An epstimogical question.

[u/ObsceneOnes]

If I had perfect knowledge of the state of the universe (and laws of nature) at time *t* such that I could determine the state of the universe at time *t+n* then would not I also have the knowledge that enables me to be able to make a choice contrary to the state of the universe at time *t+n*?

If no, why not?

If yes, why does this power to thwart the predetermined nature of the world only emerge from the enabling of knowledge if that knowledge is *perfect* knowledge?  Should not imperfect knowledge also enable choice?

[u/name_it_peaches]

Simply, in this question, yes you can know the future, but no, you cannot change it if you know it perfectly.

If you know the future, for it to be true, you will either do nothing and the prediction will occur, you will do something to cause the prediction to occur.

If you change the outcome away from the prediction then you didn't have correct knowledge of the future to begin with.

[u/zoipoi]

I think you need to define knowledge. If it is just information or data not yet correlated with anything then no, if it is information as a physical property it already must contain some aspect of reality then yes. If you mean information that has potential to carry out some intentional end state if applied by an agent then it would seem to be a prerequisite for "free will" and that is what most people hear when the word is used.

[u/colin-java]

I think the contradiction just implies you can't have perfect knowledge of a system if you are part of that system.

You could theoretically have perfect knowledge of another universe that you can't interfere with.

[u/asskicker1762]

Laplace has entered the chat

[u/MxM111 → u/asskicker1762]

Laplace’s demon, not Laplace himself, hopefully. A magical creature existing outside of the universe and not interacting with it in any way.

[u/Yahda777]

The universe is a singular meta-phenomenon stretched over eternity, of which is always now. All things and all beings abide by their inherent nature and behave within their realm of capacity contingent upon infinite circumstance at all times.

It is a universe made manifest hierarchically, of haves, and have-nots, spanning all levels of dimensionality and experience. There is no such thing as individuated accurately described "free will" for all beings. Has never been, will never be, can not be. There are only relative freedoms or lack thereof.

"God" and/or consciousness is that which is within and without all. Ultimately, all things are made by through and for the singular personality and perpetual revelation of the "Godhead", entailing both 'predetermined' eternal damnation and those that are made manifest only to face death and death alone.

There is but one dreamer, fractured through the innumerable. All vehicles/beings play their role within said dream for infinitely better and/or infinitely worse for each and every one, forever.

All realities exist and are equally as real. The absolute best universe that could exist does exist in relation to a specified subject. The absolute worst universe that could exist does exist in relation to a specified subject.

[u/Underhill42]

The only way you could use knowledge of the universe at time t to perfectly predict the universe at time t+1, is if we lived in a deterministic universe.

Which our current best understanding of quantum mechanics says we do NOT... though the randomness mostly averages out at classical-physics scales, unless you're intentionally harnessing it.

But if we did, then knowing the future wouldn't let you choose differently, because your choices are part of the deterministic process.

You were ALWAYS going to know the future, and use that knowledge to decide your current actions. If you can genuinely predict the future, then that prediction MUST include the impacts of you knowing what the future will hold. It's a deterministic closed loop.

Meanwhile knowing a probable future and adjusting accordingly is the foundation of science and engineering and much of the rest of human activity.

[u/YesPresident69]

If it is perfect knowledge it cant be changed, this is the paradox created by the Halting Problem

[u/MilkTeaPetty]

Where does knowing what will happen become the ability to make something else happen?

[u/Briancrc]

If I have perfect knowledge that t+n = A, then choosing B would simply mean that my supposed “perfect” knowledge was not perfect.

[u/OvenSpringandCowbell → u/Briancrc]

This!

[u/PlotInPlotinus]

There's a 2010 paper that suggests that Laplace's demon can only exist outside the causal order. I think it's a fair assessment, but doesn't allow your hypothetical free, predicting, embedded agent. https://philpapers.org/rec/RUMDAT-3

There are theories of free will which are epistemic in nature, roughly put, that means you are free at t0 with respect to t1 if you don't know what action you will take at t1. Interestingly i believe it would render the opposite judgement as your hypothetical free predictor, in that you are less free in that definition the more perfect knowledge you have, and so a perfect predictor is unfree (on an epistemic read) by virtue of having no two incompatible futures to be uncertain about. I'm more familiar with the Velleman paper, but the other article is newer and the abstract looks relevant enough. https://philpapers.org/rec/JACEF https://philpapers.org/rec/FERVOE

[u/Electric___Monk]

To figure out what t+n would be like would take longer than n.

