM7/9/10
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Sometimes it's good to be the king and sometimes it isn't. I mean,
suppose you're Deputy King and you're with the King fighting in a big
battle, if the King is killed then you get to be King but you may not
have time to enjoy it.

Now, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth could have murdered the King anyway,
without the prophecy. You can reasonably see that the outcome is that
either you get to be King or you fail and die in the attempt.
However, if you don't try, then you may have a chance to be King
later. If you do try and fail, then you don't get another chance.
But the prophecy then means that you won't fail - and so, you will
either not try (but become King later on involuntarily and have to
deal with any problems not addressed by the previous administration),
or try and succeed.

Anyway, I believe I remember they discussed it... with each other and
also with the audience...

Robert Carnegie

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Jul 9, 2010, 9:53:00 AM7/9/10
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Generally, prophecy means predestination, and trying to get out of it
just makes trouble.

I think there are a few cases where "If the prophecy is lemons, make
lemonade", works. Where the bad thing in the end isn't so bad.

I'm thinking of "Knock" but it doesn't really fit, unless it
represents an improvement in your personal social life and that's
satisfaction enough, and it wasn't so much a prophecy...

And some where you at least try to avoid collateral casualties when
the sky falls on your head. I can't think of a specific case, but if
the prophecy is "You will die 20 years from now at ground zero of a 20
kiloton nuclear explosion" then you want to choose where to live about
then quite carefully. Like in the middle of the desert or something.
And, come to think, knowing the date you're going to die may be
useful, but then again you may do something silly like end up in a
coma. Or,or, you could volunteer for the mission to plant a bomb on
the doomsday asteroid coming our way, but make sure they put the nuke
in the /other/ space shuttle...

Norm D. Plumber

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Jul 9, 2010, 10:31:50 AM7/9/10
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Ilya2 <il...@rcn.com> wrote:

Itchy king-finger? It doesn't seem so different from a guy who
believes a prophecy that he'll win the lottery, who then goes out and
maxes his credit card buying tickets, thinking "maybe I didn't buy the
right ticket yet".

Jonathan Schattke

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Jul 9, 2010, 10:42:25 AM7/9/10
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On 7/9/2010 6:53 AM, Norm D. Plumber wrote:
> Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
> how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
> predestination?
>
> _Dune_Messiah_ (Frank Herbert): Paul Atreides is blinded but remains
> able to interact with the world because of his prescience, basically
> he knows where things will be and what will happen and uses that
> knowledge instead of his eyes. It's been too long since I read this
> for me to remember how free-will affected the situation; did he have
> any choice in what to do, could his actions affect change or was he
> forced to simply play out the script?

Quite specifically, he was unable to perceive other prescient actors;
the same applied to his son Leto in later books.

Free will came in with the multitude of possibilities. Paul's training
as a Mentat allowed him to select the correct possibility, for the most
part; at one point in Dune, after acquiring prescience, he does get
surprised.

I believe Herbert actively explored the free will implications. Paul is
described as trying to thread a line which minimized the atrocities of
the Jihad he could not see a way to avoid.

> _Stranger_In_A_Strange_Land (R.A. Heinlein): I remember some
> precognition here but don't recall specific examples, or whether it
> implied free-will or predestination.

No, Mike (and the Martians) had extreme understanding of things, at a
level much higher than your normal human. They could understand
intuitively things that a normal human would have to stop and reason.
The impression is even given that they understood objects on the
subatomic level. People, however, were merely understood, and their
likely behaviors extrapolated.

Joel Olson

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Jul 9, 2010, 11:12:21 AM7/9/10
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"Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com> wrote in message
news:1o1e369b56us4ls7t...@4ax.com...

>

Go for broke - read _Lathe of Heaven_ :-)

Norm D. Plumber

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Jul 9, 2010, 11:18:08 AM7/9/10
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tphile <tph...@cableone.net> wrote:

>Doesn't Heisenburg conflict with predestination?

I assume you're referring to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle when you say
"Heisenburg" (which nitwise is spelled with an 'e' not a 'u').

Heisenberg's theoretical assertion implies that it is impossible to
either mentally (like Doc Smith's Arisians) or through mechanized
means (as in _Paycheck_) see a "mathematically extrapolated" future
with certainty because according to his assertion it's impossible to
determine the starting conditions with sufficient accuracy.

But why should an inability to see the future either conflict with, or
not conflict with, predestination acting to bring about some future
you can't view in advance? I can't see the Heisenberg principle
(assuming it to be correct) as having much to do with whether things
are predestined or not.

There are also the four combinations of predetermination and
predestination involved in the whole prescience/precognition issue:

1,2) In a deterministic system there is no free-will, no individual
choice; every apparent choice an individual makes is actually
predetermined by some combination of past events; determinism
represents a purely clockwork mechanical universe and (2) everything
is predestined by merit of being predetermined.

(3) On the other hand, in a predestined (but not predetermined)
situation, free-will may exist but it doesn't matter how the
individual wriggles to get free of his destiny, every choice the
individual can possibly make leads to the same predestined future
event.

(4) In a system that is neither predetermined nor predestined the
individual has free-will and thus has a hand in shaping the future (as
do all other individuals, etc.)


The wiki article pointed to above says regarding critical reactions
that "Albert Einstein believed that randomness is a reflection of our
ignorance of some fundamental property of reality..." I think old
uncle Albert was right about that bit.

Norm D. Plumber

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Jul 9, 2010, 11:41:34 AM7/9/10
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Jonathan Schattke <wiz...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 7/9/2010 6:53 AM, Norm D. Plumber wrote:
>> Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>> how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>> predestination?
>>
>> _Dune_Messiah_ (Frank Herbert): Paul Atreides is blinded but remains
>> able to interact with the world because of his prescience, basically
>> he knows where things will be and what will happen and uses that
>> knowledge instead of his eyes. It's been too long since I read this
>> for me to remember how free-will affected the situation; did he have
>> any choice in what to do, could his actions affect change or was he
>> forced to simply play out the script?
>
>Quite specifically, he was unable to perceive other prescient actors;
>the same applied to his son Leto in later books.

Ah, I'd forgotten that part... it kind of makes one wonder what
category non-prescient actors fall into, are they just stage props,
or?


>Free will came in with the multitude of possibilities. Paul's training
>as a Mentat allowed him to select the correct possibility, for the most
>part; at one point in Dune, after acquiring prescience, he does get
>surprised.
>
>I believe Herbert actively explored the free will implications. Paul is
>described as trying to thread a line which minimized the atrocities of
>the Jihad he could not see a way to avoid.
>
>> _Stranger_In_A_Strange_Land (R.A. Heinlein): I remember some
>> precognition here but don't recall specific examples, or whether it
>> implied free-will or predestination.
>
>No, Mike (and the Martians) had extreme understanding of things, at a
>level much higher than your normal human. They could understand
>intuitively things that a normal human would have to stop and reason.
>The impression is even given that they understood objects on the
>subatomic level. People, however, were merely understood, and their
>likely behaviors extrapolated.

Reminiscent of Donal Graeme (an "intuitive" thinker) in Dickson's
_Dorsai!_, but I think grokking was different somehow.

Norm D. Plumber

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Jul 9, 2010, 11:44:51 AM7/9/10
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"Joel Olson" <joel....@cox.net> wrote:

I read it, many years ago, and thought highly of it. I don't have a
copy however, and have forgotten many details. Something about
"effective dreams" changing reality.

If the idea of dream/reality interactions interests you, I'd recommend
_Dreamer_ by Daniel Quinn (1988).

Cece

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Jul 9, 2010, 11:50:56 AM7/9/10
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Oh, lots of psionics in the magazines in the '50s and '60s!
Novelettes and novellas, mostly, I think. And what's now really short
novels. Specifically precog, though? Not so much. Mostly telepathy,
telekinesis (aka psychokinesis), teleportation. With the occasional
flash of precog, little more than the hunch any person might get.

I don't recall any actual predestination, though. More like "if
people knew and took action, the future could be changed."

tphile

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Jul 9, 2010, 1:42:58 PM7/9/10
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On Jul 9, 6:53 am, "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de-pl...@non.com> wrote:

Don't forget Asimovs Foundation novels

There are two tv shows that come to mind

Criminal Minds. Its a fascinating subject.and I have read some
of the real life books on the subject. It seems to argue against free
will
at least when its about serial killers.
and they can solve most everything within one hour ;-)

and then there is
Numb3rs. Its an entertaining show and I will watch anything Judd
Hirsch is in.
but they really stretch credibility with finding ways to apply math
solutions.
I was never that good with math anyway.

tphile

mcdowella

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Jul 9, 2010, 2:28:03 PM7/9/10
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On Jul 9, 2:00 pm, Ilya2 <il...@rcn.com> wrote:

In Macbeth, the impression I always got was that Macbeth didn't trust
the prediction at all until he got a promotion shortly afterwards, and
even after that he didn't see it as a prophecy in the traditional
sense so much as an indication that he could perhaps get to become
King if he went along with his wife's ambition.

I think the traditional interpretation of prophecy doesn't raise
issues of cause and effect much. The purpose of the prophecy is
largely to give credibility to the prophet when it is fulfilled, and
the feasibility of the prophecy fits in with a world view in which
there is an omnipotent or ruling God or Gods. Cause and effect
basically flow from the God and He choses to divulge a prophecy to
demonstrate that He determines what happens, regardless of what
mortals chose to do about it.

Wayne Throop

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Jul 9, 2010, 2:32:03 PM7/9/10
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: "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com>
: Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),

: how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
: predestination?

: _Dune_Messiah_ (Frank Herbert)
: Lensman series (Doc Smith)
: _Oracle_ trilogy (Mike Resnick)
: _Stranger_In_A_Strange_Land (R.A. Heinlein)
: _Paycheck_ (Phillip K. Dick)
: the movie "Push"

Dorsai series (Gordon Dickson)
Morpodite series (MA Foster)

Hm. If we count simply using computers
to predict by mundane means, then you might
count Sea of Glass (Barry Longyear). Which has
the interesting bit in it about The Answer; a nosy
congresscritter asks the computer that's running
everything why it did something. The answer, printed
on microfiche, filled several warehouses.

Or the Culture series (Ian Banks). The Minds therein
can predict things very very well indeed. Usually.

If we count SF in the "speculative fiction" sense
(and hence can include fantasy), an interesting one
is The Cursed (Dave Duncan). Precognitives live their
lives backwards. They are born knowing everything that will
happen until they day they die, and slowly forget the parts
between birth and their current age. Which makes interacting
with them... interesting. An intersting take on predestination
there also, what with you *can* change the future... but it
drives those cursed with precognition insane, to the extent
your change affects their lives. Which is also why such folks
are very very loath to tell anybody about the future, in fear
they might change it.

And reams and reams I'm not calling to mind.

The Morphodite series and the Oracle series share one bit of interest;
they decide that precognition is not in the best interest of humanity,
and remove themselves from the scene. The Morphodite having a nice
scene in the last book, by which time his precognition is so strong, he
can affect far-reaching events by doing thigns as simple as moving a
pencile on a desk two inches to the right.

Hm. Asimov's robot series has a short story where humans turn things
over to vast positronic brains, which can predict much... and they too
retire from the scene, on first law grounds.

Ooh, ooh, the short story, "Beep" (James Blish).

