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Old 12-13-2005, 02:41 PM
wtfsvi wtfsvi is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Norway
Posts: 484
Default Re: Two personal beliefs and their consequences

[ QUOTE ]
I think it's more of a paradox than a contradiction. But not even a very good paradox -- the demon can accurately predict your action by not letting you know what it is. Then, after you act, he can show you he was right.

[/ QUOTE ] Yes he can. That would mean premise 3 is false. All four premises cannot logically be true at once:

He can predict the future 100% accurately.
He doesn't lie.
He tells you what you are going to do.
You act differently.

You say he can refrain from telling you what you're going to do, and the contradiction is gone. You are correct. Remove premise nr. 3, or any other one of the four premises above, and the scenario is no longer impossible and does no longer claim to tell us anything about fatalism.

edit:

(If you remove nr. 3, you will also remove nr. 4, because there will be no statement to differ from. In case that confused someone.)

(And English is not my first language. You might very well be correct that contradiction is not a good word in this context.)
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