Precognition vs Time Travel

[N_las]

Precognition would (and should) work better on events closer to the present, as there are less factors that could change what is seen. If I am in an orchard and I look 2 seconds into the future, I might see an apple falling from a tree across from me. No matter what I do within the two seconds, that apple will still fall. Consequently, if I tried looking 1 hour ahead into the future and see the apple falling, I would have much more time to walk up to the tree and get the apple down (thus changing the seen future).

Future events will tend towards 0% or 100% probability as they come closer to the present (hitting 100% when it occurs, or 0% when it does not). The further you look into the future, the less likely you are to see 100% probability events.

If it works like that, precongnition isn't usefull anymore. To use the lotto example. When do you think the certainty of 1337 crosses the 90% boundary? A day before the drawing? An hour? A minute? I think there are so many infinitly interwoven factors in how the numbers roll, that the threshold to make a reasonable prediction is a fraction of a second before the drawing of each number.

And most things so static, that a precognition is possible days in advance, can be predicted without precognition (like: two days from now is my final exam).

[Sillychris]

Time is always in flux. It's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.

[KerbMav]

If, for instance, you looked into the future and saw you were going to die in a car crash, you would decide not to go for a drive that day. But now that you have made that decision, the future you saw in your vision never happened, so... how did you see the vision in the first place?

At the instant right before Precognition occurs, the Future has you dying in a car crash. The Future seen via precognition is that future. Immediately upon taking that information to the present time (the moment after Precognition is used), that Future is no longer relevant as the Future has changed.

For a non-abstract example of this same concept, consider a person planning a picnic. At the time they are planning the picnic, they think the picnic will be held under sunny conditions. However, as the picnic is being finalized the person sees in the weather report that there is a 90% chance of rain for the next five days. This information, which did not exist prior to seeing the weather report, has changed the plans for the picnic. One moment the picnic is being planned for sunny weather, the next moment rain is being taken into consideration.

Because similar paradoxes exist. Precognition is not like predicting the weather, weather predictions always have room for error no matter how good the model. Precognition is direct observation of the future, which implies that it is not malleable. If you then act to change it and it works, it is obviously malleable. Paradox.

Precognition in fiction often has the medium go unconscious or render it otherwise out of action and unable to communicate the vision while it is receiving, so the future cannot already be changed while receiving the vision.

If it worked this way in reality, then this would be space-time's failsafe. The received vision would be the depiction of the future as it would unfold if no other actions were taken. Whatever the medium or anyone else who was told about the vision were to do, it would not change the perceived picture of the future.

(This is kinda why the universe survived in Back to the Future, Pre-Travel-Marty saw Doc Brown die before going back in time.)

This is a take on precognition in which it is less like ripping open a portal into the future and looking through, but more like "knowing" the destination of a road.

A weather report is a very bad example, as 1. whether (ha-ha!) the person goes through with the plan of having a picnic or not will not change the weather and 2. it is not really a look into the future as the OP proposed.

So then there would have to be a distinction between two different types of precognition: one that takes the precognition itself into account, and the other that does not.

In the first one that takes the information gleaned by Precognition into account when showing a specific future, then Mr. Burns would see himself winning the lottery with numbers 1,2,3,4. Yet such a view of precognition completely ignores free will; what if he doesn't really want to win the lottery (due to other issues afterwards)? This itself would run afoul of paradoxes really fast.

The second version (the one I am basing my arguments off of) is more inline with the multiple possible futures theory. Take Schrodingers Cat; if a future shown via precognition doesn't take the act of precognition itself into account (ie what would have happened if you didn't look into the future), then you would be able to see two possible futures; one where the cat dies, and the other where it lives. You could take a hammer to the box and make the question a moot point anyways, but that would be a consequence of free will. If free will exists (and thus the ability to act on information gleaned by precognition), then it's impossible for there to be a single immutable future (which, in turn, would allow this type of precognition work).

Putting philosophy into temporal dynamics, nice.