One can consider Asimov's The End of Eternity to be one. And again,
it's found better not to have precognition. That seems to be a strong
recurring theme. Note that whether things are predestined totally,
or just probabalistically, is sort of a mix, but there's examples of
each where it's better to give up precognition (or so the story seems
to preach).

Ooh ooh... Singularity Sky / The Iron Sunrise by Stross.
The Eschaton holds (or it thinks it holds) a monpoly on causality
violation (hence on precognition). It turns out to quite to be
the case, and the future not quite so predestined as was supposed.
Lots of those which encompass quantum mechanics lean towards
non-total-predestiny.


Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw

David DeLaney

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Jul 9, 2010, 3:07:16 PM7/9/10
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Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>predestination?
>
>_Dune_Messiah_ (Frank Herbert):
>Lensman series (Doc Smith):
>_Oracle_ trilogy (Mike Resnick):
>_Stranger_In_A_Strange_Land (R.A. Heinlein):
>_Paycheck_ (Phillip K. Dick):
>
>Was the movie "Push" based on a book? The movie didn't impress me as
>being all that well done, but the precognitives seemed able to make
>choices that changed the future.

The Morphodite trilogy by M.A. Foster, though mostly in the third book;
the future could be "seen", but it could also be changed by taking fairly
simple actions with objects that happened to be resting at the current 'cusp
of events', which itself moved around in a complicated manner and depended on
what parts of the future were being looked at. Also, it's not exactly
prescience _or_ future-viewing, but its effects are close enough to count.

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

David DeLaney

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Jul 9, 2010, 3:08:42 PM7/9/10
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Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>And some where you at least try to avoid collateral casualties when
>the sky falls on your head. I can't think of a specific case, but if
>the prophecy is "You will die 20 years from now at ground zero of a 20
>kiloton nuclear explosion" then you want to choose where to live about
>then quite carefully. Like in the middle of the desert or something.
>And, come to think, knowing the date you're going to die may be
>useful, but then again you may do something silly like end up in a
>coma. Or,or, you could volunteer for the mission to plant a bomb on
>the doomsday asteroid coming our way, but make sure they put the nuke
>in the /other/ space shuttle...

Which brings, I think, _Alpha Ralpha Boulevard_ to mind.

Dave "... okay, by Cordwainer Smith, if the reader really doesn't know" DeLaney

David DeLaney

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Jul 9, 2010, 3:12:03 PM7/9/10
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On Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:32:03 GMT, Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>The Morphodite having a nice
>scene in the last book, by which time his precognition is so strong, he
>can affect far-reaching events by doing thigns as simple as moving a
>pencile on a desk two inches to the right.

Thought it was a cup?

>Ooh, ooh, the short story, "Beep" (James Blish).

Which ENTIRELY denies free will ... but in such a manner that the Time Cops
organization forms to, basically, make SURE that whatever information gets
extracted from The Beep does actually come to pass.

Speaking of which, an out-of-print but interesting RPG named Continuum is
quite relevant here. ALL about time travel, and the implications of its
existence and integration into everyday society. (The Hour of the Inheritance
is still some way off, in 2222.)

Dave

Norm D. Plumber

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Jul 9, 2010, 3:13:51 PM7/9/10
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thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:

Lots of interesting fodder for next visit to the bookstore!


I'm of the opinion that everyone has some amount of precognitive
ability, for example if I'm up on the roof and consider stepping off,
I can foresee a nasty fall and change events by getting off the roof
via the ladder. (That's a joke. Sort of.)

I have some psychometric ability too, I can pick up a tool and say
"this is very old and was owned by a guy who didn't take care of his
tools" and I'm nearly always accurate.

Heck, sometimes I can just look at my wife in a certain way and get
slapped for what I'm thinking, so she must have some telepathic
ability.

So, are these things just a matter of degree?

David Johnston

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Jul 9, 2010, 3:19:11 PM7/9/10
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Hey, they wanted to be king and queen while they were still young
enough to enjoy it.

In later adaptations of Macbeth, one thing they brought up, was that
the presence of a prophecy that Macbeth, and not Duncan's sons will
succeed him, meant that when Duncan heard about it Macbeth would be up
for the chop. Medieval kings didn't have a sense of humour about
those things.

Earl_Colby_Pottinger

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Jul 9, 2010, 4:10:57 PM7/9/10
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On Jul 9, 6:53 am, "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de-pl...@non.com> wrote:
> Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
> how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
> predestination?

Did any books do what Doc did in "Back to the Future"?

Marty tells him that he saw him get shot and fall down dead, then the
Doc makes sure that he is wearing a bullet-proof vest and pretends to
die when he is shot. Thus you don't change the future but you get the
ending 'you' want.

Tim McDaniel

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Jul 9, 2010, 4:21:50 PM7/9/10
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In article <slrni3ert...@gatekeeper.vic.com>,

David DeLaney <d...@vic.com> wrote:
>Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>>And some where you at least try to avoid collateral casualties when
>>the sky falls on your head. I can't think of a specific case, but if
>>the prophecy is "You will die 20 years from now at ground zero of a 20
>>kiloton nuclear explosion" then you want to choose where to live about
>>then quite carefully. ...

>
>Which brings, I think, _Alpha Ralpha Boulevard_ to mind.
>
>Dave "... okay, by Cordwainer Smith, if the reader really doesn't
>know" DeLaney

To be precise, "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard". It's a short story, or at
least I don't think it's even long enough for a novella or novelette.

If anyone hasn't read it and is curious how the topic applies:
[rot13]
sebz zrzbel: nsgre ngzbcurevp qrgnvy naq bgure cybg guernqf, gur
cebgntbavfgf tb nybat gur fxl ebnq bs Nycun Enycun Obhyrineq gb zrrg
gur benphyne pbzchgre. Fur trgf gur cebcurpl "Lbh jvyy ybir rnpu
bgure sbe nf ybat nf lbh yvir". Ur trgf gur cebcurpl "Lbh jvyy ybir
rnpu bgure sbe friragrra zvahgrf." Ur uvqrf uvf cebcurpl sebz ure. N
frirer fgbez pbzrf hc naq gur fxljnl vf va onq ercnve. ...

--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com

garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk

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Jul 9, 2010, 4:28:41 PM7/9/10
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Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>
> If we count SF in the "speculative fiction" sense
> (and hence can include fantasy), an interesting one
> is The Cursed (Dave Duncan). Precognitives live their
> lives backwards. They are born knowing everything that will
> happen until they day they die, and slowly forget the parts
> between birth and their current age.

That reminds me of U-Janus from Strugatsky's "Monday Begins on
Saturday", however his reversal of time was a result of an unspecified
failed experiment in some distant future. And he just remembered thinks
that were to happen (he lived in normal time, but on each midnight he
skipped to themidnight of the day before yesterday). Interacting with
his unsuspecting A-Janus previous self must have been interesting.

And of course, Chronos from the Incarnations of Immortality, if you
allow some more fantasy.

Greg Egan's "The Hundred Light-Year Diary" discusses free will
(or lack thereof) in a peculiar way.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
| Radovan Garabík http://kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk/~garabik/ |
| __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk |
-----------------------------------------------------------
Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus.
Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread!

Tim McDaniel

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Jul 9, 2010, 4:58:11 PM7/9/10
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In article <1o1e369b56us4ls7t...@4ax.com>,

Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>predestination?

Any time-travel stories have to deal with the subject.

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories. Time is alterable, but the Time
Patrol is dedicated to preserving the existing timeline. So once
they've observed something, they forbid themselves to alter it.
So I guess they're free-willers trying to enforce predestination.

--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com

Wayne Throop

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Jul 9, 2010, 4:58:36 PM7/9/10
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: "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com>
: I'm of the opinion that everyone has some amount of precognitive

: ability, for example if I'm up on the roof and consider stepping off,
: I can foresee a nasty fall and change events by getting off the roof
: via the ladder. (That's a joke. Sort of.)
:
: I have some psychometric ability too, I can pick up a tool and say
: "this is very old and was owned by a guy who didn't take care of his
: tools" and I'm nearly always accurate.
:
: Heck, sometimes I can just look at my wife in a certain way and get
: slapped for what I'm thinking, so she must have some telepathic
: ability.
:
: So, are these things just a matter of degree?

Heh. You might enjoy Poul Anderson's "The Sensitive Man",
a short story which I think can be found in the collection
"The Psychotechnic League". Hrm... yes, isfdb sez so.

Huh. Oddly enough, it's in Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/31501

Wayne Throop

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Jul 9, 2010, 5:09:27 PM7/9/10
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: tm...@panix.com (Tim McDaniel)
: Poul Anderson's Time Patrol stories. Time is alterable, but the Time

: Patrol is dedicated to preserving the existing timeline. So once
: they've observed something, they forbid themselves to alter it. So I
: guess they're free-willers trying to enforce predestination.

More postdestination the way I recall it. That is, their sponsors
are basically trying to protect their backwards lightcone from tampering.
Which also brings up Stross' Eschaton. And of of course the Temporal
Entropy Restructure and Repair Agency, T.E.R.R.A., and the various
adventures of Hannibal Fortune with his License to Tamper.
And his sidekick Webley. Surprisingly good stories, given how
cheezy the concept was/is. Surprised me, anyways.

Dan Goodman

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Jul 9, 2010, 5:33:35 PM7/9/10
to
Tim McDaniel wrote:

Abg rknpgyl. Fur'f gbyq gung fur jvyy ybir uvz sbe gur erfg bs ure
yvsr. Uvf cebcurpl: Ur jvyy ybir ure sbe [fznyy ahzore bs zvahgrf].
Naq fubegyl gurernsgre, ur snyyf va ybir jvgu fbzrbar ryfr. [/rot13]

--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal dsgood.dreamwidth.org (livejournal.com, insanejournal.com)

Butch Malahide

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Jul 9, 2010, 6:15:19 PM7/9/10
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On Jul 9, 6:53 am, "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de-pl...@non.com> wrote:
> Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
> how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
> predestination?

_The World Jones Made_ (Dick) leans toward predestination.

"Elimination" (Campbell) leans toward free will.

Brian M. Scott

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Jul 9, 2010, 6:42:42 PM7/9/10
to
On Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:32:03 GMT, Wayne Throop
<thr...@sheol.org> wrote in <news:12787...@sheol.org> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

>: "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com>
>: Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>: how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>: predestination?

>: _Dune_Messiah_ (Frank Herbert)
>: Lensman series (Doc Smith)
>: _Oracle_ trilogy (Mike Resnick)
>: _Stranger_In_A_Strange_Land (R.A. Heinlein)
>: _Paycheck_ (Phillip K. Dick)
>: the movie "Push"

> Dorsai series (Gordon Dickson)

I'm not sure that enhanced intuitional extrapolation quite
qualifies as prescience. Besides, I seem to recall that its
reliability was degraded when more than one person was
capable of applying it.

[...]

Brian

Norm D. Plumber

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Jul 9, 2010, 6:55:47 PM7/9/10
to
David Johnston <da...@block.net> wrote:

The realization came to me earlier today that the witch who prophesied
his kingship was a woman, and his wife was ambitious, so he might have
been wise to question whether the prophesy was more than the
machinations of two women acting in cahoots.

Not having seen or read the play itself within living memory, I'm
probably going to be found ignerunt about its details. Oh well.

Norm D. Plumber

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Jul 9, 2010, 7:05:31 PM7/9/10
to
thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:

Thanks, bookmarked for later reading.