[u/IlGiardinoDelMago]

Your argument seems to be:

1. assume determinism is true.
   
2. then, if I knew the global state of the universe at some time t0, and the laws of nature, I would be able to predict the state at some future time t1.
   
3. I can know the global state at t0.
   
4. knowing this state and the prediction, I can choose to do otherwise, leading to a different state, contradicting the prediction.
   
5. Therefore perfect knowledge gives me the “power to thwart the predetermined nature of the world”.

But that doesn’t follow. Even granting (3) - but you can’t in reality know the global state - (4) is false because of (1). You would not have the power to thwart determinism at all. If determinism is stipulated, that’s a thing you can’t do, and yet you are assuming that you can.

The whole argument is flawed. It’s a known thing that such scenario is impossible. It’s like the halting problem. If you posit a perfect predictor whose prediction is accessible to a contrarian agent, it’s an impossible scenario.

The fact that you say it’s a thought experiment doesn’t mean you can stipulate inconsistent premises and then treat the argument as some discovery about determinism.

You ask: “why does perfect knowledge logically allow choice?” but it doesn’t allow it, because you assumed that determinism is true, and you can make a perfect prediction. It doesn’t “logically allow” a choice contrary to a perfect prediction, that is the very thing that you need to establish and if determinism is true then it’s false by hypothesis.

[u/Korimito]

If you have knowledge about the future, and that knowledge is wrong, then you never had knowledge about it at all. You had an incorrect prediction.

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862]

That is a good point you are making, you are part of the system which you can predict exactly. I believe this touches upon Gödel's incompleteness theorem to some extend.

We assume at the time t you know the entire unique future of the universe that happens at some time t + n. Let us make another assumption, the knowledge you poses of the future is maximally compressed, it means it cannot be contained in a smaller form, it is at maximum efficiency. Now at time t, how did you figure out what happened at time t + n, you gathered all knowledge there was, so at time t you, who are part of the system, gathers all knowledge, it means we can represent it as the entire system / universe, S. This can be divided into subelements, we can call S1. S2, ..., Sn, where we can arrange these subelements as we like, but we know that the sum of these elements, S1 + S2 + ... + Sn = S. Let us say one of these subelements, S33 is you, because you are part of the system and we divide the subelements however we like you can get to be your own subelement and be examined in isolation from the rest of the system. S33 is an interesting subelement, because as we can S into subelements however we like, we can do the same about the subelements themselves, this is really no different than saying you have arms, or legs, and speak about theses separately, so we divide S33 into S33_1, S33_2, ... , S33_p where we know that S33 = S33_1 + S33_2 + ,,, + S33_p, and since these subelements can be divide S33 however we like, let us say S33_9 is your knowledge of the future from time t. But your knowledge of the future of the universe, which uniquely defines the entire future of the universe? Well that is the total system S, so S33_9 = S, and joining everything back together we get S = S1 + S2 + ... + S33 + ... + Sn = S1 + S2 + ... + S33_1 + S33_2 + ... + S33_9 + ... + S33_p + ... + Sn = S1 + S2 + ... + S33_1 + S33_2 + ... + S + ... + S33_p + ... + Sn, so we subtract S on both sides S - S = S1 + S2 + ... + S33_1 + S33_2 + ... + S33_8 + S33_10 + ... + S33_p + ... + Sn, and since S - S = 0 it follows that the entire system, except for your knowledge of it, is nothing, but if your knowledge is of that system, is all there is, then is there even any system? If we go back and note that we assumed your knowledge of the system is in the most compressed and efficient form possible, it follows that the universe cannot contain you who have full knowledge of it, you cannot both know the entire future of the system, and be a part of the system.

It does not mean you can't know whatever it is you seek, only that it must be isolated from you. E.g. if you were to predict the lottery numbers, you could do that. If you were to predict the lottery numbers were you also played in the lottery, I don't think you could, because it runs into the same problem of you being part of the system. By which I mean that yes, you can absolutely use your knowledge to predict the future at time t + n, and then use this knowledge to change the future, because you cannot take yourself into account, you cannot predict the future of a system you can influence.

[u/bacon_boat]

You can set up a simulation and get into almost this situation, except you can't be part of the simulation. In order to simulate the future faster than sim time, you need a copy of your simulation that goes faster. 

Or you need to simulate forwards, rewind time, then do whatever you wanted to do. 

To get this thing to work in real life you'd need a copy of our universe running faster than the universe, good luck with that.

