DrAnaQueiros
ted byfieldTop-notch observation disguised as a meme. It's not new, but it's great.
Snerk RabbledauberVery good point!
Derek Caelin is writing a book
Arnan de Gans
James Edwards@arnandegans @tb As Yoda said: "Always in motion, the future is"
It's possible for the future to already exist without precluding free-will, if it exists in a state of non-deterministic uncertainty.
awwaiid (Brock Wilcox)@siblingpastry @arnandegans @tb determinism is required for making useful predictions of the future (for science). Action without an idea of what the consequences might be isn't freedom. Therefore determinism is required for freedom.
@awwaiid. What you’re describing there is not deterministic. Yes, the action of cause and effect is required for making predictions that can be tested, but random occurrences can still occur, to invalidate any prediction at any time. It’s not possible to trace cause and effect with 100% certainty because the universe itself is not deterministic. @arnandegans @tb
@siblingpastry @arnandegans @tb OK how about we require things to be MOSTLY deterministic to do science, at least deterministically probable at the lowest level but generally when I drop the apple it reacts in a predictable way. If it didn't, if I could never navigate the world in a way where my actions had some degree of predictable outcomes, then I certainly have no useful freedom. Whatever degree of meaningful freedom I have directly comes from whatever degree of determinism I can get
Gargravar@tb basing your moral philosophy on the hypothetical effects of pulp fiction time travel, may not be the clever move you think it is.
Go Sports & Music!@tb It’s a good point, if you time travel backwards, do be so uptight !
eshep@tb People also think that any small change in the past could only have a negative impact on the present.
Lotus 🔞⛓🏳️🌈🐘@tb one of the most interesting concepts for me in homesteading is the scale of permanence and how you can use that to prioritize your time & energy. If I spend 20 minutes stacking rocks in a valley to build a check dam, the effects of that action might last for hundreds of years as those rocks slow the movement of water in the valley, allowing seeds to germinate, plants to grow, communities of insects, birds, herbivores, etc to flourish. And all it took was 20 minutes of my time and the energy to move some rocks.
joe@tb Oh yeah!? Then how do you explain THIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1hmiaNReCg
The Simpsons - Homer travels back in time
Quintessential Quicksand@tb by “small” you mean donating millions to political parties to sway policies in your favour?
Magitism@tb The issue is when I go to the past the small thing I change like stepping on an ant might change who is the president; things I do today will have the same huge impacts - and just as random and impossible to predict. It is useless information. What I need is a way to predict how my small changes will impact the world, and I have no such way.
Aviva Gary
rakoo@tb That's kind of the plot of About Time: when you need to go back in the pqst and re-live your life a second time to be able to enjoy the little things, you realize you could do it in the present the first time
Tom Martinek@tb I think about this all the time...
Corvo@tb
💡 🧠 💡
That is a wise sentiment I think. 🌞
I saved that picture.
Hope the good changes you want come to be.
👍
💡 🧠 💡
That is a wise sentiment I think. 🌞
I saved that picture.
Hope the good changes you want come to be.
👍
Earthshine --> moved@tb entropy is a bitch though. Every decision we make has the potential to radically change the future, just not in any way that we can reasonably predict or plan for.
although most time travel models don't allow for linear time, so if you went back, you couldn't get back to the same future again anyway.
Peregrine993 ☑️ 🗿@tb Good one. I was at a demonstration where one woman has a sign reading, "Trying to Be a Good Ancestor".
Jeremy Gibson@tb fantastic alt text.
@jeremygibson Thank you. 🎩 In a small way that means a lot.
Chris 🌱@tb We're living through the butterfly effect every day.
@brainblasted Everything is the butterfly effect. There's nothing else.
Herr Tuslowsky@tb @brainblasted No, not everything.
@Herr_Tuslowsky @tb yes everything. Every action you take or don't take today is as powerful as that proverbial butterfly flapping its wings.
LisPi@tb It's mostly a hindsight is 20/20 thing.
It's a lot easier to retroactively assess critical pivots once they've already been demonstrated as such.
