Isn't Prophesy Impossible?

[Minarvia]

*blushes* LOL

Actually, 2,000 - 1999.98 in Monopoly money = .02 cents real money LOL

Ack! That's proof!

 

[Fnord]

True prophesy breaks causality. Effect (the prophesy itself) can not precede cause (the event being prophesied) in ordinary linear time.

 

[Trent Wray]

True prophesy breaks causality. Effect (the prophesy itself) can not precede cause (the event being prophesied) in ordinary linear time.

In ordinary linear time, I would say that prophesy is nothing more than a catalyst for change. It is either the event that causes the changes, or just an event that is part of the changes that were going to occur anyway.

Take away linear time though, and even "classic" causality in, say, a delayed choice quantum eraser LOL .... and multiple interpretations on how various aspects of past / future / present interact get thrown on the table.

That depends on what you qualify as a proof - Proof for what?
For the MDC? The lottery will do.

For the rest of humanity? Tougher to say. To each his own burden of proof.


Please don't encourage you know who...


40 days... This is your basic numerology


You missed the point of the story.
Jonah's story isn't about the deterministic possibilities of the universe, it's about God's supposed mercy and redemption.
(That's why it's being read at Yom Kipur).

Jonah was suppose to give the people of Nineveh a warning.
"Stop sinning or else"
However, he did not wish for them to receive mercy so he made everything he possibly could to screw them over. He tried avoiding it and when God didn't let him, he gave them a prophecy that's insanely vague without even telling what their sins were, what God will punish them or that they even have a chance of escaping.

It wasn't a prophecy, but a final warning. The fact that he changed the wording is his own fault.

As for other people in the bible, well in the earlier stories where God actually does something - He gives miracles beforehand to convince the people of his chosen ones (e.g Moses or Gideon).
In the later stories where God disappears, his prophecies simply come true but nobody listens to the prophets (e.g Jeramaya or Izikiel) and the prophets constantly whine about it

I understand the point of the story ... but there are many points to the story.

Imagine you are Jonah and you believe god is speaking to you, only to go and tell a bunch of people something is going to happen that doesn't happen. Where was Jonah's evidence that he could fall back on .... for himself, so that he wouldn't think he was delusional? I mean ... he could have dreamed up the whale incident. And then he goes and prophesies and ZILCH happens. After that he goes and sits under a vine in the midday sun that withers and thinks it's a sign from god.

I see the Jonah story reflected in many believers ... from a Jonah pov

Ack! That's proof!

Proof schmoof! LOL

 

[yomero]

If a brain (human, artificial,or devine) had the capacity to know and process the position, velocity and direction of every atom and subatomic particle in the universe, it could then forecast all future events. Any attempt to cheat such prophecy would be factored in.

The only thing I understand about quantum mechanics is that I do not understand a thing about it. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states, I believe, that it's impossible to know both the location and the momentum of any particle. It isn't clear to me why this is so, but it then would prevent the situation I imagined from happening.

Can some other poster with a better knowledge of physics explain this?

 

[yomero]

If a brain (human, artificial,or devine)

I just realized I misspelled divine.

 

[Kahalachan]

I see some good responses in this topic that I thought about.

Predictions that are made beforehand but locked away to prevent any form of fulfillment or avoidance. But doesn't that still imbue me with the power to alter events?

And making predictions in gambling would also appear to make it look like I have the power to make predictions. But even in that case, we could just as easily say I altered the throw of the dice in some way and telekinesis, unconscious or conscious, is easily just as viably proven.

It seems only in some sort of closed system, could prediction ever be supported. Yes?

 

[Trent Wray]

I see some good responses in this topic that I thought about.

Predictions that are made beforehand but locked away to prevent any form of fulfillment or avoidance. But doesn't that still imbue me with the power to alter events?

And making predictions in gambling would also appear to make it look like I have the power to make predictions. But even in that case, we could just as easily say I altered the throw of the dice in some way and telekinesis, unconscious or conscious, is easily just as viably proven.

It seems only in some sort of closed system, could prediction ever be supported. Yes?

Hmm ... a closed system.

Combined with yomero's thought about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, I'm reminded of Schroedengers cat and the observer effect.

If our universe (or our conciousness somehow I suppose) was in a closed system that involved superposition (i.e., all outcomes existing at once), then an outside observer (yes, I brought it up) could determine an outcome by measurement / observation.

In other words, if we are the cat in the box .... in all states at once ... and an observer looks into the box and sees a dead or alive cat ... then they have determined an outcome in a closed system that had previous superposition.