Some events are more or less likely to be disturbed by the medium knowing about the future. The winning numbers of a lottery will be the same regardless.

Unless the lottery is rigged, then the medium would either be unable to gain precognition of the numbers or the universe would implode without the failsafe I justed described above - with the failsafe you would see the then winning numbers, buy the ticket, loose and know something was fishy.

On OP:

I think in this case both options are somewhat safe.

If post-lottery-you travels back in time to buy a ticket and then travels back to/keeps in hiding until the moment right after he left, then pre-lottery-you will still have the need to make the trip.

The only thing really changing is, that for the span of time you travelled back in time, there will be a few coins more/double in the universe. And you should really pay cash for that ticket! As well as buy it in a completely different city to a. avoid being seen and recognized and b. having the pre-coins come into contact with the post-coins - just to be sure.

Ideally you would not buy a ticket in this week or leave the house on the day you buy it.

In the case of seeing the winning numbers of a (unrigged) lottery, you simply pick those numbers and win.

Edited April 1, 2014 by KerbMav

[Idobox]

Or you could do it as in Dune: You see the different possible futures, and how your actions make you take one branch or another, finally very similar to a simulation.

The navigators use it to see a few seconds or minutes in the future, which is the only way to navigate safely, but they can't see further because the futures diverge too much.

And it takes a mutant messiah full of potent drugs to see further than that.

[Skyler4856]

Going off of the ideas in this thread, for paradox free (and useful) precognition, it would have to work as follows:

1. Only things or events that have a 100% of occurring in the future can be seen, regardless of whether it is known ahead of time or not (immutable parts of the future)

2. Things that can be changed or in other words not having a 100% possibility cannot be seen; this takes into account the possibilities of the precognition itself having an effect

This form of precognition would not have someone seeing themselves perish in a car crash (unless it was unavoidable), as they could still take measures against it and thus change that part of the future (not 100% chance). They could however see winning lottery numbers in the event that those wouldn't change regardless of how much that information is spread.

This would also solve the problem of concurrent users which often plagues Time Travel. Two or more people using the power at the same time would be limited to seeing the same things which cannot be changed, regardless of what others might do.

Of course the drawback to such precognition is that its usefulness is highly curtailed. The events that are seen cannot be changed, though with the power it would be possible to modify preparations and/or response to such events. Best example would probably be of a meteor falling to Earth with a 100% chance. It would be impossible to stop the meteor from falling, but preparations can be made (evacuations, etc) that make its aftermath not as bleak.

ANY interaction will change the system

[GreatWyrmGold]

Consider the following scenarios:

Time Travel-

The date is March 21st, and Mr. Burns discovers that his lotto ticket with the numbers 1,3,3,7 purchased on March 10th did not win the jackpot. The winning number was 1,2,3,4 instead. Mr. Burns time travels to March 10th, and purchases the lotto ticket with the numbers 1,2,3,4. Mr. Burns returns to his present time (March 21st) to reap his winnings from the now-winning lottery ticket.

Precognition-

The date is March 10th, and Mr. Burns is about to purchase a lottery ticket. He looks 11 days into the future (March 21st) and sees that the winning combination will be 1,2,3,4. In his present time (March 10th) Mr. Burns purchases a lottery ticket with the numbers 1,2,3,4. 11 Days later on March 21st he finds that his ticket wins and reaps the winnings from his lottery ticket.

Why should Time Travel be used when Precognition avoids all of the causality paradoxes plaguing Time Travel and can work just as well?

1. Who says precognition is available? Or that it doesn't come with the same problems? After all, precognition is just information travelling backwards in time...

2. Precognition is only (arguably) superior to time travel for situations when you're just using time travel precognitively.

Precognition could be approximated by a super computer running an incredibly advanced simulation of the future based off what is most likely to occur. With Big Brother collecting tons of data about personal habits and Science itself describing how the rest of the world works, it's not too big of a stretch to think that such a super computer would be possible far into the future (ignoring all of the hacking and privacy issues such an object would entail).

Theoretically, Mr. Burns could have that.

