Quote:
Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot  Yes. So the question is - which scenario will occur? Is the butterfly pre-determined to fly in any one particular direction?
To answer that question, I need to go back one step, and ask - will I observe the butterfly or not? And is it pre-determined that I will or will not observe the butterfly?
To answer this, I have to go another step back. What factors determine whether I will observe or not observe, and are those factors present? Let me check.
My very checking affects those factors. So I need to go one step further, to decide whether it was pre-determined that I would do this check.
Now I have to investigate whether I will do this check. But my very investigation affects that question.
Now I shall conduct an inquiry as to whether it is predetermined that I would do such an investigation. But that inquiry affects that investigation .......
You see?
So in the end, is the butterfly's outcome predetermined or not?
To investigate this, you may wish to google this word - "beginninglessness". |
Well, there is only ever one scenario. At any moment in time, there is one ‘active’ scenario, so all the extant conditions and factors present in that moment generate the one and only next certain event, otherwise, how could any event occur?
The butterfly will always fly in the direction resulting from all the combined factors in that moment. It can take only one direction. I would say its flight was ‘determined’ by the current factors, rather than ‘predetermined’.
If you look at the way weather forecasting has improved over the years – the more data and analysis we have about the conditions, the more we can accurately predict. Imagine if we had
all of the data.
It also applies going backwards in time. A popular scenario would be solving a crime. If you could retrace the thread of cause and effect and extract all the data, you would solve it. One thread, or chain of cause and effect, leads to the crime which is the only outcome, since that is the one that occurred.