Free Will, Black Sheep, Etc.

Published April 15, 2020 · Updated July 6, 2022

Oh another possibility.

Rehoboam calculates human future based on human data. But, does it take into account itself?

What if human society is fated to be destroyed, if not by the outliers, it would be by Rehoboam?

Depending on the genre of a time-travel movie, it’s possible that one needs to be careful when travelling back, because they could drive the universe down a different path (e.g. butterfly effect); it’s possible that the time traveller finds out that their travelling back in time turns out is the cause of the current event (don’e have a movie in mind, but this idea had to come from somewhere). It’s possible that there is only one universe, we can affect the future, since it has not taken place; it’s also possible that there are infinite versions of the universe, moving along infinite number of pre-determined paths, “open-ended future” is just an illusion when we don’t know which path we are on.

How the story ends depends on how optimistic the show’s creators are, and perhaps on whether optimism sells better or pessimism sells better. I think the creators might be on the slightly pessimistic side, but not all the way dark and grim. For example, if we assume Rehoboam cannot predict the behavior of certain people and hosts is because they have free will, not because it doesn’t have data on the hosts. But these free agents are the minority. Just like most hosts went hiding in the “sublime”, there could be a similar society for the majority of human. The minorities are allowed to roam freely, but with limited ability to impact human society and destroy it. It’s a peaceful solution that preserves the majority of human and host lives. It’s not necessarily a moral solution. But that’s a different topic.

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