Although at the same time, one has to be certain it isn't just a single emergent manifestation of a general probability attaining realization.
#MultipleDiscovery and #SimultaneousInvention are two examples of such a thing where addressing any single instance would do all of nothing.
Red Faster
Christopher Faille@tb The change one worries about in the first instance is stochastic -- any deviation might have multiplied effects in an unpredictable way. But the change one hopes for or despairs of in the second panel is planned -- one would like to do something SPECIFIC and beneficial to the future. Not really an insightful conjunction.
@tb Excuse me, but this meme is nonsense.
There is no point doing small things in the present, if you don't know they will be successful.
if you travel back in time you know exactly what small things to do to be successful.
So, this meme is just an instruction for chaos.
Adrian Morales@tb So true it hurts!
Wolfie Rankin@tb because we lack the thing that changes it.
Beeks@Beeks @maxkennerly mastodon totally needs a bunch of reacts like Facebook so I can 😮
Drew Brereton - aebrer@tb I think the difference is foreknowledge of how the past events led to the future events -> something we lack in the present
Keith Fitzgerald@tb Of course, in the former, the person has the benefit of hindsight and knows how things played-out. So they know what to change, and why.
It's a bit tougher without all that information.
uathachas@tb Ná bac le machnamh faoi conas Hilter óg a mhárú san am atá caite. Maraigh naitsithe óga i rith do linne féin.
NeonkAaa@tb
That will not be a change.
You can change something you have. It's easy to change the present while you are in the past because you already know what led to this situation and what has to be changed. But even in that case, the changes may not conform to your expectations.
You don’t have a future yet so you cannot change it. But you can create it. Probably.
Manoj
Sminted
Victor Kirui
Bernd Michael Grosch@tb how true...!
Quentin Ruyant@tb it's a question of perspective: we're indifferent about the many qualitatively similar futures, unless we come from one of them
Nick 'The Viking'Toot Uncommon (@[email protected])
Story Time! I used to own a quaint little bookstore downtown. Loved it. Over time I became friends with a homeless guy who was nice, not on drugs, and didn't mind watching the store for me now and then. He never stole anything and I always kicked him a few bucks for his help. So the one night I'm locking up and it's POURING outside. Just coming down like it's personal. I see the look on his face and realize he's gotta go somewhere and sleep in that, and that sucks. /1
ZenHeathen 🙏@tb The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second-best time is now.
The Doctor
Official Birthday Music Video by The Crüxshadows
Jeanne Mastodon@tb People worry about not being able to go home after traveling to the past. They don't worry much about coughing in the wrong alley and suddenly the Americas are fascist from pole to pole.
⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe@tb In science fiction, they worry about f**king up the world they are _returning_ to. Not the same thing. We'll never know if we screwed up the future; we don't have anything to compare it to…
Paul 💙 28 💔 💚@tb the reality is that any time traveller .. would buy Apple, Google and Microsoft shares... They wouldn't change anybody else's future 'cept their own
Dipole@tb I think a big part of the past-changing fear comes from two things:
-butterfly-effect style changes are unpredictable, which is true of both the present and time travel
-Completely changing the present via time travel is seen as a loss no matter what, whereas completely changing the future via present action is judged by the merit of the change.
rood@tb there are things once revealed that will give an entire game away. A person from the future wouldn't necessarily understand how such a ubiquitous set of knowns is so lacking in the past. Tell the wrong people and you're the most dangerous person on the planet.
One drop of water on acid is dangerous, but one drop of acid on water is boring.
myska 
@tb I actually think about this all the time. Like I get up to go for a walk and oh, just shifted the future into an alternate reality.
ArneBab@tb that’s beautiful — thank you!
Patrick 
@tb But that ‘small’ thing usually involves murdering someone. In movies at least.
Nathan Wray@tb it would be fascinating to know what small actions you've taken that pushed future events the most.
Tim Pepper@tb Yes! We focus on time travel in the negative direction. But time travel is very much possible in the forward direction and that should be undertaken with great care.