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neo-teleology

Causation - only futurewise
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marked for Please Advise for Better Category

So in the past 50 years we are constantly treading on the Free- Will vs Causatlity debate. (I just realized why the movie was named Free Willy...)

My proposal here is to take this debate to a new direction - the future.

It is very plausible and intuitive that there is only one reality (I'm not strictly saying that all string theory is wrong, but still). At some point in time (if there is such a thing) in the future, once something has happened, it did. So there is also only one real future that will happen. Just like you can, or at least it is theoretically possible to trace from an existing system, which you have the full knowledge of, to the outcome, so it is theoretically possible to trace back from a current moment in time to see what lead to it.

And just like we can infer with a high probability from known states in time to a point in time in which we only have PARTIAL information, and figure out where it will lead to, so we could (and should?) theoretically be able to see where things are leading to, with a high probability, and refer that back to the current point in time.

Thus leading to a whole new science, replacing "where is this leading us?" and "are we leading to this or that?" to "what leads us this way or that?", more importantly: "what COULD move us this way or that" and most importantly: "what way SHOULD we move?"

Since it is mostly agreed that reality has within it the possibility of decided change -before it actually happened, although that decision itself is also causal - and teleological as just explained, still, the new science may move on from a fatalist view on reality to a more optimistic one.

pashute, Nov 08 2015

http://www.ted.com/...ee_reality_as_it_is [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Nov 08 2015]

[link]






       Why is it wrong to say there is only one future, but we can't yet know what it is?
pocmloc, Nov 08 2015
  

       Fascinating TED talk on the possibility that our 'now' may be a 'past' simulation run by our 'future' selves. [link]   

       The mistake many people make is that they think Einstein discovered that there is no real time, and that he proved that there are multiple futures, while in fact what Einstein proved was that our KNOWLEDGE of time is only an illusion, and that what "we" perceive as happening "now" actually all happened in the past, therefor, probably, what is happening now by us, is actually what some future perceiving being will perceive as "now", but only at some other point in THE (presumably single) future.   

       Still this has nothing to indicate anything towards the notion of several actual futures.   

       So I'm staying, as probably most of you do, with the intuitive and simple idea, that after the fact, one (and only one) single "future" reality will exist.   

       Arguing with that would be very similar to arguing that because till now we saw that although laws of gravity "explain" physical phenomena, there is no guarantee that they will apply to any current or future test in the real world, and therefor cannot be counted on. There was an Ernie and Bert episode where Ernie eats the whole loaf of bread each time checking another slice just to be sure.   

       And since we treat science relying on the single past and its behavior in accordance with a (more or less) stable set of rules, there is no reason not to do the same working backwards from the future.   

       In the same way, in continuation to the neo-teleology basic laws that will be discovered, we can discuss the opposite of entropy, since there is always a certain xmall but non-zero amount of order in every disorder, and in every finite setting even the most random setting will have some sort of order to it. And viewing that order in time slices there is bound to be self-sustaining and evolving emergence of order.   

       These are the foundations of the neo-positive scientific outlook, the non-anthropocentric mature post post- modernist eco-friendly (as well as humanistic) ethical philosophy of science.
pashute, Nov 08 2015
  

       Is this idea just "predict the future based on the present and past"?   

       Also, the idea of there being only one reality is compatible with quantum mechanics—that's the Copenhagen Interpretation. Though that still says the future behavior of quantum mechanics-governed systems is impossible to predict.
notexactly, Nov 09 2015
  

       Well there we go : sentience' purpose in the universe is to create massive free-energy devices to balance out black holes.
FlyingToaster, Nov 09 2015
  

       // the future behavior of quantum mechanics-governed systems is impossible to predict. //   

       Not impossible; it's just that the Uncertainty Principle militates against analysing any deterministic event which will occur in more than two Planck times from T0.   

       Besides, even if you do have free will now, it isn't going to last. Freedom is irrelevant, self-determination is irrelevant. You will be Assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.
8th of 7, Nov 09 2015
  

       He got fed up of explaining the failures in my pseudo science. It was an act of contemplation and the easier way to explain it is teleologically, as an act towards a cause, and not as the sum of billions of irrelevant facts like the fact that his keyboard color was entering his eyes when deleting his annos but not interfering with his decision to do so.
pashute, Nov 16 2015
  

       [pocmloc], because in some cases we do know the future, in well tested, scientifically discerned, segregated and closed systems.
pashute, Nov 16 2015
  
      
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