Considering that our conciousness COULD be in a sort of state such as this (but might not be if all we are ever viewing is the past at any given moment), then if a person were able to step outside of that state and perceive it, and then look in a "section" of it, they could collapse the options down a single option for an outcome. And so perhaps in this way, one could "see an outcome" unrelated to themself.

Now, if your definition of superposition means all states, both past and present and future at once (all states in space-time itself I suppose), then maybe an outside observer could see a certain state in a "future" tense.

Just thinking woo out loud .....

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

The concept of prophecy as accurate but not useful has been done to death in science fiction. The Dune novels come to mind. Paul could see the future but as a branching series of choices and results. Given a sufficiently complicated situation with lots of choices and lots of powerful players, a situation where he would really want to know the future, the branchings tangled, interwove, and interfered with each other until it was essentially impossible to know what action to take or what the result of any action would be.

A

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

I just realized I misspelled divine.

So you weren't talking about the late transvestite actor, famous from the various flicks by John Waters...

A

 

[GrandMasterFox]

I understand the point of the story ... but there are many points to the story.

Imagine you are Jonah and you believe god is speaking to you, only to go and tell a bunch of people something is going to happen that doesn't happen.

It did happen... That is why I said you are missing the point of the story.
God told Jonah to give them the following prophecy:
"Repent or you are going to die".
Jonah decided to omit the first two words.
Hence, if Jonah changed the words, it's his own darn fault if it makes people think that he is a false prophet.

I see the Jonah story reflected in many believers ... from a Jonah pov

Proof schmoof! LOL

That would be kind of odd considering the story represents Jonah rather stupidly.

But non the less, I don't disagree with your general concept, just your specific example. I believe you could make a better case for yourself by looking into the book of Jeremaya since there you have far more confrontation between opposing prophecies.

And no deus-ex-machina miracles to tell us who is right.

And making predictions in gambling would also appear to make it look like I have the power to make predictions. But even in that case, we could just as easily say I altered the throw of the dice in some way and telekinesis, unconscious or conscious, is easily just as viably proven.

Well, actually this is the nature of ALL prophecies. Let me give you an example, I predict that tomorrow I will move my mouse.
Impressive? Hardly seems so, right?
Now consider this, this is exactly what God is doing.

God tells you that tomorrow an earthquake will occur at a specific time and place. For God (from a theist perspective), causing the earthquake is just as easy as me moving the mouse.

It's not about recognizing the exact nature of the future, it's about recognizing the existence of the force that causes the exact event you're predicting. Does that make any sense?

It seems only in some sort of closed system, could prediction ever be supported. Yes?

Not even then because there is no such thing as a truly closed system.
Let's say that I write 100 numbers and we lock them in a safe.
Then we roll a dice 100 times and write the result.
We take the original note out of the safe, and see that the numbers match 100%.

You could say I'm telekinetic and affected the dice roll.
Or you could say that I magically altered the piece of paper inside the safe.
Or maybe I switched the papers right after we took them out.

This will never really end.

 

[Kahalachan]

Not even then because there is no such thing as a truly closed system.

Which pretty much goes back to my point about prophesy being impossible.

 

[yomero]

So you weren't talking about the late transvestite actor, famous from the various flicks by John Waters...

A

So Andy Devine worked with John Waters and was a transvestite? I hope his co-star John Wayne never found out.

 

[Trent Wray]

It did happen... That is why I said you are missing the point of the story.
God told Jonah to give them the following prophecy:
"Repent or you are going to die".
Jonah decided to omit the first two words.
Hence, if Jonah changed the words, it's his own darn fault if it makes people think that he is a false prophet.

But from Jonah's POV, we cannot say what he THOUGHT he heard ... so from the perspective of one reading the story, you can see God say one thing, and Jonah say another, but you can only interpret what you think was Jonah's reasoning for clipping the original word. Hence, various POV, if one assumed the POV of Jonah.

In other words, it means whatever I want it to mean LOL. That's what most people do with the Bible anyways

That would be kind of odd considering the story represents Jonah rather stupidly.

Actually, I meant that I see the Jonah story in many believers, as though they were Jonah. But even if I had meant that somehow I was looking at them from a Jonah POV for myself, and Jonah was represented stupidly, I have no problem admitting that I act stupidly sometimes . I also throw temper tantrums and behave irrationally, on occassion, amongst other things. It's can be fun

But non the less, I don't disagree with your general concept, just your specific example. I believe you could make a better case for yourself by looking into the book of Jeremaya since there you have far more confrontation between opposing prophecies.

