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could learing the future affect your free will? if you knew what was to come in the future would you try to change it, or allow it to happen for feaf of the fayes rage?

Of course learning about your future would affect your free will. Free will is just another term for "choice". Once you learn about your future you have a choice to make changes to something you don't like.

I dont think so as, even if it was to make us wanna change the events, we cant change the outcome

I think that knowing your future would certainly affect the decisions you make and the things you do. If the future you are told of is desired by you, you might make decisions to lead you toward that end, that you otherwise might not have.

Likewise, if the future you are made aware of is negative, you may take actions and make decisions in an attempt to avoid it, which inadvertantly lead to the negative future state.

In any case, I think it is detrimental to know the future. We are meant to experience life "in the moment" as it comes.

It would have to affect your free will. Even if it was on a subconscious level you would make choices that you wouldn't normally know you even had. Knowing what will happen always has its up sides and down sides. Take chess for example. If you use a certain strategy to get your opponent to move where you want him to then you are sitting in a nice position (granted that you planning was sound), but what happens when your opponent catches you off guard? It could cripple you. Just because you know what might happen doesn't mean that the choice you make with this knowledge will be any better than if it came at you unexpectedly.

Knowing the "future" is relative to whether to take action to change what you "know" will occur.

A lot depends on whether you have the capability to change the future you have seen. If you can, then the future you have seen is not the future.

I you could truly see the future, you would see the results that will actually occur, no matter what decisions you make.

Instead, there is the concept of prescience, which is the ability to see the potential futures that could occur based on your possible actions and decisions.

This ability is discussed in Frank Herbert's Dune, where Mau'did sees all of his futures.

I think that knowing the future would not effect our free will. There is always a choice, you may not like the choice.....but it is there.

I think that by knowing your future, you change it...

if i knew the future i wouldnt try to change it wheather their where consequnces or not becuse a person who can see the future should consider themselves lucky and understand their place in the natrual order of things.

knowing the future holds little value when one is living in today. if i knew the future and didn't like the future, i would try to change it. but consider this: knowing the future doesn't mean the path to that future is revealed.

one could quite easily struggle to change only to end up with the future result. in light of this, the future matters less than today, for today is only the first step on the path of the future.

i thnk that it would depend on the person and whether or not the outcome iz a good or bad one but alot of timez if someone found out their future i dont doubt fer one second they would prolly try to change it or if they want it to happen they would prolyy try to make it happen but then screw it up in the process lol but yea thatz wat i think

I believe the fact that you know the future would affect a change whether you set out to change it deliberately or not. If you know that something is going to happen, then your behaviour changes accordingly, and that will have a cascading effect on everything around you until, in the end, the "thing" that you knew was going to happen changes or doesn't happen.

It's got to be just like getting your Tarot read.

Yes... if you continue on the path that you are on... this is where you end up.

However... knowing what is in front of you always shakes us up and we end up doing some things differently... now dont we :P

Whether or not you can see the future to change it, the concept of free will directs accordingly to you. You as the person have the free will to walk the path of the future or to change it.

Whether you decide to change said future revelation is a free will choice, but the outcome will differ as quantum physics calculates the dimension of which future you are about to change.

free will is a tricky subject. if you were to fall from an airplane, there is only one direction in which you can go - straight down. you know you will plummet to your death, and nothing you can do will prevent it; however, this does not mean you do not have free will, and your free will is only restricted in as far as your eventual fate. it is your choice as to whether you fall screaming and crying for your mommy, praying to every god you can think of, or singing a happy tune.

time is not one dimensional - there is more than one future, and knowing the possible outcome can enable you to change certain things. of course, some things cannot be changed, and there are some fates it is too late to avoid - but you can prepare yourself for them.

Free will is about choices, and knowing the future would have a direct effect on what your choices might be. You could have a whole different view point but a choice is still a choice.

Learning the future is of course going to affect me, im not sure if i would change it or not...i think i would keep it, i dont want sumthing worse to come of it

if you no the way things will happen then really your not chosing your own path you are more a robot

Yes I think it would certainly affect my choices.

As to whether I would change anything..that's impossible to say unless I know what is about to happen.

