Past, Present and Future

[kandrathe]

Okay. I remain open to the possibility that this man, eighty years ago, discovered a method for predicting the future. I also remain open to Russell's teapot. Doesn't mean I'm going looking for it.

His conclusion in fact was that dreams are a very poor way to predict the future, but the "extreme coincidence" of some dreams changed his rational opinion of nature of the universe. This is a far cry different than Russell's teapot.

The world *is* filled with miraculously lucky coincidences. This is the point. People win the lottery twice in one day. People are hit by lightning dozens of times in a lifetime.

Yes, I understand that an infinite number of monkey's sitting at typewriters might have a very very small chance of typing Hamlet, but for the person who does witness the one monkey that actually does perfectly type out Hamlet, you might understand why that person might have an altered perspective on the capabilities of monkeys.

But, just in case you're still holding to this, here's the question: Is this repeatable? Can this method generate solid predictions, ex ante, which can then be checked against future events? Or is it just fishing for coincidences?

Nope. Not unless someone would be able to open that channel at will to some mind state where the future is observable.

But, we are again at that fuzzy intersection again between science and philosophy (in this case metaphysics). Like I said, here is where you and I (and Pete) might be very different. I find the unobservable universe far more fascinating, than the one that is observable. This doesn't preclude that the unobservable is untestable, just that we haven't figured out a way to test some hypotheses. My opinion of what "open mindedness" entails might also be very different. I find that many questions are unanswered, and maybe currently unknowable, but perhaps they might someday be knowable, so until that time it stays to me as an interesting idea, or debatable branch of philosophy.

I'll leave you with a well referenced quotation; "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." -Albert Einstein, Statement to William Miller, as quoted in LIFE magazine (2 May 1955)

P.S. Ok, one more thought; :D I was sitting here thinking of the Einstein quote above when I recalled a moment I had while waiting for my turn during SCUBA diving drills, (contemplating about how pure O2 at 15ft-30ft depth is lethal, and air begins to be lethal at 200ft). It suddenly dawned on me how incredibly *lucky* we were to have exactly the stable environment (air mixture, temperature, pressure, radiation, gravity, planetary orbit, nickel-iron core, right sized moon, tilted axis, etc.). Sure, we probably evolved into it so we take it for granted, but it is weird to be one of the organisms that evolved enough to have a brain capable of calculating just how damned lucky the whole circumstance was in the first place.