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Old 12-16-2005, 01:10 AM
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Default Can we have knowledge of the future?

Back on topic of knowledge, I have another interesting question. Can we have knowledge of the future?
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Old 12-16-2005, 01:13 AM
daryn daryn is offline
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Default Re: Can we have knowledge of the future?

no
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Old 12-16-2005, 01:20 AM
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Default Re: Can we have knowledge of the future?

[ QUOTE ]
no

[/ QUOTE ]

I would have to agree, but then someone told me "Don't you know that you're going to die in the future?"
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Old 12-16-2005, 06:10 AM
Piers Piers is offline
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Default Re: Can we have knowledge of the future?

Yes depeinding on how your define your terms.
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Old 12-16-2005, 08:54 AM
daryn daryn is offline
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Default Re: Can we have knowledge of the future?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
no

[/ QUOTE ]

I would have to agree, but then someone told me "Don't you know that you're going to die in the future?"

[/ QUOTE ]

that's different.. that's more like a definition of life. assuming the universe exists for a while, yeah we will all die. also you can say other meaningless future predictions like:

tomorrow, f will still be equal to m*a (most of the time)
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Old 12-16-2005, 09:11 AM
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Default Re: Can we have knowledge of the future?

You can have reasonable expectation based on previous experience/precedent, and on recognition of causal sequence. We rely on anticipating the future every day - we park our car and assume it won't transmogrify into an elephant while we're gone. We use a combination of past experience and logical inference to predict that the sun will rise, that we will die etc.

This mightn't be knowledge strictly speaking, but it's predictive value is so high it functions pretty much as well as knowledge would. All these predictions exist on a continuum, the further down you go the less useful the prediction - 'I'm going to live until the end of this week' ranking higher than 'my cat will learn to play the violin'.
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Old 12-16-2005, 02:54 PM
Trantor Trantor is offline
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Default Re: Can we have knowledge of the future?

[ QUOTE ]
Back on topic of knowledge, I have another interesting question. Can we have knowledge of the future?

[/ QUOTE ]

If we, as macroscopic entities, could then this would prove general Relativity, is not true theory. As there is no evidence that GR is incorrect I would say the answer is "no".
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Old 12-16-2005, 03:55 PM
maurile maurile is offline
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Default Re: Can we have knowledge of the future?

Knowledge = justified true belief.

If you accept inductive reasoning as being justified, then yes, we can have knowlege of the future.

If you accept only deductive reasoning as being justified, then we cannot have knowledge of the future.
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Old 12-16-2005, 06:41 PM
Bork Bork is offline
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Default Re: Can we have knowledge of the future?

[ QUOTE ]

If you accept only deductive reasoning as being justified, then we cannot have knowledge of the future.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tomorrow, nothing will exist which is both red all over, and green all over.

This is a conclusion I arrived at through deductive means.
I know it to be true. Its about the future.

So to answer the OP's question, ya we can have knowledge about the future.
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Old 12-16-2005, 07:02 PM
Scotch78 Scotch78 is offline
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Default Re: Can we have knowledge of the future?

[ QUOTE ]
Can we have knowledge of the future?

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem with knowledge of the future is that it tends to be wrong a lot, kind of like science and memory. Oh, [censored]! Is that a black hole?

Scott
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