Norm D. Plumber

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Jul 9, 2010, 7:14:17 PM7/9/10
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"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>On Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:32:03 GMT, Wayne Throop
><thr...@sheol.org> wrote in <news:12787...@sheol.org> in
>rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>>: "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com>
>>: Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>>: how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>>: predestination?
>
>>: _Dune_Messiah_ (Frank Herbert)
>>: Lensman series (Doc Smith)
>>: _Oracle_ trilogy (Mike Resnick)
>>: _Stranger_In_A_Strange_Land (R.A. Heinlein)
>>: _Paycheck_ (Phillip K. Dick)
>>: the movie "Push"
>
>> Dorsai series (Gordon Dickson)
>
>I'm not sure that enhanced intuitional extrapolation quite
>qualifies as prescience.

Even though it's you making the statement I have to agree that it
doesn't seem quite the same as prescience, though I think the last few
pages of _Dorsai!_ could be read that way.


> Besides, I seem to recall that its
>reliability was degraded when more than one person was
>capable of applying it.

I don't remember that as being in _Dorsai!_, do you recall which book
it was in? I'm not sure that I ever read them all.

Brian M. Scott

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Jul 9, 2010, 7:30:00 PM7/9/10
to
On Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:14:17 -0600, "Norm D. Plumber"
<nom-de...@non.com> wrote in
<news:15bf365h843mmthn1...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

[...]

>> Besides, I seem to recall that its reliability was
>> degraded when more than one person was capable of
>> applying it.

> I don't remember that as being in _Dorsai!_, do you recall
> which book it was in? I'm not sure that I ever read them
> all.

If I'm remembering correctly, it comes up later in the
Childe Cycle, probably in _The Final Encyclopedia_.

Jonathan Schattke

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Jul 9, 2010, 8:19:18 PM7/9/10
to
On 7/9/2010 6:14 PM, Norm D. Plumber wrote:
> "Brian M. Scott"<b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> On Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:32:03 GMT, Wayne Throop
>> <thr...@sheol.org> wrote in<news:12787...@sheol.org> in
>> rec.arts.sf.written:
>>> : "Norm D. Plumber"<nom-de...@non.com>
>>> : Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>>> : how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>>> : predestination?
>>> Dorsai series (Gordon Dickson)
>> I'm not sure that enhanced intuitional extrapolation quite
>> qualifies as prescience.
>
> Even though it's you making the statement I have to agree that it
> doesn't seem quite the same as prescience, though I think the last few
> pages of _Dorsai!_ could be read that way.

Now, see, Norm, you came up with an intriguing topic and are maintaining
on-topic posts, don't go and spoil it by getting petty.

Garrett Wollman

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Jul 10, 2010, 12:21:18 AM7/10/10
to
In article <12787...@sheol.org>, Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>: "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com>
>: Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>: how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>: predestination?

>If we count SF in the "speculative fiction" sense


>(and hence can include fantasy), an interesting one

>is The Cursed (Dave Duncan). [big big snip]

Nobody seems to have mentioned Julian May yet. In the Galactic
Milieu/Pliocene Exile milieu, there are two distinct areas where this
comes up:

1) Some people (notably Brede Shipspouse) have the metability of
/prolepsis/, the ability to actively predict the future. Brede used
this ability to help her spouse navigate, and later used it (to
Elizabeth's dismay) to predict the result of the opening of Gibraltar
on Pliocene society.

2) Central to the Pliocene Exile series is the existence of a time
machine which transports people from twenty-first-century France, near
Lyon, to the same point -- with earth in the same position in the
solar cycle[1] -- six million years previously. The exiles later
construct a time machine which operates in the reverse direction,
allowing them to return to the modern world. Bar punenpgre, cbfrffrq
bs n trargvp zhgngvba znxvat uvz vzzbegny, yvirf guebhtu gur ragver
crevbq, riraghnyyl orpbzvat gur sbhaqre bs gur Tnynpgvp Zvyvrh; guvf
vf rkcyberq va gur senzr fgbevrf bs /Vagreiragvba/ naq gur Tnynpgvp
Zvyvrh gevybtl.

May assumes, without ever making it clear, what Rudy Rucker (IIRC)
calls the "block universe" model; this considers the universe as a
static n-dimensional object, such that the entire history and future
of the universe simply *is*. This resolves the famous "time-travel
paradox" -- if a time machine could exist and could project
information into the past, then any effect of this information is
immanent in the present of the time machine's creation. In other
words, you could *try* to kill the inventor's grandfather, but the
patency of the machine itself means that you failed -- there are no
"alternate" pasts, only the one past that leads up to the (subjective)
present moment. Some have interpreted this view as inimical to free
will, but May (and I, for that matter) clearly do not see it that way;
indeed, va /Vagreiragvba/, gur Snzvyl Tubfg gryyf Ebtv "Zl npgvbaf,
gubhtu dhvgr serryl jvyyrq, jrer qrzbafgenoyl cerbeqnvarq va gur
ynetre Ernyvgl, juvpu vf zlfgrel. Xrrcvat guvf va zvaq, V whfg tbg ba
jvgu vg." I would describe this notion as "subjective free will" --
free will is not a condition of physics, but a subjective perception
of a sentient organism, limited only by the constraints that organism
is aware of.

I'm probably due for a reread at some point soon.

-GAWollman

[1] The same unlikely hand-waving also prevents the operation of the
Guderian tau-field generator, as it is called, anywhere in the
universe except in the vicinity of Lyon. May's science here is not
all that far-out given what was known in the late 1970s; her "dynamic
field theory", which explains both the "metapsychic" (psi) abilities
of the characters and the physical existence of force fields, FTL
travel, and so on, is a fairly straightforward extrapolation in
concept of the sort of GUTs that were then being written about in the
pages of /Popular Science/. Her teleology is from Teilhard de
Chardin, whose concept of directional evolution was not yet entirely
discredited and still quite popular among some religious people and
new-agers. Her computing technology is right on target for the
expectations of the age, with book-plaques created by specialized
printer-analogues, automatic transcribers taking dictation, and
obscure command-line languages emitted by specialists.

--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

David Goldfarb

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Jul 10, 2010, 12:01:18 AM7/10/10
to
In article <xn0gwfne...@news.iphouse.com>,
Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:

>Tim McDaniel wrote:
>> To be precise, "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard". It's a short story, or at
>> least I don't think it's even long enough for a novella or novelette.
>>
>> If anyone hasn't read it and is curious how the topic applies:
>> [rot13]
>> sebz zrzbel: nsgre ngzbcurevp qrgnvy naq bgure cybg guernqf, gur
>> cebgntbavfgf tb nybat gur fxl ebnq bs Nycun Enycun Obhyrineq gb zrrg
>> gur benphyne pbzchgre. Fur trgf gur cebcurpl "Lbh jvyy ybir rnpu
>> bgure sbe nf ybat nf lbh yvir". Ur trgf gur cebcurpl "Lbh jvyy ybir
>> rnpu bgure sbe friragrra zvahgrf." Ur uvqrf uvf cebcurpl sebz ure. N
>> frirer fgbez pbzrf hc naq gur fxljnl vf va onq ercnve. ...
>
>Abg rknpgyl. Fur'f gbyq gung fur jvyy ybir uvz sbe gur erfg bs ure
>yvsr. Uvf cebcurpl: Ur jvyy ybir ure sbe [fznyy ahzore bs zvahgrf].
>Naq fubegyl gurernsgre, ur snyyf va ybir jvgu fbzrbar ryfr. [/rot13]

I'm not sure which story you're remembering, but it's not "Alpha
Ralpha Boulevard." Tim's summary is correct, and yours isn't.

--
David Goldfarb |"THEY ZONKED ME WITH ELECTRONIC SHOCK WAVES,
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | I TELL YOU!!!"
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- _Prez_ #2

William December Starr

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Jul 10, 2010, 12:43:51 AM7/10/10
to
In article <2e33b094-a1ab-451d...@y4g2000yqy.googlegroups.com>,
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> said:

> And some where you at least try to avoid collateral casualties
> when the sky falls on your head. I can't think of a specific
> case, but if the prophecy is "You will die 20 years from now at
> ground zero of a 20 kiloton nuclear explosion" then you want to

> choose where to live about then quite carefully. Like in the


> middle of the desert or something.

And the last thing you see before you die is a historical plaque
identifying where you're standing as the site of a 20 kiloton
nuclear bomb test in 1957. And the last thing you hear is the
prophecy snickering.

-- wds

Dan Goodman

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Jul 10, 2010, 12:51:01 AM7/10/10
to
David Goldfarb wrote:

> In article <xn0gwfne...@news.iphouse.com>,
> Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
> > Tim McDaniel wrote:
> >> To be precise, "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard". It's a short story, or at
> >> least I don't think it's even long enough for a novella or
> novelette. >>
> >> If anyone hasn't read it and is curious how the topic applies:
> >> [rot13]
> >> sebz zrzbel: nsgre ngzbcurevp qrgnvy naq bgure cybg guernqf, gur
> >> cebgntbavfgf tb nybat gur fxl ebnq bs Nycun Enycun Obhyrineq gb
> zrrg >> gur benphyne pbzchgre. Fur trgf gur cebcurpl "Lbh jvyy ybir
> rnpu >> bgure sbe nf ybat nf lbh yvir". Ur trgf gur cebcurpl "Lbh
> jvyy ybir >> rnpu bgure sbe friragrra zvahgrf." Ur uvqrf uvf
> cebcurpl sebz ure. N >> frirer fgbez pbzrf hc naq gur fxljnl vf va
> onq ercnve. ...
> >
> > Abg rknpgyl. Fur'f gbyq gung fur jvyy ybir uvz sbe gur erfg bs ure
> > yvsr. Uvf cebcurpl: Ur jvyy ybir ure sbe [fznyy ahzore bs
> > zvahgrf]. Naq fubegyl gurernsgre, ur snyyf va ybir jvgu fbzrbar
> > ryfr. [/rot13]
>
> I'm not sure which story you're remembering, but it's not "Alpha
> Ralpha Boulevard." Tim's summary is correct, and yours isn't.

Okay -- anyone have the story handy, to see exactly what it was?

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

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Jul 10, 2010, 1:06:45 AM7/10/10
to
In article <i18tq7$qje$1...@panix2.panix.com>,

I like the concept of pre-destination with respect to prophecies
such that the prophecy *will* come true (It's prophetic, after all...),
but your free will comes into play in that you try to maneuver things
such that when the prophecy executes word-for-word, the results are
to your advantage, or at least as muchso as possible.

There are a number of SF examples of that. Ones that come to mind are

Jack Vance and Cugel:

"You will lose your heart's desire".

"I will consider making mastery of animal husbandry my heart's desire".

Offut & Lyon's Duel of Wizardry series has another though I can't remember
the actual terms of the prophecy now.

In comics, I believe Marvel's Odin took steps to make all the Ragnorok
prophecies come literally true in a manner survivable for the Norse gods..

Ted
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

William December Starr

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Jul 10, 2010, 1:25:31 AM7/10/10
to
In article <1o1e369b56us4ls7t...@4ax.com>,

"Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com> said:

> Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1
> movie), how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will
> or predestination?

