to understand is that we know, because of the drop in the PDC, that the coin toss has to come up a particular way in order for the event to happen. If we don’t tamper with the outcome, the coin will almost certainly come up with the result that allows the event to occur. But if we tamper, we have roughly a fifty percent chance of preventing the event from occurring.”
“ What if someone stops the coin toss from happening?”
“ Most likely they would fail. But if they succeeded in preventing the coin toss, then they would probably cause the crux to collapse to the most likely future.”
“ Meaning that the event would occur as if the coin toss had happened.”
“ Yes.”
“ But then your data was wrong. Your data indicated a coin toss that never happens. Or happened, whatever.”
He shrugs. “Sometimes there are errors with interpreting data. If you prevent a coin toss that seemed to be required for the event to occur and the event occurs even though the coin toss didn’t happen, then we were wrong about the data. Maybe it was the possibility of a coin toss that produced the alternate future. Or maybe it was just noise in the data that looked like a coin toss. Like I said, this isn’t an exact science.”
This sounds kind of like bullshit to me, but maybe I just don ’t understand it. “I still don’t really get why you can’t interfere with the event itself. Like, why couldn’t Tali have called in a bomb threat at the pier? The police would have shown up and cleared the area. There’s no way that guy could have gotten away with shooting a bunch of people.”
“ The simplest explanation I can offer you is that Ananke would have anticipated that action and prevented it from interfering with her plans.”
“ And the complicated explanation?”
“ The universe is a deterministic system. Any action that Tali took would have been a result of other variables in the system. The ultimate outcome of the event at the pier was dependent on the full set of all variables in the system, which includes Tali’s actions. If Tali had tried to prevent the shooting, her efforts would have been factored in by Ana … that is, by the system. You can’t change the output of a deterministic system by being a cog in the system.”
“ You mean that if Tali had tried to prevent the shooting, it would have ended up happening in a different way. And maybe her actions would somehow bring about the shooting. For that matter, it wouldn’t have to be a shooting, would it? Maybe something she does sets in motion a chain of events that starts a grease fire in the kitchen of Maggiano’s, and it’s the fire that kills all those people.” I think I’m finally starting to understand this stuff.
“ That’s one way of looking at it,” he says. “Thinking in counterfactuals will drive you crazy, though.”
“ Counterfactuals?”
“ Hypotheticals. What-if scenarios. Ultimately, asking ‘what if Tali had acted differently at the pier?’ is a meaningless question. Tali is part of a deterministic system. She couldn’t have acted differently. You might as well ask ‘what if Martians beamed the shooter into space a second before he pulled the gun.’ They didn’t, because it’s impossible.”
“ You’re saying there’s no such thing as free will.”
He sighs again. “You know those posters that appear at first glance to be a sort of abstract painting? But then, if you unfocus your eyes a little and sit there for a minute, it turns into a picture of Marilyn Monroe? That’s what free will is like. If you look at it too closely, it disappears.”
Free will is like Marilyn Monroe. Got it. “So if you can’t interfere with the event itself, how can you interfere with the coin toss? Isn’t that part of the same deterministic system?”
“ Excellent question,” he says. “Yes. The coin toss itself is part of the system. The reason we can interfere with the result has to do with how we interfere.” He goes to a
“ What if someone stops the coin toss from happening?”
“ Most likely they would fail. But if they succeeded in preventing the coin toss, then they would probably cause the crux to collapse to the most likely future.”
“ Meaning that the event would occur as if the coin toss had happened.”
“ Yes.”
“ But then your data was wrong. Your data indicated a coin toss that never happens. Or happened, whatever.”
He shrugs. “Sometimes there are errors with interpreting data. If you prevent a coin toss that seemed to be required for the event to occur and the event occurs even though the coin toss didn’t happen, then we were wrong about the data. Maybe it was the possibility of a coin toss that produced the alternate future. Or maybe it was just noise in the data that looked like a coin toss. Like I said, this isn’t an exact science.”
This sounds kind of like bullshit to me, but maybe I just don ’t understand it. “I still don’t really get why you can’t interfere with the event itself. Like, why couldn’t Tali have called in a bomb threat at the pier? The police would have shown up and cleared the area. There’s no way that guy could have gotten away with shooting a bunch of people.”
“ The simplest explanation I can offer you is that Ananke would have anticipated that action and prevented it from interfering with her plans.”
“ And the complicated explanation?”
“ The universe is a deterministic system. Any action that Tali took would have been a result of other variables in the system. The ultimate outcome of the event at the pier was dependent on the full set of all variables in the system, which includes Tali’s actions. If Tali had tried to prevent the shooting, her efforts would have been factored in by Ana … that is, by the system. You can’t change the output of a deterministic system by being a cog in the system.”
“ You mean that if Tali had tried to prevent the shooting, it would have ended up happening in a different way. And maybe her actions would somehow bring about the shooting. For that matter, it wouldn’t have to be a shooting, would it? Maybe something she does sets in motion a chain of events that starts a grease fire in the kitchen of Maggiano’s, and it’s the fire that kills all those people.” I think I’m finally starting to understand this stuff.
“ That’s one way of looking at it,” he says. “Thinking in counterfactuals will drive you crazy, though.”
“ Counterfactuals?”
“ Hypotheticals. What-if scenarios. Ultimately, asking ‘what if Tali had acted differently at the pier?’ is a meaningless question. Tali is part of a deterministic system. She couldn’t have acted differently. You might as well ask ‘what if Martians beamed the shooter into space a second before he pulled the gun.’ They didn’t, because it’s impossible.”
“ You’re saying there’s no such thing as free will.”
He sighs again. “You know those posters that appear at first glance to be a sort of abstract painting? But then, if you unfocus your eyes a little and sit there for a minute, it turns into a picture of Marilyn Monroe? That’s what free will is like. If you look at it too closely, it disappears.”
Free will is like Marilyn Monroe. Got it. “So if you can’t interfere with the event itself, how can you interfere with the coin toss? Isn’t that part of the same deterministic system?”
“ Excellent question,” he says. “Yes. The coin toss itself is part of the system. The reason we can interfere with the result has to do with how we interfere.” He goes to a
Similar Books
