[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by NTJedi:

Hypothetically speaking if a fortune teller was able to see into the future and witness the event which brought the copper and/or iron mine then for that fortune teller it would be known and nonexistent.

Ok, hypothetically allowing precognition, and infallible precognition at that.... (I know I am going to regret this)

No, the copper mine would be nonexistent but it would be known to the fortuneteller that a copper mine would exist at some time and place in the future. That is not the same as that future copper mine being known to the fortuneteller in the present, and, likewise, the copper mine was not unknown in the present before the fortune teller performed his divination.

Before the divination, the fact that a specific copper mine would exist at that time in the future would be unknown - but that fact is not the copper mine.

If someone programmed an event for that copper and/or iron mine to appear.... then for that programmer it would be known and nonexistent.

No, that future mine would be nonexistent in the present, but the programmer would know the fact that a copper mine with specific properties would come into existence at some time in the future. He would not know the copper mine now.

You seem to be consistently equating concepts and ideas with objects, and equating knowledge of future events with future objects being known in the present (when, in fact, only the knowledge that they will exist in the future is known), which makes this discussion very surreal.

EDIT: More surreal that it was already, that is. Bringing precognition into a discussion is not usually a good way to advance your cause.

[ March 20, 2004, 00:17: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]