Theoretically, Mr. Burns could have a machine that turns dirt into anything. In fact, this is a lot more likely, because it doesn't violate the Heisenburg Uncertainty Equation.

Besides, that comes with its own problems...

That's why I said that it is an approximation. The closest real-world analogy to my example is how Weather forecasting works.

Which makes your oracle computer about as useful as a fortune cookie. Have you watched weather reports?

I think the answer is that you would entirely forget. Or the universe explodes. Something to remember is that time is entirely relative.

You can make the same arguments for time travel. (Same with all other posts explaining that, actually.)

Of course, with precognition, you can always just say you screwed up.

Read the book Timescape. It has some interesting time-travel theories, including this one: Say you were to make a machine that can send a message back in time to turn itself off. But if it was off, it could never have sent the message. So, time is stuck as it fluctuates toward one scenario and then the other.

Not exactly ground-breaking, but I'll look into it nonetheless.

How likely would it be for me choosing 1,2,3,4 instead of 1,3,3,7 for my lottery ticket to change what the winning ticket numbers will be?

It may not be useless, but it's certainly use-impaired.

Another possibility might be a malleable future with some sort of statistical analysis done on the possible futures. I may not be able to know for sure that I'll be in a car accident tomorrow, but if I know 95% of the possible futures involve me crashing I have a pretty good idea of what to expect and might be able to act to make one of the other 5% come true.

There's a story with a...tertiary, I guess, character whose power is exactly that.

Worm is said story. It's also a pretty good one, if long.

ANY interaction will change the system

It depends on the specificity of the predictions. You can safely say, for instance, "Christmas will be on December 25," with less certainty for "I will get presents on December 25th," even less for "I will get a sweater for Christmas," and less still for "I will get a red sweater for Christmas." The devil is in the details, but the redemption can be as well.

[Skyler4856]

1. Who says precognition is available? Or that it doesn't come with the same problems? After all, precognition is just information travelling backwards in time...

2. Precognition is only (arguably) superior to time travel for situations when you're just using time travel precognitively.

Theoretically, Mr. Burns could have that.

Theoretically, Mr. Burns could have a machine that turns dirt into anything. In fact, this is a lot more likely, because it doesn't violate the Heisenburg Uncertainty Equation.

Besides, that comes with its own problems...

Which makes your oracle computer about as useful as a fortune cookie. Have you watched weather reports?

You can make the same arguments for time travel. (Same with all other posts explaining that, actually.)

Of course, with precognition, you can always just say you screwed up.

Not exactly ground-breaking, but I'll look into it nonetheless.

It may not be useless, but it's certainly use-impaired.

There's a story with a...tertiary, I guess, character whose power is exactly that.

Worm is said story. It's also a pretty good one, if long.

It depends on the specificity of the predictions. You can safely say, for instance, "Christmas will be on December 25," with less certainty for "I will get presents on December 25th," even less for "I will get a sweater for Christmas," and less still for "I will get a red sweater for Christmas." The devil is in the details, but the redemption can be as well.

The system will still be changed albeit by a small amount, it's still likely that the date Christmas is celebrated won't change, it isn't exactly certain

[Sillychris]

Does your time travel technology preclude bringing objects back from the future? If it doesn't, then being able to predict when a lightsaber will be invented vs having a lightsaber in present day would be fundamentally different.

[orbital mechanic]

Precognition-

The date is March 10th, and Mr. Burns is about to purchase a lottery ticket. He looks 11 days into the future (March 21st) and sees that the winning combination will be 1,2,3,4. In his present time (March 10th) Mr. Burns purchases a lottery ticket with the numbers 1,2,3,4. 11 Days later on March 21st he finds that his ticket wins and reaps the winnings from his lottery ticket.

Precognition could be approximated by a super computer running an incredibly advanced simulation of the future based off what is most likely to occur.

Let's say I design my lottery machine such that the winning numbers are produced by a random number generator that uses a geiger counter and ensures that each bit has equal probability. How is your computer going to predict the numbers?