I've come to lear that there are infinite possiblities as to which of the futures falls into your path. the one you see.. may not be the one which you are handed because of the choices you make.
I do not believe in destiny..
We make it what it is to be.
I do not believe much in fate for I rarely accept what is handed to me and seek to change it.
If one wishes to view future events. then one needs to remember that is but one possible future you are glimpsing.
your next choice may change it and thus prevent it's being Your future.
So, therefore, doing anything with future knowledge is very frustrating... live your day as best you can. plan your future.. but don't expect to know it.
That is my opinion/advice .

I think it would as then you would be second guessing everything that you did.

I think it would change me and how I go about my life for sure. Especially if i did not like where things were going to end up.

Knowing the Futre may affect Someones Free willl and Have them attempt to try and change the path their one but like said earlier somethings are just meant to be and nomatter how hard it is tried to change it .. You may alter how it occurs but the end result will still occur.. I personally would rather not know

I think it could only if you tried to change it.....if you forget about it....then it won't be an issue...well that's how I see it

yes. because you will try to change what you dont like. and you'll try to alter what you can to get what you want.

I think that even if anyone knew anything about the future, they should be extremely powerfull to be capable of changing it.
To be honest, I would not like to learn anything about the future... At least not yet ;-) :P

i think that life finds its way... even when we knew the future and tried so hard to change it... things will happen anyway from one way or the other...

the thing is how we can handle those things to learn from them...

The answer would have to be yes...If I know what will happen I might make different choices...So my free will would be altered

I don't feel that my knowing what could happen will or could affect what will happen. No matter how much I try to change things the future will happen.

i think it would change your free wil

knowing the future would change you will because if you don't like it you'll try to change it, if yo like ity you'll try to keep it.
I have another question tho, how do you know that a future that you do not like may be, because you found out about it, and tried to change it, like in the matrix when neo broke the vase in the oracles place....

Oracle: I'd ask you to sit down, but, you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase.
Neo: What vase?
[Neo turns to look for a vase, and as he does, he knocks over a vase of flowers, which shatters on the floor]

Oracle: That vase.
Neo: I'm sorry...
Oracle: I said don't worry about it. I'll get
one of my kids to fix it.
Neo: How did you know?
Oracle: Ohh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?

Yes and no.

The destiny is like the Universe.The time is like space: islands of chaos in an ocean of order.

All the time is an immense net. You MUST pass through certain knots but it`s up to you if you choose the right way or not.

So if you know your future it will change only the ways maybe but not the knots.

One sees but only one destination.
To which are a thousand roads.
While one may see the destination for what it is.
The road one travels is still in darkness.
If you consentrate too much on the destination, you forget to watch the road you are on.
Even running from one end to another may only put you on to a circular path of running.
Let the end be the end, and consentrate on the road.

Yes it could if we had a set future, but as we don't I don't generally think it will.

What we do affects the future, and doing something different will change it.

Hmmm, My view on this...if one was to find out one event in the near future and know nothing of the events leading to it (which most movies/books portray this scenario as) then there is a chance that it would affect the way you lived your life/made your choices. I don't think it would destroy free will but it would definitely send your life in a different direction.

If I knew of my future..I would not let anything change..or let that dictate how I act even.

Of course knowing the future affects your free will
you wonder what paths you should or shoundt take to change the future if you r want

nope..knowing it will not effect your free will.

fore sight would disrupt everything, from the moment of insight, for every descision based on the that would affect the future...

It depends on one's own self being if they change it or not but I think alot of us would or at least try to change the outcome if it was ill fated or such.

Wel I guess it would depend, but this is free will that we are talking about if we saw that we were going to die in a horrible car accident at acertain time and a certain day would get in that car on that day ?

I think we make up our own future .

Of course it would affect you.

What tenebrous said, with this addition:

Knowing the future would take all the fun out of the present.

im pretty sure i would change if i know my future. I think all would do that.

i do not think so

If I actually knew what was going to happen in the future or even of just a single future event of course it would effect what I did. If it was a negative event then I would try to change things. If I knew of an event that could profit me such as a change in stock or something like that then I would definitely try to profit from it.

yes it would affect alot

I do believe knowing the future would affect how one would act. I think some people would try, obviousely, to change the future, to bend it to his or her own will. Would I? Its hard to say. I am afraid of the Fates rage, but I would also like to change things to suit me.

i think that it may change your behavior and could change the way you do certain things.

Yes I think It would.. It'd change a lot of things for me.. It would also change my Destiny and my fate if I knew what my future held for me.