But I didn't look into the book of Jeremiah/maya

God tells you that tomorrow an earthquake will occur at a specific time and place. For God (from a theist perspective), causing the earthquake is just as easy as me moving the mouse.

It's not about recognizing the exact nature of the future, it's about recognizing the existence of the force that causes the exact event you're predicting. Does that make any sense?

Interesting pov.

Not even then because there is no such thing as a truly closed system.
Let's say that I write 100 numbers and we lock them in a safe.
Then we roll a dice 100 times and write the result.
We take the original note out of the safe, and see that the numbers match 100%.

You could say I'm telekinetic and affected the dice roll.
Or you could say that I magically altered the piece of paper inside the safe.
Or maybe I switched the papers right after we took them out.

This will never really end.

This is where a deus ex machina would help ....

 

[Robin]

Prophesy isn't impossible - it is easy, look:

"The world will end in five minutes"

"President Obama's next address to the nation will consist of one word - 'Ni'"

"The Messiah will come on 22nd March 2010"

 

[Senex]

Prophesy is a complicated issue. Free will/determinism -- who can say the future.

What you need to do is what I do. Fall asleep watching Law amd Order on TNT and wake up to this show called Angel. This show deals with prophesy and explains all the ambiguity using many pretty young female characters.

It works for me.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

But from Jonah's POV, we cannot say what he THOUGHT he heard

Yes we can, it's clearly written in (4:2) - Jonah tells God his intentions in black and white.

Ignoring this would be like trying to analyze the story of little red riding hood and somehow claim that she was a sadistic girl and asked the wolf to eat her grandmother.

Both stories are a fictional parable. No point in editing the story to make a point, just make a new story

But I didn't look into the book of Jeremiah/maya

I suggest you do, in particular his trial (26).
It describes EXACTLY the situation you are referring to.
Both the prosecution and the defense mention previous cases of prophets that spoke of doom and different consequences of what happened to those prophets and their prophecies.

Therefore, nobody had any idea how to tell if the prophet before them was real or not.

 

[Trent Wray]

Prophesy is a complicated issue. Free will/determinism -- who can say the future.

What you need to do is what I do. Fall asleep watching Law amd Order on TNT and wake up to this show called Angel. This show deals with prophesy and explains all the ambiguity using many pretty young female characters.

It works for me.

I like it

Yes we can, it's clearly written in (4:2) - Jonah tells God his intentions in black and white.

Ignoring this would be like trying to analyze the story of little red riding hood and somehow claim that she was a sadistic girl and asked the wolf to eat her grandmother.

Both stories are a fictional parable. No point in editing the story to make a point, just make a new story

I thought it was clear that is what I was doing?

I suggest you do, in particular his trial (26).
It describes EXACTLY the situation you are referring to.
Both the prosecution and the defense mention previous cases of prophets that spoke of doom and different consequences of what happened to those prophets and their prophecies.

Therefore, nobody had any idea how to tell if the prophet before them was real or not.

I did read it, but I see it differently .... LOL

 

[foxholeatheist]

More like your 2 thousand bucks!

Sheesh, I'm really too dumb for this topic!

Sweet, I aint alone.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

I thought it was clear that is what I was doing?

Well, now it is
You'll have to forgive me, after spending way too much time talking to bible thumpers who clearly haven't read the text they're talking about, I assumed you're doing the same.

My apologies.

 

[Trent Wray]

Well, now it is
You'll have to forgive me, after spending way too much time talking to bible thumpers who clearly haven't read the text they're talking about, I assumed you're doing the same.

My apologies.

No need to apologize! I've actually read the entire bible several times, and I purposefully cherry-pick and warp passages to my own liking and purpose (when I do mention the holly bibble), full well knowing that I am doing it. I find it's an interesting tactic since most of those who do it refuse to acknowledge they are doing it LOL. It's always interesting to me to see what this little manipulative maneuver I do "attracts", because it's usually someone who takes the bible waaaaaay too seriously, or at least their own interpretation. And I'm always interested in the psyche behind why a person is taking their own interpretation so seriously. It's not always for the same reasonings across the board. I find it to be very much a Rorschach test or mirror.

Sorry I attracted you on accident ... I'll go ahead and throw my analysis of your psyche in the garbage now, since most people don't like to be baited to be analyzed .... LOL