Many religions accept the idea of “Prophecy” and “Fate” as possible in the world. It is possible to be told what will happen before it happens. In the Old Testament, the Witch of Endor tells Saul he will die in battle. Angels prophecy the Birth of John, and Jesus, in Luke. Christians believe that Christ’s existence and fate is prophecied in the Old Testament. Romans believed Caesar was warned to by a soothsayer “Beware the Ides of March.” Macbeth is filled with dramatic, seemingly impossible, prophecy in Shakespeare, which all comes to pass. Dickens has Scrooge visited by the ‘Ghost of Christmas yet to come.’ The book of Revelation at the end of the bible is nothing but supposed prophecy.
This is all, actually very plausible, if you think the Universe is preordained. If we are just proceeding along a rut in time, then nothing you can do is not what you would have done anyway… and all can be predicted if you have the right tools. Macbeth’s witches are absolutely right that Macbeth will be killed by a man “not of woman born” when “Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane” because… well it’s in the script. That’s how it’s gonna go everytime you read the play.
But… we believe we have free will, and live in a universe of quantum realities. A physical state does not exist until it is determined. If this is true… prophecy is just… random guessing, or perhaps obliquely-phrased random guessing, like most horoscopes. If Caesar has slipped and broken his leg on the way to Pompey’s Theatre and had to return home on March 15 without conducting Senate business… well… I mean any day you break your leg is bad, but we wouldn’t remember the soothsayer warning him about it.
If we live in an unpredictable universe, and meaningfully have Free Will, and not just an illusion of it, then how can fate and prophecy be possible?
The Netflix “Blood of Zeus” anime tries to make the ideas of meaningful Free Will and Prophecy exist in the same reality together by comparing human existence to a baby on a tabletop. Given the chance the baby will crawl forward, and off the table. The baby has free will. But a man, who is wiser than the baby, can see what is happening and act to interfere: the man has foresight. So the Gods simply have access to a foresight that is to a man, what a man is to a baby. It’s possible for wiser entities to predict what will happen, without less aware entities losing their free will.
So… economists can make predictions about what will happen if interest rates are raised, without the free-market losing its free agency.
Anyway, I’m not sure I’m persuaded by the ‘baby on a tabletop’ analogy, but I’m not sure I have the words to say why.
Do you think Fate and Prophecy can exist in universe with Free Will?
Do you think either of those things don’t really exist?
How do you reconcile them both existing at the same time?