Does Future Equal Past?

1:49 am - another sleepless night. History do seem to repeat itself with or without fore-knowledge. Maybe we are who we are and nothing more, maybe real change occurs only as often as snow in summer, maybe we are all just walking in circle and no one notices it because the loop is so damn big.

Lately I have more odd thoughts again. More and more I am convinced that the future is no more flexible than the past. We look behind us and see what has been, the past is carved in stone and it is the foundation in which we draw our future against. It makes a good foundation because it dose not change, the events are tied by a string of actions already accomplish and by its chronology we devised a system of unit called time to keep track of those actions.

You see, the only seperation of past and future is nothing more than a point of view. We place ourselves and define our viewpoint (present) as the focal point - to the left hand we have the known; to the right hand we have the unknown. However, simply because it is unknown does not mean it is prone to change. We seem to have define the future movable due to our inability to glimpse its true face.

Since the furture is dependent upon the present and the future is dependent upon the past - which the past is fixed, I argue that the present must also therefore be fixed. If the present is fixed then the future must also be fixed.

[1/infinity] second from the past, we step into the present. The present decision is tied to the past that has been fixed. I may think I have chose to take this breath, to walk this step, or to speak this word, but in reality those choices were already inevitable due to my previous actions. What we perceive as free well is nothing more than a domino effect of world interaction. I took this breath at this precise time because I took my last breath 2 seconds ago and my body condition which was formed over the last 24 made this breath the conclusion. Whether I would take this breath or not at this precise time of 6/82005 2:10:22 was already determined at the time I was born - as I took my first breath. Even further, when I took my first breath of life was determined when my mother had me, and when my mother decided to have me was determine when she first met my dad.

The things that we consider variables were simply missing data. You may ask, how could you be sure that my mother would have definitely get together with my father, or that maybe my birth wasn't planned, or that why any of these matters. The calculation of whether I would have taken a breath at 6/82005 2:10:22 requires an enormous but finite amount of unknown, but which as the past comes closer to the intersection of present - the unknown decreases more and more.

So either more time amounts to more free will which makes no sense, because free will is a state of mind independent of time, or my argument that fate is predetermined is right. However, even though we don't personally control the outcome of the world or even our lives, the responsibility of the action is still ours, because even though the outcome of the event is already known to someone who has all the data and computation power, to the person who is less wise (us) the future is not set. Our sense of control and choice is nothing but ignorance. Yet, out of that sense of free will, we still need to take the responsibility because to us those choices are very real and self determined.

I wish I can express my thought more clearly. This idea came from a simple seed - A "Matter" of Time. The Matter in which time are made of is the same, the past is made of the same matter as the present and as the future. Point of view may slow or speed up time but it will not change that matter fundamentally. That fundamental fact is easy to observe in a set of time, which is the past. The past action which has occurred does not change. I argue that the future has already happened, it is a road which has already been build, we the observers simply haven't traveled upon that road yet. Action depends upon action depends upon action. What you might call spontaneous and unpredictable is simply an event effected by data which was not known to us. Since all actions and data that affect the present is unchangeable (past), the present must also be unchangeable; since future is a product of the present, the future must also be set in stone.

2:33am. Another sleepless night - another crazy thought

another idea, maybe free will is just god's random string. In a computer that is clear and logical, randomness has to be emulated. Equations involving irrational number is usually involved to make a pseudo random number. Yet in reality it is not really random, look at it long enough and you will see the pattern. Maybe the universe is too logical and God made us to spice things up. After all what else would an all powerful all knowing being want? I would argue he/she/it would like some excitement and unknown. A little randomness to life - us. Maybe that is where free will comes from, our inability to change the future and yet the ability to believe we are in charge - pseudo random number; our free will.

[Thoughts]