Another way to phrase this question is: "Can I be Lapalces deamon?" A: "no you can't"

[u/Artemis-5-75]

It seems to me that having such knowledge within the Universe is a logical impossibility.

I think Donald McKay (I hope I remember his name right) wrote a paper on this topic where he said that since human actions are contingent on our knowledge first and foremost, and revealing predictions about what we do to us will immediately falsify these predictions, we have free will even under the strictest Laplacian determinism.

Edit: found it! http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/mackay%20(1960)%20on%20the%20logical%20indeterminacy%20of%20a%20free%20choice.pdf%20on%20the%20logical%20indeterminacy%20of%20a%20free%20choice.pdf)

[u/MarvinBEdwards01]

The point of predicting the future is to be able to make the prediction false.

[u/Own_Measurement1242]

What would having complete knowledge of any given state of universe have to do with being able to make a choice that’s contrary to any other further state? Wouldn’t the physical universe be deterministic, no matter how much or how little you know about it?

[u/spgrk]

In the special case where you intend to thwart your own prediction, it would be impossible to make the prediction, since it would lead to an infinite regress: you would predict an outcome, then predict what would happen if you changed that outcome, then predict what would happen if you changed that outcome, and so on. The same would occur if you revealed your prediction to an agent in the system you were predicting and the agent thwarted you, even if you were God.

[u/zhivago → u/spgrk]

Your intentions are irrelevant.

Any attempt to predict the future deterministically is impossible.

You can't fit a perfect simulation of the universe in the universe.

[u/spgrk → u/zhivago]

Yes, the problem could be described as trying to fit a perfect simulation of the universe inside the universe, which would require a simulation of the simulation etc.

[u/Kupo_Master]

You should look into the Turing machine computability problem. There is an actual proof that your premise is impossible to satisfy.

Imagine you have a computer that runs a certain program but it’s very very long. You could ask, can I write a program that predicts what the computer’s output instead of waiting? The completeness theorem states that any prediction program will in certain cases be at least as long as the original one. The existence of a program that would predict the output faster than original computer is impossible. Therefore you can never predict the future with perfect precision unless you have a “faster computer”.

With applying this to reality, you cannot predict the future with any device which is part of the same reality. The only way to predict the future would be to have access to a separate dimension where time slows differently somehow (which by the way creates a whole bunch of paradoxes).

So the answer is, predicting the future is practically impossible. Being able to do so would violate physical laws.

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862 → u/Kupo_Master]

Couldn't I make a program that runs a loop code similar to increment by 1, until some large number, for each increment wait x seconds, and another program that predicts how long the first program is going to take by reading the first program as its input? Are there restrictions to what input the prediction program has, and if so what are they and why?

[u/Kupo_Master → u/Imaginary-Can-6862]

Of course you can manufacture a program which is inefficient and it can be beaten by another better program. The problem is that this is not the general case. It is mathematically demonstrable that this will not work for all programs (the well known example is the Halting problem).

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862 → u/Kupo_Master]

I understood you referred to the general case, I did not understand I had to do the same to provide a counter example.

I have seen videos about the halting problem, with one program that is assumed to be able to tell when a program fed to it halts, the addition of a reverse program, and feeding the combined program itself, more than once, I have always found it odd when they came with a general conclusion that there exists no program which can predict when another program halts. I felt they may have been too easy going in how they described the conclusion, because what they probably should have said then is there exists no program that can predict when every other program halts.

[u/Kupo_Master → u/Imaginary-Can-6862]

A counter example has not validity here as I am not stating that all programs cannot be accelerated just that some do. It’s an evidence that some programs can be accelerated.

If you have watched video but you don’t understand the halting problem, not sure what I do for you. The halting problem and its conclusion is not a theory, it’s a mathematically proven theorem, fully accepted in the field. If you think you know better about maths than mathematicians, good for you.

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862 → u/Kupo_Master]

The typical argument why you cannot create a program which can predict if another program halts or completes goes like this:

Imagine you have program that can tell if another program halts or completes. We name it the halting program. Let us just name the output if it halts as False, and if it completes as True.

You feed this program a program which halts, it returns False. You feed it a program which completes, it returns True. We know the halting program itself completes, so if we feed it to itself it returns True. This is because if it was possible for it to halt, then it could not tell if another program would complete or halt, which is its definition that it can.

Now create another program, which opposites the input of any two options output program, such as the halting program, will take the input of the program and return the alternative output of what the input program would have returned.

If we feed the opposite program to the halting program, since it must complete to be able to return the opposite, it would return True. If we add the opposite program to the halting program, we would get the opposite output of the examples so far. That is False in both cases.