I just finished BITTER SEEDS by Ian Tregillis. History begins
diverging from ours shortly after World War I as a wealthy
asshole-from-beyond-infinity German scientist -- think Josef Mengele
without the charm -- starts conducting experiments on post-war
orphan children[1], trying to find the right places to insert wires
into their brains to trigger psi powers. And he succeeds in a tiny
number of cases; the rest end up in small unmarked graves out back.
Most of his successes have physical powers -- things like
invisibility, pyrokinesis, telekinesis, flight -- but one, a gypsy
girl, develops precognition. By the time of the main part of the
story, 1939 to 1941, she's advising the German high command on
things British troop movements, home island defenses, etc., the
paths of U.S. and Canadian aid convoys in the Atlantic -- the
U-boats have a field day -- and so on. But it seems that she also
sees things that she doesn't tell anyone about, and is in fact a
free agent playing a game of future-manipulation that nobody else
can even _see_.

The book's the first in a trilogy, I believe, so we don't get much
by way of conclusions or endings in it, alas.

*1: For values of "orphan" that include being sold to his
child-collectors by their parents.

-----------

On another note, in Glen Cook's stand-alone sf-mystery novel A
MATTER OF TIME in the near-future a communist regime in Eastern
Europe (I think) was benefiting well from having the world's only
send-messages-into-the-past machine (it used tachyons, I think).

Unfortunately, no messages from the future seem to have been sent
past a certain date, and the last-dated one was cut off in
mid-transmission, seeming to say something about the high party
official who's in charge of the time-message project being present
in the machine room. So the head of security orders that he isn't
to be allowed in there on that date... but he's such an arrogant
asshole that he bullies his way in anyway to see what happened, and
ends up causing a disaster. Oh well.

-- wds

Mike Schilling

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Jul 10, 2010, 1:50:09 AM7/10/10
to
In Heinlein's first story, "Life-Line", the precise time and date of a
person's death is fixed and can be measured. No amount of intervention can
change it (though no one ever makes the experiment of shooting someone who's
supposed to have a lot of time left.)

Brian M. Scott

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Jul 10, 2010, 2:29:16 AM7/10/10
to
On Fri, 9 Jul 2010 23:51:01 -0500, Dan Goodman
<dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote in
<news:xn0gwfyw...@news.iphouse.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> David Goldfarb wrote:

>> In article <xn0gwfne...@news.iphouse.com>,
>> Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:

>>> Tim McDaniel wrote:

>>>> To be precise, "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard". It's a short
>>>> story, or at least I don't think it's even long enough
>>>> for a novella or novelette.

Fairly substantial: about 32 pages in _The Best of
Cordwainer Smith_.

>>>> If anyone hasn't read it and is curious how the topic applies:
>>>> [rot13]
>>>> sebz zrzbel: nsgre ngzbcurevp qrgnvy naq bgure cybg
>>>> guernqf, gur cebgntbavfgf tb nybat gur fxl ebnq bs
>>>> Nycun Enycun Obhyrineq gb zrrg gur benphyne pbzchgre.
>>>> Fur trgf gur cebcurpl "Lbh jvyy ybir rnpu bgure sbe nf
>>>> ybat nf lbh yvir". Ur trgf gur cebcurpl "Lbh jvyy
>>>> ybir rnpu bgure sbe friragrra zvahgrf." Ur uvqrf uvf
>>>> cebcurpl sebz ure. N frirer fgbez pbzrf hc naq gur
>>>> fxljnl vf va onq ercnve. ...

>>> Abg rknpgyl. Fur'f gbyq gung fur jvyy ybir uvz sbe gur
>>> erfg bs ure yvsr. Uvf cebcurpl: Ur jvyy ybir ure sbe
>>> [fznyy ahzore bs zvahgrf]. Naq fubegyl gurernsgre, ur
>>> snyyf va ybir jvgu fbzrbar ryfr. [/rot13]

>> I'm not sure which story you're remembering, but it's not "Alpha
>> Ralpha Boulevard." Tim's summary is correct, and yours isn't.

> Okay -- anyone have the story handy, to see exactly what it was?

Your version of the predictions is substantially correct,
but Tim's right about why both predictions are correct, so
overall his description is more accurate. However, neither
is in the least accurate as a summary of the story as a
whole. 'The elephant is very like a snake.'

Brian

Brian M. Scott

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Jul 10, 2010, 2:36:47 AM7/10/10
to
On Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:53:53 -0600, "Norm D. Plumber"
<nom-de...@non.com> wrote in
<news:1o1e369b56us4ls7t...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
> how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
> predestination?

I don't think that anyone has yet mentioned the Sisterhood
of True Dreamers in Steve Stirling's _The Peshawar Lancers_;
as I recall, it falls on the predestination side.

[...]

Brian

Greg Goss

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Jul 10, 2010, 4:37:08 AM7/10/10
to
"Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:

>_Dune_Messiah_ (Frank Herbert): Paul Atreides is blinded but remains
>able to interact with the world because of his prescience, basically
>he knows where things will be and what will happen and uses that
>knowledge instead of his eyes. It's been too long since I read this
>for me to remember how free-will affected the situation; did he have
>any choice in what to do, could his actions affect change or was he
>forced to simply play out the script?

It was like looking at roads from a hilltop. You could see roads
beyond further hills, but couldn't quite see how they connected to
where you were now. If I recall correctly -- it's been a few decades.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27

Bill Snyder

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Jul 10, 2010, 4:42:20 AM7/10/10
to
On Fri, 9 Jul 2010 06:53:00 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

>Generally, prophecy means predestination, and trying to get out of it
>just makes trouble.
>
>I think there are a few cases where "If the prophecy is lemons, make
>lemonade", works. Where the bad thing in the end isn't so bad.
>
>I'm thinking of "Knock" but it doesn't really fit, unless it
>represents an improvement in your personal social life and that's
>satisfaction enough, and it wasn't so much a prophecy...


>
>And some where you at least try to avoid collateral casualties when
>the sky falls on your head. I can't think of a specific case, but if
>the prophecy is "You will die 20 years from now at ground zero of a 20
>kiloton nuclear explosion" then you want to choose where to live about
>then quite carefully. Like in the middle of the desert or something.

>And, come to think, knowing the date you're going to die may be
>useful, but then again you may do something silly like end up in a
>coma. Or,or, you could volunteer for the mission to plant a bomb on
>the doomsday asteroid coming our way, but make sure they put the nuke
>in the /other/ space shuttle...

At the very least, there are a few politicians I'd want to kidnap
and drag back to my desert hideout.

--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]

Joel Olson

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Jul 10, 2010, 4:51:50 AM7/10/10
to
"Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com> wrote in message
news:rrce36pnufekrajgg...@4ax.com...
> tphile <tph...@cableone.net> wrote:
>
>>Doesn't Heisenburg conflict with predestination?
>
> I assume you're referring to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle when you say
> "Heisenburg" (which nitwise is spelled with an 'e' not a 'u').
>
> Heisenberg's theoretical assertion implies that it is impossible to
> either mentally (like Doc Smith's Arisians) or through mechanized
> means (as in _Paycheck_) see a "mathematically extrapolated" future
> with certainty because according to his assertion it's impossible to
> determine the starting conditions with sufficient accuracy.
>
> But why should an inability to see the future either conflict with, or
> not conflict with, predestination acting to bring about some future
> you can't view in advance? I can't see the Heisenberg principle
> (assuming it to be correct) as having much to do with whether things
> are predestined or not.
>
> There are also the four combinations of predetermination and
> predestination involved in the whole prescience/precognition issue:
>
> 1,2) In a deterministic system there is no free-will, no individual
> choice; every apparent choice an individual makes is actually
> predetermined by some combination of past events; determinism
> represents a purely clockwork mechanical universe and (2) everything
> is predestined by merit of being predetermined.
>
> (3) On the other hand, in a predestined (but not predetermined)
> situation, free-will may exist but it doesn't matter how the
> individual wriggles to get free of his destiny, every choice the
> individual can possibly make leads to the same predestined future
> event.
>
> (4) In a system that is neither predetermined nor predestined the
> individual has free-will and thus has a hand in shaping the future (as
> do all other individuals, etc.)
>
>
> The wiki article pointed to above says regarding critical reactions
> that "Albert Einstein believed that randomness is a reflection of our
> ignorance of some fundamental property of reality..." I think old
> uncle Albert was right about that bit.

>
> --
> pour spelling, bad tuping, and dylsexia; so it goes.

>


Somehow the terminology has mutated, from prescience & precognition
to predestination and predetermination, words sufficiently different to
guarantee some distinctions among them.

Certainly, the uncertainty principle writes finished to any global
predestination and/or predetermination of small scale phenomena via
today's known physics.

Most of today's sf goes with the many worlds interpretation, wherein
you can have your cake and eat it too, a form of predetermination.
I'll leave the precognition to Calvin & Hobbes.


Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 6:53:23 AM7/10/10
to
"Joel Olson" <joel....@cox.net> wrote:

I wouldn't say that the terminology has been mutated, just that
considering one brings out some consideration of the other.


>Certainly, the uncertainty principle writes finished to any global
>predestination and/or predetermination of small scale phenomena via
>today's known physics.

Sorry man, I'm not sure what that means. What it brings to mind is
that (1) Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is a theoretical assertion
which, despite the fact that it has formulas, remains a theoretical
assertion rather than a fact of life, and (2) presuming it is true
(which you appear to be) how does indeterminacy assure
unpredictability? If indeterminacy assures either unpredictability OR
predictability there's some logical linkage there that I'm missing.
Are you making the assumption that because a thing's complete state
cannot be determined it therefore does not exist, taking a
super-reductionist approach? Nope, I don't understand what you're
saying, for whatever reasons.


>Most of today's sf goes with the many worlds interpretation, wherein
>you can have your cake and eat it too, a form of predetermination.
>I'll leave the precognition to Calvin & Hobbes.

The thing I find unswallowable about the many-worlds interpretation is
that once created they continue to exist... somewhere we can't see; I
find it more reasonable to consider the possbility of many worlds from
which one is selected for actuality. But that difference is kind of
subtle, especially when humans can only sense a tiny part of all that
could be sensed.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 7:13:13 AM7/10/10
to
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>On Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:14:17 -0600, "Norm D. Plumber"
><nom-de...@non.com> wrote in
><news:15bf365h843mmthn1...@4ax.com> in
>rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>> Besides, I seem to recall that its reliability was
>>> degraded when more than one person was capable of
>>> applying it.
>
>> I don't remember that as being in _Dorsai!_, do you recall
>> which book it was in? I'm not sure that I ever read them
>> all.
>
>If I'm remembering correctly, it comes up later in the
>Childe Cycle, probably in _The Final Encyclopedia_.

I really should re-read the whole series, it's been decades; thanks.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 7:17:40 AM7/10/10
to
wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:

>In article <12787...@sheol.org>, Wayne Throop <thr...@sheol.org> wrote:
>>: "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com>
>>: Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>>: how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>>: predestination?
>
>>If we count SF in the "speculative fiction" sense
>>(and hence can include fantasy), an interesting one
>>is The Cursed (Dave Duncan). [big big snip]
>
>Nobody seems to have mentioned Julian May yet. In the Galactic
>Milieu/Pliocene Exile milieu, there are two distinct areas where this
>comes up:
>
>1) Some people (notably Brede Shipspouse) have the metability of
>/prolepsis/, the ability to actively predict the future.

What's the distinction between the 'prolepsis' ability and prescience
or precognition, and what does "actively predict" mean as
differentiated from any other kind of prediction?

