Causality

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 121. Chapters: Free will, Determinism, Grandfather paradox, Domino effect, Butterfly effect, Teleology, Chain reaction, Etiology, Predestination paradoxes in popular culture, Bootstrap paradox, Free will in antiquity, Neuroscience of free will, Self-fulfilling prophecy, Two-stage model of free will, Time loop, Causation, Eternal return, Daubert standard, Temporal paradox, Dilemma of determinism, Do otherwise in the same circumstances, For Want of a Nail, Retrocausality, Four causes, Chance, Fatalism, Occasionalism, Oppression, Proximate and ultimate causation, Borussian myth, Alternative possibilities, Endogeneity, Predeterminism, Probabilistic causation, Granger causality, Mill's Methods, Camel's nose, Grouped Events, Freedom of action, Chronology protection conjecture, Dysteleology, Innovation butterfly, Self-defeating prophecy, Causality loop, Constant conjunction, Chain of events, Causeless cause, Extrinsic finality, Causal diagram, Causal Markov condition, Causal chain. Excerpt: A predestination paradox is a common literary device employed in many fictional and mythological works, dealing with various circumstances and paradoxes that can logically arise from time travel. While technically not a predestination paradox, self-fulfilling prophecy is a related variant which predates the use of time travel as a plot device. Two of the earliest and most famous examples are the ancient Indian story of Krishna in the epic Mahabharata, and the ancient Greek legend of Oedipus. In the story of Krishna in the epic Mahabharata, king Kamsa, afraid of a prophecy that predicted his death at the hands of his sister Devaki's son, had her cast into prison where he planned to kill all of her children at birth. After her first six children had been killed, Devaki gave birth to Krishna. As his life was in danger, he was smuggled out to be raised by his foster parents Yasoda and Nanda in the Gokul village. As a young man, Krishna returned to his kingdom to overthrow his uncle, and Kamsa was eventually killed by his nephew Krishna. It was Kamsa's attempts to prevent the prophecy that led to it coming true. A similar but less complex story is found in the Greek myth of Zeus overthrowing Cronus. In the legend of Oedipus, it is prophesied that the baby Oedipus will one day kill his father and marry his mother. His father, Laius, attempts to circumvent the prophecy by abandoning the baby in the wilderness. Years later, Oedipus - unaware that he was adopted - learns of the prophecy and leaves home to avoid it. He kills a man and marries the widow, but does not learn until later that they are, in fact, his biological parents. The attempts to avoid fate result in the fulfillment of the prophecy. Had the prophecy not been revealed to Laius, it would not have come true, therefore it was only fate if Laius knew of it. Numerous pieces of science fiction and fantasy literature involving time travel make use of the predestination paradox. The earliest known example of a predest