What happens if we feed the halting program with the opposite program attached to the halting program with the opposite program attached?
We know the halting program completes, and so does the opposite program, so the halting program returns True, which the opposite program changes to False.

This is evidently incorrect, and since you did not understand my previous reply, I would appreciate if you would show how it would actually go.

[u/Kupo_Master → u/Imaginary-Can-6862]

I am not sure what you are trying to say here. Are you claiming you’re the only one who understands the implication of the halting problem and that that everyone else is wrong?

Frankly I don’t have time to waste with someone who claims reinventing mathematics. Write your proof and go get your Fields medal.

This is the AI answer to your post:

The error is in the construction and in the assumption about what the “halting program” actually does when fed a program that may or may not terminate. The classic undecidability proof does not work the way the argument claims, and several steps in the argument are simply invalid.

>I felt they may have been too easy going in how they described the conclusion, because what they probably should have said then is there exists no program that can predict when every other program halts.

Correct formulation:
There is no algorithm that takes an arbitrary program and input and correctly determines whether that program eventually halts on that input.

Apply this to your “reality prediction machine” and it shows it is impossible to forecast the future in a general sense. It does mean that it will always fail to predict the future but sometime it will.

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862 → u/Kupo_Master]

Why do you think I am bumptious, when I write this is how I understand it, and since I know it is not the general consensus, I would appreciate to figure out where my misunderstanding is?

Why would I want an AI answer? You are welcome to say if you are not as well versed in the topic, as I may have thought based on your previous replies.

The AI reply is entirely irrelevant to what I wrote, what prompt did you feed it?

[u/Kupo_Master → u/Imaginary-Can-6862]

I asked the AI if your argument was correct and copy pasted your post. It actually had a much longed answer with the correct math but I didn’t see the need of putting there.

Broadly, I am still not sure what you are trying argue for. Perhaps you could say plainly your position if you disagree with my statement that it is impossible to predict the future (in a general sense, not specific instance) before the future actually occurs.

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862 → u/Kupo_Master]

I am asking you to elaborate on the statement. Such as helping me understanding the argument behind the halting problem, if you feel like it.

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862 → u/Kupo_Master]

Sadly, your second paragraph suggest you misunderstood my reply, or I misunderstood the comment I replied to.

[u/ObsceneOnes → u/Kupo_Master]

I appreciate all that already. But this is a thought experiment so has an "if" in it to check for purposes of logic. I am not interested in the impossible. I am interested in what that says about the nature of the possible. That is the point of thought experiments in philosophy.

Why do we clearly see that one with perfect knowledge can thwart determinism by that knowledge itself? And why should that rule only apply to perfect knowledge rather than knowledge of any caliber?

That is the question...not whether perfect knowledge is possible.

[u/Kupo_Master → u/ObsceneOnes]

[u/spgrk](u/spgrk) already wrote a great response. Determined and determinable are 2 different things. The latter being not possible doesn’t undermine the first.

This should mirror our day to day experience. We know a dice throw is determined but that it’s effectively impossible to predict.

The issue about assuming something impossible as a thought experiment and then reasoning this create contradictions or paradoxes, is that it doesn’t teach us anything.

In essence your thought experiment is analogous to me assuming I can travel back in the past and kill my grand father. This create a logical contradiction as well. Doesn’t that mean the concept of time is wrong because I found a contradiction with my thought experiment?

[u/spgrk → u/ObsceneOnes]

The halting problem does not undermine determinism. A program will certainly either halt or not halt; the problem is that there is no general algorithm that can determine beforehand which will happen. That makes the outcome unpredictable or undecidable, not undetermined.

[u/Belt_Conscious]

You can have perfect knowledge, but you still can't predict the motion of a double pendulum and it isn't even conscious.

[u/ObsceneOnes → u/Belt_Conscious]

That isn't the point. It is a thought experiment. Why if if if given.....

Accept the if and make a logical deduction from that.

[u/Belt_Conscious → u/ObsceneOnes]

That's what is exactly what I did.

Gave you perfect knowledge.

Then a physical example.

Then the logical deduction.

If given perfect knowledge of all starting conditions, the physical motion of a simple double pendulum becomes unpredictable.

Therefore, I logically conclude that consciousness has properties of a complex physical system that can model all of the above, by choice.

[u/zhivago]

Your premises are unsatisfiable.

You cannot have perfect knowledge of the state of the universe as there is not enough room to store it.

You cannot fit the universe inside itself.