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 7:27:28 AM7/10/10
to
"Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:

The phrase "life-line" reminds me of one of Dean Koontz's books, I
forget the title of it... ah, there it is bless google's black little
heart, _Cold_Fire_.

Koontz has gone all over the place but has stayed away from the
science-fiction part of speculative-fiction, mostly.

Anyway in _Cold_Fire_ the protagonist undergoes... seizure-like
situations in which he finds himself saying "life line" and then goes
off to rescue someone.

It's sort of a combination of precognition and reality-changing, as I
recall.

David DeLaney

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 8:22:15 AM7/10/10
to
Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>>Certainly, the uncertainty principle writes finished to any global
>>predestination and/or predetermination of small scale phenomena via
>>today's known physics.
>
>Sorry man, I'm not sure what that means. What it brings to mind is
>that (1) Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is a theoretical assertion
>which, despite the fact that it has formulas, remains a theoretical
>assertion rather than a fact of life

... ... You need to learn more physics, both theoretical and experimental.
Without the U.P., you don't get virtual particle pairs, and various measurable
things stemming from that - that's from E-t uncertainty. You also don't get
various measurable things from the x-p uncertainty.

The only way you get to call it a "theoretical assertion" is if you actually
KNOW what the word "theory" MEANS in science. It's not 'something we handwaved
up and have never been able to test but we're saying it anyway because it feels
good'.

You're welcome to come up with a theory that fits the observed data and facts
BETTER than this. Good luck with that.

>The thing I find unswallowable about the many-worlds interpretation is
>that once created they continue to exist... somewhere we can't see;

Depends on your definition of 'we'. Only the bit of 'we' that's confined to
this branch can't see the others; most of the others have their own 'we' that
can see them, individually, just fine.

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 9:53:16 AM7/10/10
to


More than that (spoilers, of course):

The protagonist is one of the most powerful fictional psionics I've
ever seen. He's capable of essentially the full range of psi powers,
including quite powerful precognition. His precognition, however, is NOT
unchangeable. He believes (during a large part of the novel) that God is
sending him places, and so he simply goes there to save people according
to his vision. However, when a young lady finally tracks him down (due
to his heroics) and starts following him, she actually forces him to try
to CHANGE things -- and it works.

It turns out he has MPD and created the godlike voice as a refuge from
something truly terrible that happened to him in the past, in which he
failed to save his parents (not surprising, he had minimal power at the
time and he was a child) from being killed in a horrific mass murder
scenario.

Once he has managed to break through (and beat the *bad* side of his
MPD, which is a classic manifestation of self-hatred), he still has the
precog, but it tells him of events that are going to happen IF HE
DOESN'T DO SOMETHING.

So this is a version of precog with definite free will, shown at first
as though it's also predestination but later shown to be not set in stone.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 1:06:25 PM7/10/10
to
d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:

>Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>>>Certainly, the uncertainty principle writes finished to any global
>>>predestination and/or predetermination of small scale phenomena via
>>>today's known physics.
>>
>>Sorry man, I'm not sure what that means. What it brings to mind is
>>that (1) Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is a theoretical assertion
>>which, despite the fact that it has formulas, remains a theoretical
>>assertion rather than a fact of life
>
>... ... You need to learn more physics, both theoretical and experimental.

Exactly what qualifies you to tell me what I need to learn, Dave? I'm
of the opinion that you need to spend a little more time on
metaphysics and ontology in order to provide some more perspective to
your reductionist factoids.


>Without the U.P., you don't get virtual particle pairs, and various measurable
>things stemming from that - that's from E-t uncertainty. You also don't get
>various measurable things from the x-p uncertainty.

Gosh how could I ever figure out that the sun is shining without
those? Buddy, a long time ago I got done collecting more factoids
than I could neatly store and started sorting them into piles; it
isn't how many tiny factoids you have collected at all, it's how well
they fit together into a cognizable whole. When Ug the caveman was
sniffing around maybe he needed to invent reductionism to get hisself
a few more factoids, but once you get enough factoids it comes time to
do a little syncretizing so you can dig your way out of the factoids
and see some sunshine again.


>The only way you get to call it a "theoretical assertion" is if you actually
>KNOW what the word "theory" MEANS in science. It's not 'something we handwaved
>up and have never been able to test but we're saying it anyway because it feels
>good'.

You keep jumping to conclusions about me based on your own
assumptions, Dave; you can hurt yourself that way, cause my
assumptions are not your assumptions. Just because you have a
'theory' that amounts to "our best explanation for the confirmed data"
that doesn't mean the theory represents Truth. Just because you can
accurately predict 99.999% of some class of events, unless you can
account for that 0.001% for which your theory does not work, you have
a good explanation but you don't have the Truth, and I'm not talking
about accounting for the strange 0.001% by handwaving "random chance"
at it either.


>You're welcome to come up with a theory that fits the observed data and facts
>BETTER than this. Good luck with that.

I agree with uncle Albert that "randomness is a reflection of our
ignorance of some fundamental property of reality", I think the man
was dead-nuts on with that one, and I opine that the "fundamental
property" he was referring to is the most basic principle of reality,
the one that makes a Theory Of Everything not only possible but a
fallout, the property that Godel's incompleteness work says can't be
codified within the physical universe (so it's pointless trying to
codifiy it for the benefit of the world's reductionists).

So yeah, I have a view that I like well enough, it keeps me in beans
so to speak. But I can't explain it to you because as Godel points
out it can't be codified within the realm it defines. I could offer
you a couple clues and let you work it out for yourself if you're
able, but you seem inclined to tell me what I need to learn more about
so I'll just save myself the effort.


>>The thing I find unswallowable about the many-worlds interpretation is
>>that once created they continue to exist... somewhere we can't see;
>
>Depends on your definition of 'we'. Only the bit of 'we' that's confined to
>this branch can't see the others; most of the others have their own 'we' that
>can see them, individually, just fine.

Oh, I see. Well, I suppose that's possible. Like I mentioned, we
humans can only see a tiny part of even the spectrum we know about,
much less any others.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 1:16:08 PM7/10/10
to
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

>Norm D. Plumber wrote:
>> "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> In Heinlein's first story, "Life-Line", the precise time and date of a
>>> person's death is fixed and can be measured. No amount of intervention can
>>> change it (though no one ever makes the experiment of shooting someone who's
>>> supposed to have a lot of time left.)
>>
>> The phrase "life-line" reminds me of one of Dean Koontz's books, I
>> forget the title of it... ah, there it is bless google's black little
>> heart, _Cold_Fire_.
>>
>> Koontz has gone all over the place but has stayed away from the
>> science-fiction part of speculative-fiction, mostly.
>>
>> Anyway in _Cold_Fire_ the protagonist undergoes... seizure-like
>> situations in which he finds himself saying "life line" and then goes
>> off to rescue someone.
>>
>> It's sort of a combination of precognition and reality-changing, as I
>> recall.
>>
>
>
> More than that (spoilers, of course):

<spoiler_snippage>

> So this is a version of precog with definite free will, shown at first
>as though it's also predestination but later shown to be not set in stone.

Damn, that was one of the best summaries I've read for a while,
SeaWasp. He should've had you write the cover-blurb, he'd have made a
few extra million on that one.

Koontz has written some pretty dynamite fiction imo, he reminds me a
lot of a latter-day Alan Dean Foster. Lately he seems to be "going
holy" on things, but I'm predicting that's a phase that he'll make his
way through.

Or maybe he's too busy counting his cash to worry about it, hard to
guess that one. I can't see how he could possibly not be raking in
megabucks.

Jo'Asia

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 3:02:34 PM7/10/10
to
tphile wrote:

> If it is prophesied that you will win the lottery, you still gotta buy
> the ticket.

No, I do not have to. If fate *really* wants me to win a lottery then I'll
get a ticket as a birthady present from a friend. Or I'll find one
somewhere.

Jo'Asia

--
__.-=-. -< Joanna Slupek >----------------------< http://esensja.pl/ >-
--<()> -< joasia @ hell . pl >-------------< http://bujold.sf-f.pl/ >-
.__.'| -< My name is Olo. Hans Olo. {Stargate SG-1, Daniel Jackson} >-

Garrett Wollman

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 3:54:21 PM7/10/10
to
In article <gjlg3692k0l8t5kqj...@4ax.com>,

Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>>1) Some people (notably Brede Shipspouse) have the metability of
>>/prolepsis/, the ability to actively predict the future.

>What's the distinction between the 'prolepsis' ability and prescience
>or precognition,

The same as the distinction between "metapsychic" and "psi" -- it's
just the writer's choice of terminology.

>and what does "actively predict" mean as
>differentiated from any other kind of prediction?

Willed as opposed to spontaneous.

-GAWollman

Brian M. Scott

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 4:10:01 PM7/10/10
to
On Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:06:25 -0600, "Norm D. Plumber"
<nom-de...@non.com> wrote in
<news:le7h36979obpv2ie3...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> ... the most basic principle of reality, the one that


> makes a Theory Of Everything not only possible but a
> fallout, the property that Godel's incompleteness work

> says can't be codified within the physical universe ...

Another one who doesn't understand what Gödel's
incompleteness theorems actually say.

[...]

Wayne Throop

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 9:23:16 PM7/10/10
to
: "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com>
: I agree with uncle Albert that "randomness is a reflection of our

: ignorance of some fundamental property of reality",

But actually, the universe doesn't care what you *or* Albert thinks.
Albert thought he had the unvierse when he (and others) came up
with the EPR paradox. However... turns out he *didn't* have the
universe, and it went and acted like he said it wouldn't, couldn't,
possibly act, no matter what he thought.


Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw

Tim McDaniel

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 1:19:59 AM7/11/10
to
In article <bunx4qvlezyc.rgof3ikpdw0c$.d...@40tude.net>,

Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>However, neither is in the least accurate as a summary of the story
>as a whole.

Well, no. I was only trying for
] If anyone hasn't read it and is curious how the topic applies:

It would be like a discussion of the use of foliage as camoflage,
someone mentioning _MacBeth_, and me explaining what in _MacBeth_
was applicable.

--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com

Butch Malahide

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 2:51:50 AM7/11/10
to
On Jul 10, 12:50 am, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

"Monday Immortal" by Robert Silverberg (writing
as Ralph Burke)

<http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?710365>

is about a man who "knows" he has one week to live, no more and no
less, having read about the discovery of his mangled corpse in the
headline of a future newspaper seen through a time viewer. He reacts
by turning himself into a crimefighting superhero--like Batman but
seeking to avenge his *own* murder--for a week, making daredevil leaps
from building to building, charging bad guys with blasters, etc. I
won't spoil the surprise ending by telling you what he reads in the
news at the end of the week.

William December Starr

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 2:53:02 AM7/11/10
to
In article <a3a1a75c-75a0-4fd1...@y11g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com> said:

> "Monday Immortal" by Robert Silverberg (writing as Ralph Burke)
>
> <http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?710365>
>
> is about a man who "knows" he has one week to live, no more and no
> less, having read about the discovery of his mangled corpse in the
> headline of a future newspaper seen through a time viewer. He
> reacts by turning himself into a crimefighting superhero--like
> Batman but seeking to avenge his *own* murder--for a week, making
> daredevil leaps from building to building, charging bad guys with
> blasters, etc. I won't spoil the surprise ending by telling you
> what he reads in the news at the end of the week.

Oh please do.

