God-Emperor and Psychohistory

[Drayakir]

Well, I don't know where to put this. I mean, technically it belongs in the literature section, BUT I want to propose an idea to you:

Note, this requires that you have read either one or both of two books: God-Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert, and/or The Foundation series of novels by Isaac Asimov. If you didn't, I highly doubt you'll be able to understand what I'm talking about, and yet I'll sum up the points that I need from them in this here thread.

So, obviously, spoilers.

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The premise of God-Emperor is that there was a human who was prescient- who could see all of the possible futures of humanity. He was able to do this moreso than his father, because he underwent a transformation (details irrelevant) that turned him into a non-human, depriving him of his physical humanity. And since he was able to see ALL possible futures, he became a Tyrant (capital T, folks!) that basically made humanity suffer under his theocratic regime- but so that humanity wouldn't die out.

The premise of Foundation is somewhat similar, although in this case, a scientist developed psychohistory- not to be confused with the real thing- this was basically a mathematical way on how to predict the sociological, political, scientific, economic, etc., evolution of humanity (but not biological). And the Foundation was basically a repository of the knowledge of that scientist, where the "dead hand of Hari Seldon guided events in the present."

Now, with that out of the way, I pose a question to you:

Supposing a single human was able to develop psychohistory, or some way to accurately predict the future. Would that human have a right, or even a moral obligation to basically, unite all of humanity under his will, because he knows what is going to happen, and the impact that every person's decision will make.

However, this means that humans will essentially lose free will, as not only will this hypothetical leader be able to predict WHAT people will do, he will also have to force some people into doing something else that they possibly do not wish doing, so that humanity would not fail because of that one decision.

So, my final question- do you think a person who could 100% certainly know the future be allowed to lead humanity with one will?

[rocksteady]

I think the most we can predict are overall trends (we already do) (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), not specific acts of random individuals. So I don't foresee too many problems with people being able to accurately predict the future and problems regarding ethics and morality in that realm. Now, time travel, is another story...

Time Travel Possible? (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

[Puffi]

It's possible to be able to predict everything in my opinion. Nothing is truly random. What the question boils down to is that is it right to sacrifice few to save many? Also, would this sort of control change humanity in such a way that it'd be fundamentally different? If so, I don't think it should be done. If it didn't bring about major changes, I have no problem with it.

[blueback]

It's a moot question. It's impossible to ever predict anything to 100% accuracy.

The reason is described by chaos theory. Basically, no measurement can be 100% accurate, so no calculation can ever be 100% accurate.

You always have to round off at some point, and that rounding error, no matter how small, will reduce the distance of your prediction horizon from infinity.

I suppose you might be able to work something out that allowed you to predict things at sufficient accuracy and sufficiently far in advance that it would effectively be perfect. . .but it still wouldn't be 100%. And someone would be responsible for maintaining the "thing" that does the predicting and setting policy based on the predictions, which means they would have to bo 100% unbiased, which I don't think will ever happen.

Oh, and besides all that, if there are multiple possible futures then someone has to decide which direction to lead humanity in. . .which is a decision that a lot of people will disagree with (no matter what it is). Humans are always looking for another human to fight against. Enough of those rebels will slip through the cracks in the rounding errors to throw off the predictions and then you'll be back where you started.

[Meyer]

In my opinion at this point the world would have to take a poll. I'm assuming if a person actually knew all of this he would be able find a way to accurately poll the population. If they want it then I don't believe it would be wrong to begin implementing the strategies. If they didn't then ethically speaking this seer would have to go down with the ship. He could use his powers to have one hell of a time on the way down though. The fact that I was born and raised in a democracy might influence my sense of political ethics though. They could be somewhat limited.

[HackerX]

A question worth asking is, would you be willing to make the same sacrifice as Leto (that Paul couldn't), knowing that you'd be forever considered a tyrant, and nobody could understand why you'd done it?

[blueback]

I didn't read past Dune, so I'm not clear on the details.

It seems like you could just tell everyone that if they don't listen to you the entire human race will go extinct. Then, make some fantasticly improbable predictions to prove your powers. This has already been covered in Back To The Future. All you have to do is prove that you know what is going to happen before it does. Hell, I would go for it if your demonstrations were good enough.

On the other hand, if you use your ability to gain and keep power, but never tell anyone that you have really good motives, then it makes sense that no one would like you. However, the simple fact that your predictions are accurate enough to keep you in power even when the entire human race hates you means that you would be perfectly capable of doing some public demonstrations to keep everyone quiet.

[Drayakir]

A question worth asking is, would you be willing to make the same sacrifice as Leto (that Paul couldn't), knowing that you'd be forever considered a tyrant, and nobody could understand why you'd done it?

Thank you, that's the point I was trying to make. Would you be willing to sacrifice your human interaction with others, your whole humanity even; in order to make unpopular and unprincipled decisions, for the greater good (survival of humanity).

[blueback]

What about when you die? If humanity is going to destroy itself as soon as you are no longer baby sitting it then what's the point?