scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/4p5pas.md

## Writing prompt, you have a special type of clairvoyance - you can see the outcomes of all possible choices. A short story. [RT][TH]

* Author: u/_brightwing  *Feathered menace**
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4p159b/pi_you_have_a_special_type_of_clairvoyance_you/d4ho74t
* Score: 6

* Created: 2016-06-21T17:09:39

### Post:

[Link to content](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/4p159b/pi_you_have_a_special_type_of_clairvoyance_you/d4ho74t)

### Comments:

> **u/ZeroNihilist** [+11]  (5 hours later)
> 
> If you can see the outcomes of all possible choices for several years into the future, everything is already solved. Even things that can't be solved in **N** years can have **N** years of results fed into a separate branch (with some overhead for integrating that knowledge).
> 
> Not to mention that you don't actually have to cure cancer or whatever. You could set up an experiment to selectively mutate your cells with precise values that lead to you becoming an immortal demigod.
> 
> I mean, the search space for even half a year is a truly ridiculous size. If you can examine it in "real time" you're able to solve virtually any problem the human race would ever need to solve.
> 
> Cracking a file encrypted with a trillion-bit key? You don't even have to write any code, just find the path that has you correctly decrypting it.
> 
> Better than a quantum computer, you're the nexus of a quantum reality. If there exists a possible future contingent on your actions within the time constraint, you can bring it about.
> 
> Something as comparatively simple as becoming dictator of the world is small potatoes, frankly.
> 
> You could start by transitioning the world to a post-scarcity economy with practical fusion reactors, asteroid mining, and extraplanetary food production; create a friendly AI (guaranteed friendly for at least **N** years, at least); solve the creation of artificial organs and the treatment of every known disease (not to mention discovering and solving plenty of unknown ones); and set humanity on its exponential expansion across the galaxy.
> 
> In fact, your biggest concerns are probably going to be to do with managing your own mental state. Seeing the future in such detail will almost inevitably warp your value system. You may choose to trust that this is making you wiser, steering you towards some idealised version of your value system that you don't already have (i.e. filling in the blanks of your underspecified morality), but it's just as likely that your future beliefs would seem abhorrent to your past self.
> 
> And how would you tell the difference? Future you will believe their beliefs are correct just as you believe yours are, regardless of whether those two sets are compatible.

>> **u/alexanderwales** [+8]  *Time flies like an arrow* (6 hours later)
>> 
>> Yeah, I really thought that with that prompt it was going somewhere more interesting. I mean, it's a neat story, but the power as presented in the prompt is [Golden Man](http://sickmyduck.narod.ru/pkd082-0.html) levels of precognition which rival or possibly beat Contessa. Using it to stop crime or wars is ... well, underwhelming.

>> **u/chaosmosis** [+2]  *and with strange aeons, even death may die* (13 hours later)
>> 
>> You could constrain it by saying that you have memory and skill constraints (even exceeding human baseline). It also doesn't need to be instantaneous: perhaps one thousand possibilities per second is its intrinsic speed.

>> **u/CCC_037** [+1]  (15 hours later)
>> 
>> This protagonist may, however, all too easily fall for the deadly allure of the [Siren Worlds](http://lesswrong.com/lw/jao/siren_worlds_and_the_perils_of_overoptimised/)...

> **u/Me66** [+5]  (20 minutes later)
> 
> Thanks for sharing my story! I really appreciate it.
> 
> I didn't know about this sub so I'm really looking forward to reading more stories.

> **u/tilkau** [+2]  (22 hours later)
> 
> I think being able to just see choices, without outcomes, would be more interesting. Getting a good constraint on it might be hard, though.
> 
> Maybe : if you think of a subject, you get a list of choices you could make relating to that in the next 5 seconds. All of the choices satisfy at least one of your values (you don't know which), and you can tell accurately *how much* satisfaction will result. However, the amount of satisfaction is determined by measuring the future satisfaction of each of your values and taking the maximum of these, rather than calculating the average, sum, or median.
> 
> Is it possible to use this power for actual good, given that it in effect has an alien value system (real you generally doesn't value one thing to the exclusion of all else)?

>> **u/TennisMaster2** [+1]  (a day later)
>> 
>> That would make for a trippy but interesting story.  The protagonist would constantly try to make it so they only value one thing, pursue that path for a while, then change their values again.

>>> **u/tilkau** [+1]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> Huh. I suppose that would be one way to make it predictable and thus useful (theoretically; I'm not sure that people *actually* can exert *that* much control over how much they value things).
>>> 
>>> Personally I was going with the assumption I state above, that values are only a certain amount controllable; a lifelong pacifist still has a biological inheritance that says to them 'isn't it great to beat down your enemies?'. So I was thinking, the interest would come in figuring out how to reason about the measurements you're getting.

> **u/rineSample** [+1]  (2 hours later)
> 
> So, a slightly better outcome than Warhammer 40k

> **u/ajuc** [+1]  (20 hours later)
> 
> There is a book about that: "Prophet" by Mike Resnick. I liked it.

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