Since I was little, I’ve always looked at everything through the many-worlds interpretation and it pollutes my understanding of the world and causality. Everything that never happened, alongside the one thing that did happen, passes into everything that ever could happen  but first, all these universes must squeeze themselves through an impossibly-small, you-shaped bottleneck.
In Freedom Evolves, Dennett writes that our view of causality is backwards. We know the present. What we don’t know – except in the broadest terms – is which of the many, many paths, the past took to get to the present. Many such paths could have led to exactly this outcome. On the other hand, the next step will be the result of hard physical laws. Hence, the past is unknown but the future is predetermined – exactly the opposite of how most people see it. Anyway, that’s my interpretation of that graphic :-)
I get it. It speaks to a running theme in my life. I’m always looking at my past as justification for being a failure (i.e., not being an awesome guy) in the present. But it’s totally in my hands to drive my life in the direction I want it to go–future possibilities are limitless and determined by what action I take (or don’t take).
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Don Rumsfeld??
Somehow, I doubt it’s the Donald Rumsfeld quote that inspired this.
Eric
Pretty kewl graphic, is there anything else to this post?
The author writes on his website:
Eric
In Freedom Evolves, Dennett writes that our view of causality is backwards. We know the present. What we don’t know – except in the broadest terms – is which of the many, many paths, the past took to get to the present. Many such paths could have led to exactly this outcome. On the other hand, the next step will be the result of hard physical laws. Hence, the past is unknown but the future is predetermined – exactly the opposite of how most people see it. Anyway, that’s my interpretation of that graphic :-)
I get it. It speaks to a running theme in my life. I’m always looking at my past as justification for being a failure (i.e., not being an awesome guy) in the present. But it’s totally in my hands to drive my life in the direction I want it to go–future possibilities are limitless and determined by what action I take (or don’t take).
whoah this weblog is excellent i really like reading your posts.
Keep up the good work! You already know, lots of people
are hunting around for this info, you could help them greatly.