Originally posted by googlefudge
You appear to believe that the state of the universe 10.000 years ago fixes everything
you do during your life. However, if we are to accept that earlier states of the universe can be
seen as fixing all later states, then equally, later states can be seen as fixing all earlier states.
Woo... I would like to see the workings on this ...[text shortened]... rmine the
past absolutely but there is a difference between what is and what can be known.[/i]
Edit: “Woo... I would like to see the workings on this because I don't think it's necessarily true.”
OK, then you could check amongst else Suppes, P., 1999, “The Noninvariance of Deterministic Causal Models,” Synthese, 121: 181–198; Van Fraassen, B., 1989, Laws and Symmetry, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Van Kampen, N. G., 1991, “Determinism and Predictability,” Synthese, 89: 273–281; Winnie, J. A., 1996, “Deterministic Chaos and the Nature of Chance,” in The Cosmos of Science—Essays of Exploration, J. Earman and J. Norton (eds.), Pittsburgh: University of Pitsburgh Press, pp. 299–324;
Edit: “Consider a chain… …Influence propagates only one way.”
Due to the fact that the classical equations of motion are time reversal invariant, nothing necessarily refers to the direction of time. According to Boltzman’s account of entropy increase in terms of entropy increasing into the future, the explanation can be turned around and made for the past temporal direction as well.
Edit: “Well… …can be known.”
Despite the belief that classical mechanics is perfectly deterministic, the theory is full with possibilities where determinism can break down. One class of problems arises due to the absence of an upper bound on the velocities of moving objects (check Xia, Z., 1992, “The existence of noncollision singularities in newtonian systems,” Annals of Mathematics, 135: 411–468). A second class of determinism-breaking models can be constructed on the basis of collision phenomena, whilst there is also a good literature of physical or quasi-physical systems, usually set in the context of classical physics, that carry out supertasks (check Earman & Norton, 1998)
π΅