-- wds

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 8:48:56 AM7/11/10
to
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

Then perhaps you should think about their implications a little more.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 9:00:15 AM7/11/10
to
thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:

>: "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com>
>: I agree with uncle Albert that "randomness is a reflection of our
>: ignorance of some fundamental property of reality",
>
>But actually, the universe doesn't care what you *or* Albert thinks.

Properties of the universe continue their operation unhindered by our
ignorance, I don't see why anyone would expect the universe to "make
nice" for people who don't know what's going on (and in support of
that, it seems not to).

On the other hand, what we think does interact with the rest of the
universe to an extent, if it didn't we'd be unable to move our bodies
by intent.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 9:01:05 AM7/11/10
to
wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:

>In article <gjlg3692k0l8t5kqj...@4ax.com>,
>Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>>wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>>>1) Some people (notably Brede Shipspouse) have the metability of
>>>/prolepsis/, the ability to actively predict the future.
>
>>What's the distinction between the 'prolepsis' ability and prescience
>>or precognition,
>
>The same as the distinction between "metapsychic" and "psi" -- it's
>just the writer's choice of terminology.
>
>>and what does "actively predict" mean as
>>differentiated from any other kind of prediction?
>
>Willed as opposed to spontaneous.
>
>-GAWollman

Thanks.

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 9:27:28 AM7/11/10
to

Depends. Blurbs for that type of book (Horror/Suspense, with
supernatural elements) generally SHOULDN'T give away nearly so much
about the book. You want to hook the reader in, hopefully without
tipping your hand as to the key "gotchas" in the plot.

I loved "Coldfire" -- it's one of my favorite Koontz novels. One of the
BEST parts, even though it was a fairly minor plot point, was the fact
that he directly used the old bit: "Hey, if you can see the future, why
ain't you won the lottery, chump?"

The main character, of course, became suddenly independently wealthy
(and thus able to run around doing what he thought was God's work) when
he won the lottery.


>
> Koontz has written some pretty dynamite fiction imo, he reminds me a
> lot of a latter-day Alan Dean Foster. Lately he seems to be "going
> holy" on things, but I'm predicting that's a phase that he'll make his
> way through.
>

I haven't read a lot of his more recent material, so I can't judge.

> Or maybe he's too busy counting his cash to worry about it, hard to
> guess that one. I can't see how he could possibly not be raking in
> megabucks.

If he's still getting published regularly and still getting big
releases, he's certainly not hurting for money. For a while he was
getting up there with King, but I don't know if he maintained that
level. He certainly hasn't had as many movies/TV specials made from his
stuff, at least not that I'm aware of, though he has had some.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 9:43:25 AM7/11/10
to
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:

>Norm D. Plumber wrote:

>>>> Anyway in _Cold_Fire_ the protagonist undergoes... seizure-like
>>>> situations in which he finds himself saying "life line" and then goes
>>>> off to rescue someone.
>>>>
>>>> It's sort of a combination of precognition and reality-changing, as I
>>>> recall.
>>>>
>>>
>>> More than that (spoilers, of course):
>>
>> <spoiler_snippage>
>>
>>> So this is a version of precog with definite free will, shown at first
>>> as though it's also predestination but later shown to be not set in stone.
>>
>> Damn, that was one of the best summaries I've read for a while,
>> SeaWasp. He should've had you write the cover-blurb, he'd have made a
>> few extra million on that one.
>
> Depends. Blurbs for that type of book (Horror/Suspense, with

>supernatural elements) <snip>

It's interesting that you categorize it that way. I'd have called it
"speculative fiction" and gone on my merry way. But then, I'd call
his _Lightning_ "science fiction".

Mark Zenier

unread,
Jul 10, 2010, 5:31:39 PM7/10/10
to
In article <1o1e369b56us4ls7t...@4ax.com>,

Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>predestination?

The Way of the Spider series by W. Michael Gear was (from what little
I remember*) about a cultural clash between "Pseudo Native Americans In
Space" and a more technical civilization. The shamans had precognition
but they couldn't act on it to force an outcome. The Warriors could act
but didn't see anything in advance.

*This was when DAW(?) started selling books by the "thicker is better"
principle, and I had an Eight Deadly Words epiphany somewhere in there
in the first or second book (of three).

Mark Zenier mze...@eskimo.com
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)


Mike Schilling

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 11:09:59 AM7/11/10
to

"Butch Malahide" <fred....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:a3a1a75c-75a0-4fd1...@y11g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...

Sounds a bit like a Tim Powers novel whose name I won't mention, because
it's a spoiler.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 11:19:44 AM7/11/10
to
mze...@eskimo.com (Mark Zenier) wrote:

>In article <1o1e369b56us4ls7t...@4ax.com>,
>Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>>Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>>how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>>predestination?
>
>The Way of the Spider series by W. Michael Gear was (from what little
>I remember*) about a cultural clash between "Pseudo Native Americans In
>Space" and a more technical civilization. The shamans had precognition
>but they couldn't act on it to force an outcome. The Warriors could act
>but didn't see anything in advance.

That's an interesting split, did the shamans tell the warriors what
was going to happen?

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 2:55:01 PM7/11/10
to

For the several years I worked in retail books (Borders #35 in Albany,
RIP) Koontz, along with King, was always shelved under "horror", never
under SF.

Obviously there's plenty of SF elements in many if not all of Koontz'
works, but the audience he's writing toward is much more the "fantastic
horror" than the typical SF/F fan.

Brian M. Scott

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 5:20:19 PM7/11/10
to
On Sun, 11 Jul 2010 06:48:56 -0600, "Norm D. Plumber"
<nom-de...@non.com> wrote in
<news:6cfj36d2kmtnnngre...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

>>[...]

Your advice is irrelevant: in this matter you don't know
what you're talking about. In particular, you're incapable
of thinking about their implications: that requires actual
understanding.

Brian M. Scott

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 5:40:27 PM7/11/10
to
On Sun, 11 Jul 2010 14:55:01 -0400, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E.
Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
<news:i1d425$i8t$1...@news.eternal-september.org> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> For the several years I worked in retail books (Borders
> #35 in Albany, RIP) Koontz, along with King, was always
> shelved under "horror", never under SF.

That doesn't necessarily say much: I find some of Borders'
shelving very odd indeed. But from the very little Koontz
that I've looked at, this one's defensible, though I'd be
more inclined to classify it as a subcategory of suspense.

[...]

Brian

Moriarty

unread,
Jul 11, 2010, 9:30:09 PM7/11/10
to
On Jul 10, 2:43 pm, wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:
> In article <2e33b094-a1ab-451d-b6a5-a38a65528...@y4g2000yqy.googlegroups.com>,
> Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> said:
>
> > And some where you at least try to avoid collateral casualties
> > when the sky falls on your head.  I can't think of a specific
> > case, but if the prophecy is "You will die 20 years from now at
> > ground zero of a 20 kiloton nuclear explosion" then you want to
> > choose where to live about then quite carefully.  Like in the
> > middle of the desert or something.
>
> And the last thing you see before you die is a historical plaque
> identifying where you're standing as the site of a 20 kiloton
> nuclear bomb test in 1957.  And the last thing you hear is the
> prophecy snickering.
>

David Gemmell did something along these lines in _Bloodstone_. The
Big Bad, having sucked all the souls out of everyone on his own
dimension, wanted to be transported to the 20th century to enjoy the
billions of souls there. Jon Shannow, our hero, promised to do just
that if only BB didn't kill all Shannow's friends. BB looks into
Shannow's soul, sees truth there and accepts the deal.

BB appears in the desert somewhere, notices a 20 metre tall metal
tower and is curious about it. He examines it and slowly realises
what it is. He then glances at the stars above and is able to
determine precisely where and when he is. It's just after 5:29am,
July 16 1945 and the latitude and longitude show he's in New Mexico at
a place called Trinity.

-Moriarty

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 5:34:37 AM7/12/10
to
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>On Sun, 11 Jul 2010 06:48:56 -0600, "Norm D. Plumber"
><nom-de...@non.com> wrote in
><news:6cfj36d2kmtnnngre...@4ax.com> in
>rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>> "Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
>>>On Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:06:25 -0600, "Norm D. Plumber"
>>><nom-de...@non.com> wrote in
>>><news:le7h36979obpv2ie3...@4ax.com> in
>>>rec.arts.sf.written:
>
>>>[...]
>
>>>> ... the most basic principle of reality, the one that
>>>> makes a Theory Of Everything not only possible but a
>>>> fallout, the property that Godel's incompleteness work
>>>> says can't be codified within the physical universe ...
>
>>> Another one who doesn't understand what Gödel's
>>> incompleteness theorems actually say.
>
>> Then perhaps you should think about their implications a
>> little more.
>
>Your advice is irrelevant: in this matter you don't know
>what you're talking about. In particular, you're incapable
>of thinking about their implications: that requires actual
>understanding.

It isn't blindingly complex for goodness sake, he's referring to the
inability of any bounded system to be completely self-defining; it's a
boundary paradox.

If he'd published in 1981 instead of 1931 the word 'recursion' would
probably stand out like a sore thumb.

It's the same principle that prevents the most basic operating
principle of the universe, the principle that defines the universe,
from being codifiable within the universe. It's the reason that many
reductionists conclude that no Theory Of Everything is possible; they
conclude that since codification is not possible therefore no defining
principle is possible. Which actually indicates only that they've
chosen to begin a reductionist approach from within a bounded system.

Robert Carnegie

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 6:28:43 AM7/12/10
to
On Jul 11, 1:48 pm, "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de-pl...@non.com> wrote:

> "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:06:25 -0600, "Norm D. Plumber"
> ><nom-de-pl...@non.com> wrote in

> ><news:le7h36979obpv2ie3...@4ax.com> in
> >rec.arts.sf.written:
>
> >[...]
>
> >> ... the most basic principle of reality, the one that
> >> makes a Theory Of Everything not only possible but a
> >> fallout, the property that Godel's incompleteness work
> >> says can't be codified within the physical universe ...
>
> >Another one who doesn't understand what Gödel's
> >incompleteness theorems actually say.
>
> Then perhaps you should think about their implications a little more.

I only know that Godel proved that in any system of mathematics that
is sufficiently sophisticated to be useful, based upon a set of
axioms, some statements that must be true when the axioms are valid,
cannot be proved from the axioms. I think Goldbach's Conjecture might
be one such statement, but that's just from me. But I don't see an
application to physics.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 8:07:24 AM7/12/10
to
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

Try viewing Godel's work as applying to systems rather than simply to
mathematics and you might see its application to physics.

Wayne Throop

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 11:03:29 AM7/12/10
to
: "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com>
: It isn't blindingly complex for goodness sake, he's referring to the

: inability of any bounded system to be completely self-defining; it's a
: boundary paradox.

Um. No.

: It's the same principle that prevents the most basic operating


: principle of the universe, the principle that defines the universe,
: from being codifiable within the universe.

So, a program that prints itself is impossible?
Because it can't encode all of its own text within itself?

: Which actually indicates only that they've chosen to begin a


: reductionist approach from within a bounded system.

Actually, even if we take the unbounded system you get by adding
a schema that indefinitely extends the system by adding its Goedel
sentence to itself an infinite number of times, it still doesn't
result in a complete system. Boundedness isn't the issue.
Unless you have a private definition of "bounded".