I'd try to stop certain things occuring etc..

if we knew the future, then free will be known to be limited or non-existent. There would be no choice; only Fate and Destiny.

That is a pretty wide scope of question, and perhaps another way to look at this could be, "If I knew everything, could I predict the future?"

I think it would make many afraid, they would hide in the house to stay safe. Hey what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. So live with life's surprises and enjoy.

I believe our destiny is preplanned so weven if we knew the future and tried to change it, our end result would still be that same

very much so. i would change things if i knew something horrible was going to happen to someone i loved. i'd want to prevent it if i could

frankly, if i knew my future id try to forget it, because i would live my life the way it is now

I absolutely think that knowing our future could have an effect on our choices.

Just as an example, Let's say that the person you love most in your life were going to die a miserable death. If you knew about it, would you not try and change it, so at the very least , they would not suffer?

No because the future is never a sure thing.

There is no such thing as future. There is only present and past. Everything you see is past, because the speed of light is not as fast as the speed of time. Your actions in the present are a result of reactions to the past.

Everything happens for a reason,Seeing the future happens because you are meant to change things so the out come is different,Thats what I believe.....

I don't know about everyone else but I do think that if O could see the future it would keep me from doing a lot of things. I wouldn't have met most of the people I've met or been most of the places I've been.

I agree with you.I do what I want to do anyway even when I know it,s not good for me.

Why sure.

A plain wall with out the doors on it, affects your free will, so how knowing the future wouldnt?

i dont think if i new what was to come it wouldnt mess with free will but who really knows wheither or not trying to change the events to come will actionly make a difference for sure.

I think knowing the future would change your decision of free will, for you would try to change the outcome, especially if your own death was seen, would you not try to change or not do it to escape death.

course learning about your future would affect your free will.

i think that it would because we would know whats next. or if we dont like what would happen to us then we would keep trying to change it.

todster's take on this was actually quite interesting to me. If you have the gift of sight into the future..would that not mean you were supposed to do something about it? Interesting!

Anyway.. I'd like to say of course it would have no effect on me! But hey I'm human.. If I saw something I didnt like..of course I would try to change the direction I'm headed to avoid it..

if i knew my future,id probably stay the same way i am now :)

If i knew the future....I would try and change a few things if they where bad. Though i'd just be content with things as i knew they where going to happen.

I don't think that anybody could truly say that they wouldn't be affected by knowing what the future held. Whether it be something simple and meaningless or something life changing.


If I were to know something about the future, no matter how much i tried to not do anything to change it, in trying not to change it, there is all likeliness that i wouldn't do the very thing that caused the future event in the first place; thereby actually changing the future that i was so fervently trying not to change.

So you see, knowing the future is a heavier bburden than most would admit.

Mener

I dont think that it woud bc even if we did know the future how many people would relly change the ways that they have now?
I think that some would change a couple of things, but its still up to the person. me personally I would change a few things but for the most part I would stay the same.

if it were bad id try my best to change it

Of course it would change everything. It would effect what you do and say and how you think. I dont care who you are you would defiantely try to avoid it if it was a bad future and you would try to enhance if it were good.

knowing the future just gives you a heads up on what is bout to come, and gives you a chance to change it if it is to extreme...

if i could see the future id want to change it so id never die and become a rich person.. but will never happen..

could knowing the future affect your free will?""
hmm kinda makes you wonder about free will dont it... is there really free will?? if you know the future does it mean you can actually change the out come as to what will happen??
id like to think so.... perhaps it is "set in stone" and is unchangeable??

This is an interesting issue. Knowing the future, as in...how you will die for instance, and not taking into account that the future is constantly changing. I steal this quote from the movie "Next": "The future ain't what it used to be." Ever hear that expression? It's a joke, but it's true. The future changes every time you look at it. Because you looked at it". So, on that theory, if the future is preordained, then it doesn't matter if we have free will or not, because the end result will be the same regardless. However, if every decision we make, every thought we think, every shit we take changes the coarse of the would be future...then knowing said future before it happen would be ultra convenient. You could just think up every scenario, glimpse the future to see if it works, if not think up the next. Someone with that kind of power would be very lucky....and dangerous.

this questions poses an interesting memory relapse to me. a film if you will, Time Machine.

A man, in the early 1900's i believe, builds a time machine after the love of his life dies, he then goes back in time to stop this particular event from happening, yet no matter where he takes her, after countless times going back, he has to watch her die again and again.