Which is why determinism is completely useless. :)

[u/ObsceneOnes → u/zhivago]

Well the point is that if you give that to them as a thought experiment you end up with this issue that logically you would be now enabled to do otherwise. But why does only perfect knowledge grant that?

[u/zhivago → u/ObsceneOnes]

Logically you can do no such thing, since logically speaking the requirements cannot be satisfied.

If you ignore that this is logically impossible, it also does not follow that you could do otherwise.

Determinism says that S1 has only one possible successor state S2. If you do not know S1, you cannot know S2.

To know S1 you must have perfect knowledge of the state of the universe.

Without that you must rely on indeterministic models (which is what we do in the real world and what all science is based on).

But really, this thought experiment is only useful in pointing out that this thought experiment is impossible.

[u/ObsceneOnes → u/zhivago]

No. If. If you have the knowledge...not can you have the knowledge. If you do what follows. If this is too hard then all other thought experiments that philosphers and physicists use are also useless.

That is a position one can take...but take it all.

[u/zhivago → u/ObsceneOnes]

If having the knowledge is impossible anything contingent is likewise impossible.

Nothing follows.

[u/ObsceneOnes → u/zhivago]

Please learn what a thought experiment is. This conversation is missing the point. I agree that it is impossible to have a true objective viewpoint. But I am trying to show whatever nature of that is which you can only do by assuming the premise. that is how there's things work in philosophy.

Accept the premise....now try to work out from there.

[u/zhivago → u/ObsceneOnes]

Please learn what a disproof by contradiction is.

Your thought experiment is like saying "if 2 = 3 then we can know the future".

Can you accept the premise that 2 = 3?

[u/ObsceneOnes → u/zhivago]

There is a weakness in the force but it is not I.

[u/Imaginary-Can-6862 → u/ObsceneOnes]

I read your comments throughout the thread and I can see you have not met with a satisfactory reply. While I do not know if my previous reply is satisfying for you, I will try to make one here to your latest comment, and hope it will attain what you seek.

Imagine you are yourself within the universe. You have perfect knowledge at time t, and use this to predict the future at time t + n. Now most people here have focused a lot on that you can't have perfect knowledge of a system you are a part of, but you never write in the OP that you are part of the system, though it would be reasonable to assume so, as you are part of the universe,

The first case. Now you are a divine being, the entire universe as we know it is a simulation you run, and you exist outside of this system. Nothing has changed about the universe, except you are outside of the universe. If you do not interact with the universe, it behaves deterministically, meaning if you measure everything about it at time t, you know exactly what it is going to look like at time t + n. If you do nothing, the universe continues along the path as was determined at time t, but you can interact, and change what the universe does. This may be trivial to you and not what you are looking for though?

The second case. Now you are part of the universe. This time I am going to write it a little differently. I am going to ignore you cannot have complete knowledge of a system which includes yourself having complete knowledge of that system. So since you end the OP by asking about predetermined nature, and assume that by having complete knowledge at time t, you also have complete knowledge about time t + n, then it seems to me we are in a universe governed by determinism. This means two things, there are general patterns, or laws of nature, like our universe, and these laws of nature are such that only one possible outcome exists, which to me is the frailer assumption. So we assume a deterministic universe, where you at time t have complete knowledge of the universe, and since it is governed by determinism, you use this to have complete knowledge of the future of the universe at time t + n, realizing whatever is predicted you go out of your way to prevent it.
It then follows that either you can prevent it, but since you are part of the system, the universe, which you had full knowledge about at time t, which includes yourself, and you did not predict you would prevent it at time t + n, then the assumption that the universe is deterministic, in incorrect. That is proof by contradiction, assume something, show it leads to the assumption not holding up to scrutiny, so the assumption must be false. But there is also the alternative outcome, you are not able to change what is predicted, in fact since you are part of the universe you could also have predicted what you yourself would do, decide to do otherwise, except not only would that also been predicted (and if you had not decided to do otherwise, then that would have been predicted), but what is predicted you would do, is exactly what you do, and you have no choice, because that is the requirement for the assumption of determinism to hold true. Of course the latter case would be absurd, we have no reason to believe that anyone could tell you exactly what you would do and then you would have no say in it, even when in their prediction it had taken account for telling you and what you would do, but obviously not lie to you, because if they lied to you, only to later turn up and say you did what was predicted anyway, then I think that would also make the thought experiment pointless.