Michael Stemper

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 1:15:12 PM7/12/10
to
In article <6b56edc9-58fc-47e4...@u26g2000yqu.googlegroups.com>, Earl_Colby_Pottinger <earlcolby...@sympatico.ca> writes:

>On Jul 9, 6:53=A0am, "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de-pl...@non.com> wrote:

>> Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>> how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>> predestination?
>

>Did any books do what Doc did in "Back to the Future"?
>
>Marty tells him that he saw him get shot and fall down dead, then the
>Doc makes sure that he is wearing a bullet-proof vest and pretends to
>die when he is shot.

Doc? I would have sworn that it was Marty "Clint" McFly who did that. He
was the one in the gunfight with proto-Biff, wasn't he?

> Thus you don't change the future but you get the
>ending 'you' want.

Of course, BttF III showed them consciously changing the future, with
periodic spot-checks of historical photos from the future. Also, see
the name change that the ravine underwent.

--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
This message contains at least 95% recycled bytes.

Mark Zenier

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 12:47:14 PM7/12/10
to
In article <u6oj36p1lnj8tqffe...@4ax.com>,

Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>mze...@eskimo.com (Mark Zenier) wrote:
>
>>In article <1o1e369b56us4ls7t...@4ax.com>,
>>Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>>>Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>>>how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>>>predestination?
>>
>>The Way of the Spider series by W. Michael Gear was (from what little
>>I remember*) about a cultural clash between "Pseudo Native Americans In
>>Space" and a more technical civilization. The shamans had precognition
>>but they couldn't act on it to force an outcome. The Warriors could act
>>but didn't see anything in advance.
>
>That's an interesting split, did the shamans tell the warriors what
>was going to happen?

As I remember it, (which is pretty poorly, I skimmed through a a lot
of stuff in the '80s and '90s), the choice between knowing and acting
was a major tension in the story. Act too much on the precognition,
and the precognitive loses his ability.

Lawrence Watt-Evans

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 1:35:00 PM7/12/10
to
On Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:15:12 +0000 (UTC),
mste...@walkabout.empros.com (Michael Stemper) wrote:

>In article <6b56edc9-58fc-47e4...@u26g2000yqu.googlegroups.com>, Earl_Colby_Pottinger <earlcolby...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>>On Jul 9, 6:53=A0am, "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de-pl...@non.com> wrote:
>
>>> Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>>> how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>>> predestination?
>>
>>Did any books do what Doc did in "Back to the Future"?
>>
>>Marty tells him that he saw him get shot and fall down dead, then the
>>Doc makes sure that he is wearing a bullet-proof vest and pretends to
>>die when he is shot.
>
>Doc? I would have sworn that it was Marty "Clint" McFly who did that. He
>was the one in the gunfight with proto-Biff, wasn't he?

He got the idea from watching Doc Brown survive being machine-gunned
by the Libyans in the first movie.


--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
I'm serializing novels at http://www.ethshar.com/TheFinalCalling01.html
and http://www.watt-evans.com/realmsoflight1.html

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 1:37:34 PM7/12/10
to
Michael Stemper wrote:
> In article <6b56edc9-58fc-47e4...@u26g2000yqu.googlegroups.com>, Earl_Colby_Pottinger <earlcolby...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>> On Jul 9, 6:53=A0am, "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de-pl...@non.com> wrote:
>
>>> Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>>> how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>>> predestination?
>> Did any books do what Doc did in "Back to the Future"?
>>
>> Marty tells him that he saw him get shot and fall down dead, then the
>> Doc makes sure that he is wearing a bullet-proof vest and pretends to
>> die when he is shot.
>
> Doc? I would have sworn that it was Marty "Clint" McFly who did that. He
> was the one in the gunfight with proto-Biff, wasn't he?

He's talking about the FIRST movie, in which "THE LIBYANS!!" come
screeching out of nowhere, machine guns blazing, and gun down Doc Brown,
forcing Marty to make a desperate getaway in the DeLorean into 1955.
Marty forces the letter explaining the future into Doc's hands and
(despite initially tearing it up on impulse) Doc reads it and makes sure
he's wearing body armor under his lab getup that day. This saves Doc's life.

>
>> Thus you don't change the future but you get the
>> ending 'you' want.
>
> Of course, BttF III showed them consciously changing the future, with
> periodic spot-checks of historical photos from the future. Also, see
> the name change that the ravine underwent.
>

They did the same in the first movie; Marty's constantly checking his
family photo, especially during the concert, and the mall went from
"Twin Pines" to "Lone Pine" mall when Marty ran over one of the pines in
1955.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 2:36:37 PM7/12/10
to
thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:

>Actually, even if we take the unbounded system you get by adding
>a schema that indefinitely extends the system by adding its Goedel
>sentence to itself an infinite number of times, it still doesn't
>result in a complete system. Boundedness isn't the issue.
>Unless you have a private definition of "bounded".

I'm not sure whether I have a "private definition" of 'bounded' or
not. I think not, but it's difficult to know for sure.

Within any given frame of reference, the definition of that frame of
reference cannot be complete and consistent because the enclosure of
that frame of reference is not visible from within yet it is part of
the definition. What I'm talking about when I say "bounded system" is
a system which is enclosed but does not include the enclosing
boundary.

So is that a "private definition" of 'bounded' or not?

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 2:40:08 PM7/12/10
to
mze...@eskimo.com (Mark Zenier) wrote:

>In article <u6oj36p1lnj8tqffe...@4ax.com>,
>Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>>mze...@eskimo.com (Mark Zenier) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <1o1e369b56us4ls7t...@4ax.com>,
>>>Norm D. Plumber <nom-de...@non.com> wrote:
>>>>Offhand I can come up with 6 examples the subject (5 novels, 1 movie),
>>>>how many more are there, and do they lean toward free-will or
>>>>predestination?
>>>
>>>The Way of the Spider series by W. Michael Gear was (from what little
>>>I remember*) about a cultural clash between "Pseudo Native Americans In
>>>Space" and a more technical civilization. The shamans had precognition
>>>but they couldn't act on it to force an outcome. The Warriors could act
>>>but didn't see anything in advance.
>>
>>That's an interesting split, did the shamans tell the warriors what
>>was going to happen?
>
>As I remember it, (which is pretty poorly, I skimmed through a a lot
>of stuff in the '80s and '90s), the choice between knowing and acting
>was a major tension in the story. Act too much on the precognition,
>and the precognitive loses his ability.

I can get that, but it sounded as if the shamans, by telling the
warriors about the future, would be playing a bit of sleight-of-hand
that allowed the warriors to know what to expect without risking their
own shamanistic precognition.

Wayne Throop

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 3:41:40 PM7/12/10
to
: "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com>
: Within any given frame of reference, the definition of that frame of

: reference cannot be complete and consistent because the enclosure of
: that frame of reference is not visible from within yet it is part of
: the definition. What I'm talking about when I say "bounded system" is
: a system which is enclosed but does not include the enclosing
: boundary.
:
: So is that a "private definition" of 'bounded' or not?

I don't think it's how it'd be used in a technical sense.
Though I don't speak with any confidence about mathematical jargon.

In any event, the whole point of Goedel is that things outside the
system *can* be refered to from inside the system. That's how you can
make a statement which is effectively "this system contains no proof
of X" from within "this system". It's central to the whole proof.
So I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

Butch Malahide

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 4:26:46 PM7/12/10
to fred....@gmail.com
On Jul 12, 5:28 am, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> I only know that Godel proved that in any system of mathematics that
> is sufficiently sophisticated to be useful, based upon a set of
> axioms, some statements that must be true when the axioms are valid,
> cannot be proved from the axioms.

Right. A couple nitpicks and an ObSF:

I'd use "strong" rather than "sophisticated" as the latter adjective
has connotations of phoniness.

I'd drop "to be useful"; the propositional calculus and elementary
geometry are two examples of useful systems which escape Goedel's
theorem.

The conclusion is not quite correct. First, for logicians (IANAL)
"valid" is a technical term meaning "*logically* true" which can't be
what you mean here; you probably meant "true". Second, it sounds like
you're saying that some logical consequences of the axioms can't be
proved from the axioms, and that's wrong. One correct conclusion would
be that some statements can neither be proved nor refuted from the
axioms. At least, that's how I remember it from my informal study
(never took an actual class in the subject) of the matter half a
century ago.

> I think Goldbach's Conjecture might be one such statement, but that's just from me.

Could be, but I believe the experts expect that Goldbach's conjecture
will eventually be proved.

> But I don't see an application to physics.

What are the axioms of physics? Hmm . . .

1. What goes up must come down.
2. Nature abhors a vacuum.
3. Water seeks its own level.

ObSF: Crispin Kim-Bradley had a couple of articles on symbolic logic
(including Goedel's undecidability theorem) in Astounding Science
Fiction, which were reviewed favorably (by Alonzo Church?) in the
Journal of Symbolic Logic:
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Crispin_Kim-Bradley

Wayne Throop

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 4:43:48 PM7/12/10
to
: Butch Malahide <fred....@gmail.com>
: One correct conclusion would be that some statements can neither be

: proved nor refuted from the axioms. At least, that's how I remember
: it from my informal study (never took an actual class in the subject)
: of the matter half a century ago.

True. Ish. The informal way of putting it is that Goedel came up with a
way of saying "this statement has no proof", encoded in the system being
used to prove things. That statement could either be true or false;
if it's true, then the system is incomplete. If it's false, then the
system is inconsistent.

Of course crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's to show how one
manages to say "x has no proof", let alone make x refer to the statement
it is in, gets fiercely complicated and twisty. But he wasn't pulling
a fast one; all the work is there.

So basically, all formal systems that are as strong as Peano arithmetic
(that is, can do what Peano arithmetic does, in terms of modeling numbers
and such), is either inconsistent or incomplete. So, any TOE that's a
formal system which is at least as strong as Peano Arithmetic is either
inconsistent or incomplete.

Now what that means in terms of whether there can *be* a sensible
TOE that's a formal system is less clear. And it says nothing about
whether there can be a TOE that's not a formal system in this sense.

"Spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does..."
--- Homer Simpson

Brian M. Scott

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 5:31:51 PM7/12/10
to
On Mon, 12 Jul 2010 03:34:37 -0600, "Norm D. Plumber"
<nom-de...@non.com> wrote in
<news:eokl36tf0o5odfbik...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

>>>>[...]

No. As I said, you don't know what you're talking about.

[...]

Brian M. Scott

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 5:33:13 PM7/12/10
to
On Mon, 12 Jul 2010 06:07:24 -0600, "Norm D. Plumber"
<nom-de...@non.com> wrote in
<news:3t0m36hh9bbj10fcq...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> Try viewing Godel's work as applying to systems rather than simply to
> mathematics and you might see its application to physics.

Try learning what it actually is before attempting to
instruct others in what it means.

Moriarty

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 6:28:35 PM7/12/10
to
On Jul 13, 3:37 am, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"

<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> Michael Stemper wrote:

Totally OT but I recently watched the BTTF movies with my kids. That
first movie is still one damn fine flick! The others, less so.

-Moriarty

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 7:15:05 PM7/12/10
to


I think all three are quite good, though you have to view the other two
as being, really, one long movie. They were made at the same time, too.

Moriarty

unread,
Jul 12, 2010, 7:53:17 PM7/12/10
to
On Jul 13, 9:15 am, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"

They're ok and the kids liked them well enough. But the 'future tech'
depicted in 2015 is painfully silly and dates BTTF2 badly.