He then searches for an answer in the future, which leads him to find a horrifying revelation, no matter how many times he repeats that particular point in time, she died there and then, and each time, it was like fate was constantly taking her away from him.

He constantly tried to change the past, knowing it was going to happen, would this not also be in a similar context to the question posed?


In my personal opinion, I think "Free Will" as said in one of the earliest responses, is just another word for "choice", if we COULD actually change the outcome of said future-thing, then the choice would either create or diffuse it, so to speak. However, if you're a believer in fate, then you know what is going to happen, there is no chance to change it, as fate always has it's way, so they say.
Personally i'm a firm believer in what I do is what I chose to do, not what some higher being laid out for me. I'm Atheist.

Illianos.

Knowing the future would affect your free will, but the thing is that if you really KNOW the future, what you do should have no affect on it because the future is meant to happen.

i don't know about free will, but it would sure save some time on decision making

of course it will effect the outcome, knowing what the future is 'supposed' to be like because you will constantly second guess yourself and possibly go mad as a result. example you know that in 10 years 3 months and 16 days your parents will be in a trainwreck. you will do everything in your power to change that but your parents will come by train to visit you in the psych ward. like for real.

Ah yes, the troubled, obsessed pariah, always destine to know what is going to happen and trying what he/she might to change the course of events. The question is, he/she may know what is going to happen "sometime" in the future, but will, said person, know exactly when? Knowing the future is all good and fun, but who knows if it is just a mere few seconds or if it is several decades from the present. Maybe your vision doesn't give you enough details, if so...then the obessed type would devote their life to avoiding something that they may not know exactly when is going to happen.

I would try to change it. If I didn't like my future, it'd haunt me everyday. I couldn't live like that. I believe in free will and God gives me the right to choose.

I think it effects free will as far as considering what choices you are going to make. Knowing the future means that you know by making choice "A" you will get outcome "B". Thus you could make a different choice to change the outcome if you so wish & if it is with in your power to do so.

I wouldnt want to know my future because Im present is scarey enough if I knew the future it will probly kill me.

If a person was to know what was going to happen to them in the future, i do think they would try to change it but that would be thought of as free will because they are changeing it because they want to not because they have to...

Even if you knew the future and did nothing, you wouldn't be surprised when the events you saw happened to you.

If you know the future before it happens, it has already changed the future. Perhaps you were meant to know and it to change in some slight or dramatic way.

ok heres a twist, if you new you future and changed it , by doing that have you effected some one elses free will

I do believe that knowing the future would effect your free will...you would either try to make it happen and make it better or you would do everything in your power to change and avoid it as well.

free will is a tricky subject. if you see an advert for something you like on TV, do you go out and buy it? is that affecting your free will? if a small child is attacked by a dog, that child will very likely grow up afraid of dogs, so will be unlikely to ever have a pet dog. outside influences mold our character and so in a sense affect our free will.

if you discover you have a disease, does that make you despondent and so give in to it, or do you go to a doctor and have something done about it? it can affect you either way.

some say knowing (or thinking you know) the future will make it a self fulfilling prophesy. others say that it enables you to mold your own destiny.

the truth is, everything affects your free will - your environment and experiences have a direct result on your attitudes and decisions.

I dont think it would affect your free will but it might affect your decission making...like because you know the future you'd pick something different to what you would if you didnt kow the future.

I agree that it wont affect free will but it will affect the decision making. Its like going to get your cards read... its not set in stone but it is like a guide to help you.

I think it gives more free will

If you knew the future than it would in a way have an affect on you, but I'm not so sure it would effect your free will. I mean think about it. Since we have free will it's our choice wether or not we do something about what we've seem. It's possible that we could try and change it, but then again if it's something that's meant to happen no matter the consequences it is something that will happen no matter what you do to try and change it.

I agree Dangereuse, if you know of the future, depending on its state whether good or bad, you would try to change it to benefit you. But if it is meant to happen, there is nothing you can do to change your fate, your destiny. But if you think about it in common day life, for example, Global warming. Whether you are aware of the long term affects it's having on us, you can change the future, by making the right decisions.

I agree with angelofinsanity. I think that if you know what lies ahead you may change your actions or choices, leading you on a different path. However, i also believe that certain things are meant to happen at certain times.... no matter the choices we make they will come to pass. Even if you are trying to avoid the inevitable.

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