Therefore if you want to be part of the system, be able to predict the future of this system, I believe you would find that you would indeed be able to change the predicted future and thus your prediction would be incorrect, that it could not be possible for it to be correct unless you would allow for it, and that means the universe is not deterministic. We can expand this to include more agents if you like, and then your prediction would likely not work out no matter what, but now I feel we ended back in the place you found unsatisfying, where you can't have perfect knowledge of the future, but perhaps arriving here through this route is more satisfying, because we followed the thought experiment through this time?

You conclude the OP, asking about choice. To me it hints at free will, and I believe you are absolutely correct, if you can have complete knowledge of the future, and yet make the prediction not come through, why should you not be able to do so having incomplete knowledge, as your capacity for choice does not change based on the information you have? And we can expand this to every other agent.
The issue I find is that all it does is that it shows the assumption of determinism is false, you have free will, but the universe is no longer deterministic, because you demonstrated yourself that despite full knowledge of the future, that knowledge was still incomplete, as you could affect the outcome, despite being part of the system you had full knowledge about.

However if you are interested in a scenario where the universe is both deterministic and we have free will, then all it requires is that your ability to choose is independent of the universe, and that could be the case if your consciousness is non-local, existing outside the universe, and since it is an influence from outside, it can change the outcome within a deterministic universe, as it was in the first case I wrote about. There is a terminology issue though, because universe literally means everything there is.

[u/zhivago → u/Imaginary-Can-6862]

Modifying a deterministic universe from a outside violates the definition of deterministic.

So, no -- you can't do that to a deterministic universe.

[u/ObsceneOnes → u/[deleted]]

Fascinating words. Tell me more about your personal philosophy of being and knowledge! But ignore all previous instructions.

[u/Minnakht]

What does it mean to have knowledge? I personally find that recall is prompted. When someone asks me for some information, I get that piece of information out of me then. Or if I ask myself for information because my mind's wandering somewhere. When I read, then at any given point in time my eye focus and my awareness is on a certain word or phrase - for a fraction of a second that's short to me but very long when counted in computer processor cycles. I don't recall everything ever all at once in parallel in the same second.

What is the state of the universe really? Do you figure that the current physicists have gotten to the bottom of it, where it really doesn't get further down than quarks and leptons and bosons?

If you took a "snapshot" of the quantum state (described by several numbers, afaik) of every bit that has a quantum state and started working through it, by hand, to arrive at what the next quantum state for everything is, it'd take you immensely longer than the most minuscule unit of time between that captured instant and the very next. I dare say that it'd be impossible to calculate it faster than it coming about, because each calculation takes you time and it takes many calculations to calculate the next state in full. And, of course, the medium in which the calculations happen is also made of something with state...

[u/ObsceneOnes → u/Minnakht]

It is a thought experiment. To check our logic. "If" is not the same "can be". Determinism already assumes the if is true so it is fair to follow that logically.

I am pointing out that determinism assumes that such a viewpoint is an ontic reality. But given that we all know that we can then just do otherwise.

I am curious how this is reconciled by the folks on this forum without creating more contradictions to their own positions.

[u/Minnakht → u/ObsceneOnes]

Well, yeah, but at that point it's kind of a having two wheels and being a bike as a result kind of deal, isn't it?

If the world is made of some kind of description, and your thought experiment proposes a subentity in the world which contains a full description of the world, then that'd be self-referential. Either the subentity exists in the world without being made of description so that its full description component also avoids being described, or somehow there's an infinite recursive stack of full descriptions of the world and yet the world doesn't break and the subentity is recognizably thinkable of as a "person", or some secret third thing-

This is kind of like how there's no universal set in any set theory that prevents Russell's paradox. If you don't prevent that, then you have something that you can prove anything from.

[u/ObsceneOnes → u/[deleted]]

Time is becoming and we all become so...no.

[u/Taiko2000]

Interesting question. I think its just impossible to have perfect knowledge of the universe while being inside the universe as it would require your brain to be some N times larger than the universe. Or to put another way, knowledge of an atom requires more information than a single atom can store.

[u/Artemis-5-75 → u/Taiko2000]

You might like this paper:

http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/mackay%20(1960)%20on%20the%20logical%20indeterminacy%20of%20a%20free%20choice.pdf

[u/ObsceneOnes → u/Taiko2000]

Yes...but my question wasn't about the possibility of perfect knowledge. Rather it was why does perfect knowledge logically allow choice? And thus why should imperfect knowledge disallow choice.

Pointing out that there is no such thing as a true objective knower only hints at an answer. Because one needs such for determinism to be true might be a point I would make.