(August 17, 2019 at 2:41 am)Grandizer Wrote:(August 17, 2019 at 2:35 am)Belaqua Wrote: Well, he's discussing what it would be like to know the future. He's aware that we can't.
So he says "suppose we were able to know that, given all the events in the universe so far, we will be alive a minute from now. We could still change that known future by committing suicide now."
This means that if we were creatures who knew in detail what future the events in the world so far were pointing to, we could still change that by doing something now that prevents that future.
I don't know if that's a good argument or not, but I'm pretty sure that's what he means. He knows that we don't actually know we'll be alive in a minute.
Either way, it doesn't sound right. If you really know X will happen, and it ended up not happening, did you really know?
Like you could say that, given everything in the universe that has happened so far, war with China is going to begin tomorrow.
If you knew that, you could take some action that would prevent it.
Or if I could see that all past contingencies point to me getting in a bus accident on Tuesday, I could just stay home on Tuesday and avoid it.
