10 Years After

Mechanisms In The Forever Loop

I've been thinking a lot about the philosphic theory of determinism ever since encountering it last semester. It seems to me that this is what Isaac Asimov had in mind in his Foundation series. Simply put, if all the universe is an effect of some cause, that with a powerfull enough computer one should be able to predict the future. People, discounting that the soul or concious is more than the some of the parts, are merely a collection, if even that, of atomic particles. Much like billard balls move about a pool table with predictable results (this reminds me of the discussion of randomness I had with Kenny once) so too do all the atomic parts which make up man. We react to the causes on us with predictable results. Well, again, it would be predictable if we understood all the reactions going on and had a computer able to not only keep up with all these instances, but also predict into the future. Very fascinating. Most likely impossible to have a computer this powerful, but an interesting concept.