-Moriarty

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 13, 2010, 4:50:47 AM7/13/10
to

Well you certainly don't know what I'm talking about, that's pretty
obvious.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 13, 2010, 6:04:57 AM7/13/10
to
thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:

What I get from Godel is that a TOE cannot be a formal system because
it cannot be codified from within in a way that is complete and
consistent and there is no outside. It appears to me that the
reductionist camp concludes that no TOE can be possible because only
formal systems are valid candidates; I consider it quite possible for
a TOE to exist and be useful without being fully formal. Of course
that cannot be proven given the rules of engagement, it can only be
demonstrated and puzzled over by those who insist that only formal
systems are allowed to be valid.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 13, 2010, 6:05:00 AM7/13/10
to
thr...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:

>: "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de...@non.com>
>: Within any given frame of reference, the definition of that frame of
>: reference cannot be complete and consistent because the enclosure of
>: that frame of reference is not visible from within yet it is part of
>: the definition. What I'm talking about when I say "bounded system" is
>: a system which is enclosed but does not include the enclosing
>: boundary.
>:
>: So is that a "private definition" of 'bounded' or not?
>
>I don't think it's how it'd be used in a technical sense.
>Though I don't speak with any confidence about mathematical jargon.

I wasn't using mathematical jargon, though in any reference to Godel
it makes sense that you would assume that.

Thermodynamics has the concept of "closed" vs "open" systems, a closed
system being one that allows no heat transfer across its boundary
(though none of those truly exist due to materials constraints).
That's almost close to what I'm referring to when I talk about a
bounded system, though I'm looking in a more general sense than just
heat.

I'm coming more from a viewpoint that is somewhere between systems
theory and systems analysis with bits of other disciplines like
black-box theory. In my view, a system exists wherever you define its
boundaries to be, and can be analyzed in detail or considered a black
box that acts as a unit; only one unbounded system can exist, all of
its subsystems are bounded, and bounded systems communicate through
their boundaries only via specific identifiable interfaces. By
shifting system boundary definitions the semantics of a black box
interface can be seen to change, and information can be gathered about
the whole and its composition.

Perfect communication is probably just not going to be possible.


>In any event, the whole point of Goedel is that things outside the
>system *can* be refered to from inside the system.

That isn't how I read it.


> That's how you can
>make a statement which is effectively "this system contains no proof
>of X" from within "this system". It's central to the whole proof.
>So I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

Maybe. Godel wrote the words he thought would best communicate his
idea. I read in his words what seems most relevant to me. If the
words he wrote happen to have a meaning to me that is different from
his intent, perhaps that is "barking up the wrong tree", or perhaps
it's just extracting the meaning that offers itself to a particular
viewpoint.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 13, 2010, 6:05:01 AM7/13/10
to
"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

Try recognizing that a symbolic representation that is correct can be
applied to more than one set of circumstances.

Robert Carnegie

unread,
Jul 13, 2010, 6:39:38 AM7/13/10
to
On Jul 13, 11:04 am, "Norm D. Plumber" <nom-de-pl...@non.com> wrote:
> thro...@sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote:
> >: Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com>

> >: One correct conclusion would be that some statements can neither be
> >: proved nor refuted from the axioms.  At least, that's how I remember
> >: it from my informal study (never took an actual class in the subject)
> >: of the matter half a century ago.
>
> >True.  Ish.  The informal way of putting it is that Goedel came up with a
> >way of saying "this statement has no proof", encoded in the system being
> >used to prove things.  That statement could either be true or false;
> >if it's true, then the system is incomplete.  If it's false, then the
> >system is inconsistent.
>
> >Of course crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's to show how one
> >manages to say "x has no proof", let alone make x refer to the statement
> >it is in, gets fiercely complicated and twisty.  But he wasn't pulling
> >a fast one; all the work is there.
>
> >So basically, all formal systems that are as strong as Peano arithmetic
> >(that is, can do what Peano arithmetic does, in terms of modeling numbers
> >and such), is either inconsistent or incomplete.  So, any TOE that's a
> >formal system which is at least as strong as Peano Arithmetic is either
> >inconsistent or incomplete.
>
> >Now what that means in terms of whether there can *be* a sensible
> >TOE that's a formal system is less clear.  And it says nothing about
> >whether there can be a TOE that's not a formal system in this sense.
>
> >      "Spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does..."
> >                      --- Homer Simpson
>
> >Wayne Throop   thro...@sheol.org  http://sheol.org/throopw

>
> What I get from Godel is that a TOE cannot be a formal system because
> it cannot be codified from within in a way that is complete and
> consistent and there is no outside.  It appears to me that the
> reductionist camp concludes that no TOE can be possible because only
> formal systems are valid candidates; I consider it quite possible for
> a TOE to exist and be useful without being fully formal.  Of course
> that cannot be proven given the rules of engagement, it can only be
> demonstrated and puzzled over by those who insist that only formal
> systems are allowed to be valid.

We can't even ever prove to a mathematical standard that the real
world corresponds to our "theory of everything", or should I say that
the other way around. Even when it does. Which is at least similar
to a Godel point.

On the other hand, I'm very uncomfortable with any proposition that
reality isn't self-consistent. So if a "theory of everything" /does/
correspond to reality, then it too must be consistent, and if the
theory /isn't/ a good description of reality, then we can at least /
hope/ to notice differences, and to have the chance to rewrite the
theory.

Norm D. Plumber

unread,
Jul 13, 2010, 6:58:24 AM7/13/10
to
Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

We can't even prove that the "real world" exists rather than being a
solipsistic phenomenon, it simply isn't knowable. Assuming then that
the "real world" is in fact real enough for engineering purposes, we
have to decide whether we will poutingly say "mathematical standard or
nothing!" (and end up with no TOE as Hawking and others have chosen)
or decide that "correct for all possible values" is good enough...
then, not knowing what-all values are actually possible we may decide
to back off even further and say that perhaps "works for all known
cases" is, if not perfect, better than something that, while meeting
mathematical standards, has to fall back on the handwavium of "random
chance" because it is ignorant of some fundamental property of
reality.


>On the other hand, I'm very uncomfortable with any proposition that
>reality isn't self-consistent.

I don't know about you, but I differentiate between "self-consistent"
and "mathematically provable". If I'm hungry I won't hold out for
mathematically provable lobster or crab until I starve, I'll eat a
self-consistent hamburger, even a bad hamburger if it'll keep me going
until I can find something better.


> So if a "theory of everything" /does/
>correspond to reality, then it too must be consistent, and if the
>theory /isn't/ a good description of reality, then we can at least /
>hope/ to notice differences, and to have the chance to rewrite the
>theory.

I'm perfectly content with something that works, I don't need proof
that it works since I can generate my own confidence level as
necessary.

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

unread,
Jul 13, 2010, 7:15:15 AM7/13/10
to

The tech shown in 2001 is dated badly, too. The silliness is of course
part of the series; I don't think anyone in 1985 actually believed that
we'd invent hover-skateboards, but it was a fun idea to play with for a
chase, and they actually made use of it at several points.

Mr. Fusion, alas, isn't real.

Then again, if you're watching it in 2010, you probably need to
remember that the movie was first shown in 1985 and thus you should be
assuming that he's actually going to 2040. We still won't have
hover-skateboards, but maybe you could imagine fusion.

Robert Carnegie

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Jul 13, 2010, 7:35:26 AM7/13/10
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On Jul 12, 9:26 pm, Butch Malahide <fred.gal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 12, 5:28 am, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I only know that Godel proved that in any system of mathematics that
> > is sufficiently sophisticated to be useful, based upon a set of
> > axioms, some statements that must be true when the axioms are valid,
> > cannot be proved from the axioms.
>
> Right. A couple nitpicks and an ObSF:
>
> I'd use "strong" rather than "sophisticated" as the latter adjective
> has connotations of phoniness.
>
> I'd drop "to be useful"; the propositional calculus and elementary
> geometry are two examples of useful systems which escape Goedel's
> theorem.

Well, really both words were meant for "good enough to use (a) for
something like our regular mathematics and (b) to write a Godel
sentence". Good enough to tie itself in a Godelian knot.

> The conclusion is not quite correct. First, for logicians (IANAL)
> "valid" is a technical term meaning "*logically* true" which can't be
> what you mean here; you probably meant "true". Second, it sounds like
> you're saying that some logical consequences of the axioms can't be
> proved from the axioms, and that's wrong. One correct conclusion would
> be that some statements can neither be proved nor refuted from the
> axioms. At least, that's how I remember it from my informal study
> (never took an actual class in the subject) of the matter half a
> century ago.
>
> > I think Goldbach's Conjecture might be one such statement, but that's just from me.
>
> Could be, but I believe the experts expect that Goldbach's conjecture
> will eventually be proved.

I'm not any kind of expert nowadays, but the conjecture looks like a
guess about the behaviour of two trends: scarcity of large prime
numbers versus the size of the set of prime numbers.

If untrue, it can be disproved by producing an even number > 2 that
isn't the sum of two prime numbers.

If true for all of the infinite set of even numbers, that could be not
possible to prove in a finite argument. I think that's what Godel was
interested in.

If mathematics itself isn't consistent then we need to replace it with
one that is. Unfortunately, Godel demonstrated that we can't prove
that mathematics is consistent, except by using extra mathematics
which isn't covered by that proof. But that doesn't mean that
mathematics /isn't/ consistent, only that we don't have the
satisfaction of proving that it is.

As for axioms: one set of axioms can apply to more than one system.
Except for one, the same axioms cover Euclidean geometry and Riemann
or spherical geometry. Anything that you can prove from the reduced
set of axioms is true in both of those very different domains. Or,
Euclid's full set of axioms don't tell you what /colour/ a triangle
is. Euclid's theorems are equally true when all geometric figure are
blue, as when all geometric figures are red. You could impose an
additional axiom abuout how figures are coloured... Or, again,
Cartesian geometry, in which what a point /is/ is an ordered pair or
tuple of "real numbers", and a line or a curve is a set of such
points. Euclid's axioms are true of Cartesian points and lines,
therefore all of Euclid's logical conclusions are true in Cartesian
geometry. And yet - I may be out of my zone here - there are "real
numbers" that can't be constructed geometrically; that is, if I have
this right, there are Cartesian points in between the Euclidean
points. You can play the game using only the Euclidean points, or you
can use the Cartesian points as well. Either way, the theorems are
still true. (We hope.)

What I think Godel was saying is not that you can't say use Euclid's
axioms to prove everything about the points and lines and figures,
such as what colour they are - put that way, that's obvious - but that
there can be (in a consistent mathematics) propositions that are
inevitably true wherever the axioms are true - which is what you want
from a theorem - but that cannot be proved by a finite series of
logical steps - which is also indispensable in a reputable theorem.

That perhaps there really is no (finite) proof of Goldbach's
Conjecture, and no disproof, and we can never know. (Perhaps.)

In which case we probably can't know /that/, either. But so what?
It's only /my/ guess.

And yet, in that case, if there /is/ a disproof, then there must be
that apparently easy disproof: produce one number where it isn't
true. Unfortunately it could be a number too large to be stored on
planet Earth: that's possible, and logic doesn't tell us.

If "infinite proof" is allowed, whatever that would be (I'm about to
guess), you can simply write out each even number as the sum of two
primes, and call that the proof.

Norm D. Plumber

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Jul 13, 2010, 7:48:55 AM7/13/10
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What convinces you that hover-skateboards are impossible?

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