Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Heisenberg doesn't say that we wouldn't have absolute predictability or control if we knew everything. He says we can't know everything. He's correct, but that doesn't negate my statement.



It does.

And it's compounded by quantum effects, multi-body problems, and emergent phenomena.

Your requirement is that we 1) have absolute knowledge of a state of the universe, and that 2) all later states can be predicted from this a priori state.

Heisenberg says "you can never have absolute knowledge".

Numerous other elements argue that even where absolute knowledge is available, it's not possible to predict future states with certainty, or in less than real time.

So, no, everything is not foreseeable.

Mind: some risks are predictable in a probabilistic way, though generally these are good for saying that "in T' period of time, there's P probability of X event occurring", though that's a far cry from saying that event X will happen at time T. Much of my life revolves around clarifying the distinction between these two statements.

An instance which comes to mind: Schneier's blog has mentioned that the 9/11 attacks were statistically probable given terrorism trends. As has been the absence of similar-scale follow-on attacks since. Though with time, a similar magnitude attack becomes a near certainty.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: