Do we know if physics is backwards deterministic? If its not then information can be permanently lost beyond all hope of recovery so the answer is almost certainly no. Otherwise I’m not sure.
Physics is time-reversible as far as we can tell, so at the most global level, information is neither gained nor lost over time, but even if we overcame the apparently omniscience-requiring challenge of getting a complete snapshot of the universe to simulate backwards, we would then get many pasts instead of one past.
No one knows what superintelligences can’t do, but unless we’re wrong about physics in some very surprising and suspiciously convenient ways, this certainly appears to be impossible.
Do we know if physics is backwards deterministic? If its not then information can be permanently lost beyond all hope of recovery so the answer is almost certainly no. Otherwise I’m not sure.
Physics is time-reversible as far as we can tell, so at the most global level, information is neither gained nor lost over time, but even if we overcame the apparently omniscience-requiring challenge of getting a complete snapshot of the universe to simulate backwards, we would then get many pasts instead of one past.
No one knows what superintelligences can’t do, but unless we’re wrong about physics in some very surprising and suspiciously convenient ways, this certainly appears to be impossible.